aktivisda-canva-like/docs/features.md

Aktivisda's Features

Aktivisda allows you to do four main things:

1. Edit visuals, using examples that have already been filled in.
2. Access the organisation's graphic charter without having to search for documents in the organisation's cloud.
3. Generate QR codes easily without giving away all your data to private companies
4. Respect people's privacy by blurring out faces or any personal elements in a photo.

The different functionalities or families of functionalities are not definitive and will evolve over time according to the needs of organisations.

👉 To formulate or track requests for changes, use the project issues on Framagit

Editing visuals

Aktivisda's core business is editing visuals.

For each type of component, it is possible to move them, resize them and change the depth index to distinguish what is in the foreground from what is in the background. Each element can be duplicated.

It is not yet possible to undo changes (see issue #9).

Manipulating vector images

Aktivisda can handle vector images (svg format). The binary format (.svgz) is also supported.

Using this format allows you to:

• limit the size of the image (often) ;
• enlarge images as much as desired;
• change the colours of an image

For each of these images, it is possible to automatically specify the clickable zone.

It is not possible to load svg images from your computer.

Manipulating photos

You can manipulate photos already in the image gallery or from your computer.

For the moment, it is not possible to crop photos (issue #103 or add filters (blurred, coloured filters) (issue #102) or change the opacity (issue #18).

There are plans to connect a Nextcloud photo gallery (shared folder) to Aktivisda (see issue #154).

Manipulating the background image and document dimensions

You can change the size of the exported visual from a list of pre-defined formats or by entering the desired format (height x width) directly.

The background image of the model can also be chosen from a list of photos or vector images available on the instance. Photos and vector images have the same functionality as when used as symbols.

With one click, you can resize the visual to the size of the background image.

Manipulating texts

With Aktivisda, you can add text zones, resize them, move them, change the alignment (left, centred, right), change the colour (custom colour or a colour from the graphic charter), change the font (choose from the fonts in the graphic charter).

Text can be modified directly in the editor by double-clicking on it.

However, it is not possible to enrich the text by putting certain words in colour or italics. To find out more about the tests carried out, see issue #131. This greatly hampers the use of Aktivisda to create flyers or leaflets with a lot of text.

If emojis are added, they will not appear in the pdf export (see issue #90).

You can add a coloured background behind the text. This can be rectangular or a quadrilateral of any shape, more or less different from a rectangle depending on a selected parameter. It is possible to automatically create other geometric shapes behind the text to suit the graphic uses of each organisation.

Exporting the visual

It is possible to export a visual as png or jpg. The jpeg output is recommended when there are photos or a lot of colour. Otherwise, use the png output. Files are compressed directly in the browser using oxipng and mozjpeg.

You can also export as 'pdf'. And these are really pdf files, i.e. the text and images (if vectorised) are not pixelated, whatever the zoom level applied. This is what is recommended for printing.

The "images" (png, jpg) and "pdf" outputs are produced differently in Aktivisda. This explains why there may be differences between the two. Differences can be reported to the development team via Framagit so that they can be corrected. Generally speaking, some features are missing from the pdf export or are added much later.

Saving and reloading a picture

The visuals can be downloaded onto your computer for later modification or for distribution to others. This file can be uploaded to Aktivisda.

For images in the Aktivisda gallery, only their identifiers are stored in the file. On the other hand, images loaded from your computer are stored in the file. This means that when you reload the file, the different photos and images will be loaded automatically.

!> ⚠️ For administrators: be careful not to delete images as this would invalidate the files of users who referenced an image that is no longer present in Aktivisda.

Rather than creating a file, you can decide to create a url which contains the template content. This is an extended url. No information is stored in Aktivisda. This feature does not work when the model is a little complex or contains photos loaded locally (see issue #149).

The file format is Aktivisda's internal format (Todo: add link to documentation). This format cannot be opened in other image manipulation software but is nevertheless documented and can be modified by hand.

It is also possible (a feature never used in production) to pre-fill Aktivisda by adding parameters to the url.

Manipulating QR codes

You can embed QR codes in exactly the same way as on the dedicated page. See the dedicated section.

Access the graphic guidelines

Aktivisda is designed to bring together all an organisation's graphic elements (colours, photos, fonts, etc.) so that activists can create their own visuals.

But graphic designers who create more elaborate visuals or other communication media, such as leaflets or videos, also need to find the graphic guidelines and standard visuals. Since this information is already available in Aktivisda, it was only natural to make it easily accessible, without having to use the graphics editor.

Each type of graphic element has its own tab (templates, symbols, background images, colours, fonts). Each tab is similar, with an exhaustive gallery.

Images can be downloaded in their original format. In the case of a vector image, you can change the colour beforehand and choose to download it as a high-resolution png.

Fonts can be downloaded in a variety of formats.

All galleries except fonts (see issue #189) can be filtered using a tag/category system. Each item can belong to several categories.

Generate QR codes

QR Code websites are often linked to URL shorteners, so when you create a qrcode using these sites, the entire flow is redirected through the company providing the qrcode.

This is not very resilient (dependence on this company) and not very good for the data of the users of your service.

Aktivisda simply generates QR codes that redirect to any URL. When people scan a QR code generated by Aktivisda, they only see the URL and not Aktivisda.

Because it would be a shame to stop there, Aktivisda offers to integrate any image (such as a logo) into the centre of the qrcode. This works because a qrcode contains a lot of double or triple information so that it can be scanned even if it is a little damaged or if there are reflections. This redundancy of information means that if you insert a logo in the middle, the QR code will still be valid.

!> Always check that the QR code generated is valid before distributing it widely or printing it.

Respecting privacy

When handling photos, for reasons of privacy it may be desirable to hide certain parts (location information, address) or faces. This can be done in the Aktivisda editor using a "blur" system (several settings are possible) or by adding emojis.

Aktivisda images do not contain any personal metadata. By uploading a photo to Aktivisda and then downloading the visual, you can obtain an image without any metadata.