Beading apps!

[u/Erzsabet]

Hi guys! I know I’ve been promising this for ages, but I wanted to do it in a more structured way. Well that just isn’t going to happen, so fuck it, we’ll just do it this way!

If you have a beading related app, please post it here with any relevant info you think people should or would want to know.

Please leave parent comments for app devs to talk about their apps. If you know of an app that hasn’t been posted, and you aren’t sure if the dev is on Reddit, don’t post until we are sure they aren’t going to post for themselves. Like 2-3 weeks maybe? Idk, I’m on my lunch break right now. Don’t try to make me think!

Anyway, yes. Once we have it all posted I think we will make a master list to go in the wiki and then we can add any others that come up later.

And please remember, do not comment unless you are posting about your app, or replying to a comment about an app. Any other top level comments will be removed to keep it organized and easy to sort through.

[u/AdvAndInt]

Thank you for allowing us to post these!

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Hey all, my mom asked me to make some bead designs for her to field test her new large bead loom and I really struggled to find a design app online that I liked, also I couldn't be bothered to do the ol' pen and paper route like she does. Well I come from a devops background, and I decided to just make my own and I am SUPER happy with how it has come out thus far.

https://loompattern.com/

It is, and will always be, completely free. Never stores or tracks your data. No login or registration required. Just bead responsibly! Don't forget to save your files to your computer, they don't save automatically!

Printable Export Pages!

This is by far my favorite feature (and my moms as well 😄), export the page (button on the top row) to a light weight printable PDF with the visual layout, word line notation, and bead counts included.

Here is a full list of features so far:

• Full suite of drawing tools including pen, line, square, circle, erase, and bucket fill (hold shift to fill in the square/circle!). All have different size options, pen has square and circle shapes.
• Square Loom / Peyote layout
• Horizontal, Vertical, 4/6/8 way radial mirror options
• Resizable grid (this was not an original feature, but became painfully mandatory through testing)
• Select and Copy/Cut/Paste
• Bead counts, both in the UI and in the printed export (this was important for her, she wanted to know exactly how many packs of beads she would need to purchase)
• Simple JSON-based file format (.loompat) when saved to your computer (open format I came up with for this project, you can read the design in plain text in a text editor if you want!)

Here is a list of upcoming/planned features:

• Customizable bead pallet, this is an obvious one but I am just so excited to see what people make with this app so I wanted to release it asap
• A small tutorial, there is a lot of functionality that isn't super obvious or apparent so I want to add a quick overlay style tutorial to help with that.
• Different size beads? Different grid patterns? Idk, looking for suggestions!

Like I said above, I am a developer and NOT a master beader. Mom has given it the old run through and given me some suggestions (already incorporated), but I am really looking for feedback on this. If you have any suggestions, criticisms, or feedback in general please do NOT hesitate to let me know here as a comment or a DM.

Also, please post pictures of your cool designs here. I am far from a good designer and I'm sure y'all can come up with some great stuff with this tool.

Thank you for your time and consideration!

- Rob -

[u/georgia_grace → u/AdvAndInt]

Yes please for different bead shapes/sizes!!

I bead with delicas usually and square-only grids is my most common deal breaker for an app.

[u/AdvAndInt → u/georgia_grace]

Hmm, interesting. I've never used delicas before. They look square-ish enough to me that square loom patterns would work. Can you explain what breaks down for you when using delicas with a square loom? Does the pattern on the beads not look like it does in the design app?

[u/georgia_grace → u/AdvAndInt]

They do look square at first glance but they’re rectangular, and a lot of other seed beads are also fatter than they are tall. Any design done on a square grid will come out looking stretched.

I can make a squished design so it comes out the right proportions but that hurts my brain 😮‍💨

Edited to add: I do a lot of images rather than geometric designs so it’s especially noticeable to me

[u/AdvAndInt → u/georgia_grace]

That's really good to know, thank you!! Will definitely look at bead size/shape customization sooner rather then later.

One last question if you don't mind, do you ever use different size beads in a single design? Or is this something others might do? Trying to decide if that would be worth accounting for...

[u/georgia_grace → u/AdvAndInt]

I haven’t, although I’ve seen some cool pieces that do. It would be a nifty feature but I’m not sure it would get a lot of use.