klecks

Klecks (German for "splash of color", pronounced "clex") is the official open-source release of the community-funded online painting app Kleki.

Klecks can run in standalone mode (e.g. on kleki.com), or embed (e.g. on 2draw.net) for drawing communities.

Features

• Layers
• Pen-support with pressure and stabilizer
• Touch gestures
• Brushes: pen, blend, sketchy, pixel, chemy, smudge, eraser
• Tools: selection, paint bucket, text, shapes, gradient
• WebGL-powered filters: blur, tilt-shift, curves, distort, noise.
• Lineart extraction
• Editing tools: transform, warp, crop/expand, resize, perspective
• Supports all major form factors: desktop, tablet and phone
• Multi-language (10+ languages)

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Created by developer/artist bitbof

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Commands

• initialize via npm ci (requires node and npm to be installed already)
• npm run icon:build - generate icon files necessary to run Klecks
• npm run lang:build - generate language files necessary to run Klecks
• npm run lang:build -- --missing - generate language files and list all keys with a missing translation.
• npm run start - dev server (to run standalone locally)
• npm run build - build standalone into /dist/
• npm run build:embed - build embed into /dist/

Embed

Example usage of the embed can be found under: /examples/embed/

Docker

To run Klecks (standalone) within a Docker container, run the following commands in project root:

docker-compose build

docker-compose up -d

It is then accessible through: http://localhost:5050

Contributing

How you can contribute to this project:

• Bug reporting (detailed bug reports that are reproducible)
• Contribute to a translation (see below)
• Donate to this project (Klecks, Kleki) Donate

Translations

Are you a native speaker or have advanced skills in a language? Any contribution by you is highly encouraged and appreciated!

Where are translation files?

Translations are located in src/languages where each translation is its own JSON5 file, e.g. de.json5 for German. Within such a file everything except value is to be kept in sync with _base-en.json5.

Structure of a translation file

{
  // key by which this text is referenced in code
  stabilizer: {
    
    // A hint, further explaining the text
    hint: 'Common feature in drawing software to make lines smoother',
    
    // Original text (English)
    original: 'Stabilizer',
    
    // Translated text
    value: '抖动修正'
  },
  // ...
}

Creating/editing a translation

To create a new translation run npm run lang:add , which creates src/languages/.json5. You find all (ISO 639-1) language codes in src/languages/languages.json. The generated file will already include everything except value. To edit an existing translation, simply edit one of the files in src/languages. If a language file is out of sync with src/languages/_base-en.json5 (English), whatever key is out of sync will be ignored and fall back on English. English is the source of truth. A translation cannot add new keys without them also being present in _base-en.json5.

To see your changes in Klecks, run npm run lang:build. It needs to be run whenever changes to src/languages are made or it won't be up-to-date. Then build or start Klecks.

A translation should try not to cause additional line-breaks in the UI if possible. Test to make sure translations fit the context of the application. Note, some texts are only visible in the standalone-version and vice versa with the embed-version.

List of commands

• npm run lang:add - creates new language file src/languages/.json5.
  • See (ISO 639-1) language codes in src/languages/languages.json
• npm run lang:sync - synchronizes with base file. (TODO)
• npm run lang:build - generates JSON & TS files in src/app/languages
  • Problems are printed to the command line output

Help fund this project

Klecks and Kleki are community funded. Donate today

License

bitbof © 2026 - Released under the MIT License. Icons by bitbof are public domain (excluding the Klecks logo, bitbof logo). While Kleki and Klecks are jointly developed, Kleki's license is separate from Klecks. Kleki at kleki.com is free to use, but the name and brand "Kleki" are not covered by this license — you may not use Klecks to offer a service branded or presented as "Kleki" without a license from bitbof.