askmeaboutlo0m
commented
9 months ago The censor is on the layer itself. Layers with that option set will censor their contents unless you explicitly show them. That can be done through View → Show Censored Layers. You can draw on a censored layer when this option is enabled. That you can't draw on a censored layer while it's censored is intentional, the censor isn't there to be a separate layer with a pattern on it, it's there to actually censor the contents of a layer, so drawing on a layer while it's censored doesn't make much sense.
Disallowing uncensoring of layers is a parental controls setting. I don't think it's spectacularly useful, since sessions with inappropriate content would still need to be marked NSFM, but it's there. You can lock parental control settings behind a password.
Denying users the ability to control which layers they are allowed to hide or if they're allowed to see or to save their board is not sensible. You could always work around not being allowed to save by copying every individual layer, for example. Or take a screenshot. Or just make a recording and open that instead. Restricting uncensoring of layers doesn't make sense for the same reasons, if you got a recording, wiping the canvas upon disconnect gains you nothing.
Hiding it on the network level is also not possible because it desynchronizes the clients. You can't undo and redo correctly if you're not synchronized, so showing and hiding censored layers entirely separate session histories. Switching between them would basically be a session reset for that client, but resetting the entire session for toggling that option is not feasible.
That PSDs export censored layers plain is a bug, they should export what you see.
amoruwu
This is more for discussion around censor layer and how to make it useful since I have nothing better to do other than discuss this. and add a more collaboration features to layers! I was thinking about how the censor layer is hardly/rarely used due to when a layer is censored you can't add more censor or remove censoring while a layer is censored so it can't be used by users to censor parts of the canvas.
Apparently there was an option to draw on censored layers? I think it should be enabled by default and the censoring should be live and not updated. We'll return to this later.
Logically it's purpose (If you can't use it to censor parts of the canvas) could be for operators to censor a layer when someone draws something crude on it so other users don't see it. But there is a much faster and better alternative option to do this for operators which is : turning the opacity to 0. So a more logical purpose is for normal users to use it to censor their things. Or for operators to censor the whole board or part of it etc. But more cool use case for it is hide parts peoples drawings for collaborative competition drawings fog of war ETC! But since: Users can just un-censor the layer or hide it if
is not enabled. There are many ways to cheat.
I've had thoughts as to have an option to lock layers as shown for users.
On normal layers and censor layers. When a reset happens the censor layers will load first, But a user can just export the session as .psd or .pdf ETC or leave the session and get all the permissions they need. The ideas I had to stop the circumventing were
1: 
disallow exporting/saving of sessions and wipe the canvas when disconnecting out of the board.
2: Just not loading whatever is under the censor. So even if a session is exported or the user leaves whatever under the censor can't be seen.
Both of these ideas are silly but I thought I would mention them. This idea of locking layer visibility has been mentioned before and the issues of it have been dissected, before as well. https://github.com/drawpile/Drawpile/issues/894#issue-615063204
A much simpler idea that could work is : Having a NSFW/Censor layer that can only be seen the contents of by users that have permission to draw on it. Aka have the censor on the layers themselves and not a layer over them. And have that censor impossible to un-censor unless you have permission to use the layer. Exporting the session as a PDF won't work since the censor is on the layer itself, You would need to un-censor it before exporting. This would work also for art competitions challenges, NSFW sessions that want to hide it's contents (By censoring all layers other than the rules.) until they can trust that you're 18+, Fog of war for whatever dnd players are out there By just moving whatever can be seen onto a different uncensored layer.
The only thing that would remain is just leaving the session and getting all of the permissions you need only solutions I can think of for this would be not loading what's actually on the censored layer until you have permission to un-censor it. Or wiping it if you disconnect while a layer is still censored. Only loading it when you have permission to un-censor it can come with issues like lag when you do get permission, actually knowing weather you can un-censor it or not, adding traffic etc. or having
forever enabled if you leave without getting permission to un-censor the layer. Though that can get weird.
All up for discussion just had to give my thoughts on it.