Um, I feel so terribly sorry about this, but I'm such a newbie here.
I did a drawing, spend lot of time on it, and submitted it. Then realize I cannot revise it because I go over the space limit. Then a kind moderator gave me more space for me to revise it. So i tried to merge the layers and hope that would reduce the size and then drew a little more on it. Then today, I decide to take a look at it and I realize the size wasn't reduced, it's even more, way more than it should be. I'm totally freaking out here as I found out the picture could be deleted due to bandwidth. But I don't know how can I keep on track of the size of the picture while I'm drawing, and how can I keep it down? (apparently the merging layers didn't help...T.T)
please let me know so i wont make the same mistake again... T.T

If the drawing is good, it is not going to be deleted because of bandwidth. The file size issue is complicated because there are a number of factors, and the system could probably be tweaked somewhat so it's not as big an issue.

Here is a rundown of what is involved with every single picture on 2draw (except ascii-art).
Basically you have two parts, the latest version, and all the previous versions. For previous versions there are 2 thumbnails, and a png/jpg fullsize version (depending which is smaller). For the latest version you have 3 thumbnails, a png AND jpg fullsize version (there will always be a png, but also a jpg if it is smaller than the png), plus some special format file depending on the applet.

The special format file will be an "animation" for paintbbs, shi-painter, and oekakibbs. These store all the strokes and brush settings in a file stream, which are played back to theoretically generate the same image. The main problems with animation are glitches/bugs that cause the animation to not generate the exact same image or sometimes corrupt and not work at all.

It will be a LSD file for lascaux sketch (similar to a PSD in photoshop). This essentially stores the equivalent of a PNG file for each layer in the image. So yes, with lascaux sketch, fewer layers will keep the size smaller. It should be noted that lascaux sketch has support for an animation format, but it is incomplete so 2draw cannot use it.

So basically, the best solution would be to finish animation in lascaux sketch.

does that mean if i disable the animation, it will reduce the file size? (i use lascaux sketch, but i dont really understand what you mean by finish animation in it)

no, it's something I have to do... unless you know java. ;)

Thanks for the explanation of what's being saved (and taking up all that file space)! That makes it a LOT clearer to this now-less-bewildered newcomer. :)

You mentioned the animation as a factor, and that brings up something I had been wondering about: namely, I notice that the only option available on OekakiBBS (the tool with which I'm most familiar) is the animated version, yet on other sites, I've seen (and used) a non-animated version of this tool.

Is there any chance that this kind of option will be made available here, for those of us who may prefer to use a non-animated version of OekakiBBS? I sometimes have extended working sessions, and it can be a real pain waiting for each of the steps of the animation to scroll by before I can revise my work -- not to mention the fact that it's GOT to be taking more file space to save each step of the work, as opposed to just saving the layers as they exist at the time the artist stopped working. Or am I way off base here?

I hope that these posts are being useful to someone else - because they sure are helping me to understand the site better, and I really appreciate your taking the time and trouble to explain these aspects of the site's function, so that we can use it better. :)

Those sites all suck, and they're doing it all wrong.

The non-animated version isn't any different from the regular version, on those sites, that just specifies whether and animation of your work is saved or not. OekakiBBS really should not be used at all if you want to do multiple edits, it often generates invalid animation files and you'll lose your work. In 2draw v2.0 I decided to force animation saving since it solves a lot of problems, I'll just leave it at that, this is better.

Without the animated version, you would be stuck to working on your image with no layers, and no way to restore any kind of transparency you had in your drawing.

Animation files are generally tiny, all they do is store the x/y pairs of each line you draw, so each segment of a stroke may take 4 bytes or so depending on the format. In general this rarely adds up to more than 20KB or so until you have thousands of strokes... It actually makes a lot of sense.

The alternative, what lascaux does, is to save a special-format file which contains each layer as a separate image in the file. As I mentioned above, this is like one PNG for each layer. An animation file for an entire image will generally be smaller than just one of those layers. You touched upon one of the two drawbacks of the animation format, though. You have to wait for it to 'redraw' the image, and any flukes in the animation file or how the applet works will ruin the image. The latter can be reduced by good programming and although OekakiBBS tends to completely screw up the file more often than not, PaintBBS/Shi-painter generally do it alright.

I have to say, I like how Marcello defends 2draw by saying "Those sites all suck". That is all, continue on.