Here's What 2019 Holds For Paint.NET (betanews.com) 142
The developer of the popular image editing tool Paint.NET, Rick Brewster, has shared his vision of what the coming year holds for his software. The 2019 roadmap for Paint.NET is an exciting one, promising migration to .NET Core, support for brushes and pressure sensitivity, and an expanded plugin system.
BetaNews: Changes are on the cards for app icons and improved high-DPI support -- something that may be seen as mere aesthetic by some, but important changes by others. Switching to .NET Core could have big implications for the software, as Brewter explains: "It's clear that, in the long-term, Paint.NET needs to migrate over to .NET Core. That's where all of the improvements and bug fixes are being made, and it's obvious that the .NET Framework is now in maintenance mode. On the engineering side this is mostly a packaging and deployment puzzle of balancing download size amongst several other variables. My initial estimations shows that the download size for Paint.NET could balloon from ~7.5MB (today) to north of 40MB if .NET Core is packaged 'locally'. That's a big sticker shock... but it may just be necessary."
And, for those who're interested: the move to .NET Core will finally enable a truly portable version of Paint.NET since. Proposals for better DDS support and brushes and pressure sensitivity will be welcomed by digital artists, and there can be few users who are not excited at the prospect of an expanded plugin system.
And, for those who're interested: the move to .NET Core will finally enable a truly portable version of Paint.NET since. Proposals for better DDS support and brushes and pressure sensitivity will be welcomed by digital artists, and there can be few users who are not excited at the prospect of an expanded plugin system.
Don't get, please explain (Score:1)
Why would I prefer to download and install this over GIMP?
Just askin
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It does what MS Paint used to do, the default easy-to-use painting app under Windows.
And for the person who asked why people wouldn't use the GIMP, see the sentence above.
Re:Don't get, please explain (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Don't get, please explain (Score:5, Funny)
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The pace of improvements slowed...until 2018, when they finally finished integrating babl and gegl with the UI. This was a massive effort, and side issues were put on hold until the work was complete, because without it, The Gimp could no longer remain competitive. However, the release of v2.10 back in April, which was a massive improvement over the 2.8 series, meant that they could finally turn their attention back to features. (Not counting all the ones which magically appeared once gegl was accessible th
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You can cut and paste in GIMP...
Re:Don't get, please explain (Score:5, Informative)
Why would I prefer to download and install this over GIMP?
Just askin
I can't tell you what you prefer. But I can point you at a comparison site so you can make your own decision (the Paint.Net vs Gimp is about 2/3 of the way down)
http://fixthephoto.com/paint-n... [fixthephoto.com]
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That link reads like a cheerleading page for Paint.net and makes some strange points in its effort to present an obviously biased perspective. Statements such as it's not worth it to install plugins in Gimp are opinions not facts. It reads like a Chinese translated version of English... no thanks.
I never said it was a good comparison site.
Pain.net vs Paint vs Paint 3D vs Kritta vs Gimp (Score:2)
Paint.net has layers, and several good adjustments.
Paint can print properly, unlike Paint.net. No layers is a killer limitation.
Kritta supports a pressure sensitive stylus which Paint.net does not. And layers etc.
Paint 3D is junkware.
I have not used Gimp for years but it was generally horrible.
Inkscape is vector based, quite different from the above.
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It had non-destructive layers and high bit depth support long before Duh Gimp?
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That's a useful statement for those traveling back in time.
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You asked why someone would have chosen it over Duh Gimp and I told you. Duh Gimp failed to have basic image editing features for decades after everyone else implemented it. That's why I choose this and continue to use it. Duh Gimp is a garbage attempt at a Photoshop clone.
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THE single worst program I think, no, definitely know, I have ever used.
Oh come on now, have you ever used Blender? That UI would give the GIMP a run for its money.
Re:Don't get, please explain (Score:4, Informative)
Blenders problem was that it was a inhouse 3D editing tool intended for polygonal editing.
So what was Blender 2.49 good at? Using hotkeys to edit models. Using textures to modify models. Modifying models.
It had enough tools to do primitive animation and physics, but not well presented UI to make the USER use those features.
And if you used 2.49 you know that the internal render is crap, but the user interface is atrocious.
Hence 2.50 was a eventually, where a massive project would try to make everything in the suite as impressive as the raw 3D editing was. And going from 2.49, to the beta, to cycles, to whatever the last version i used: I would say their success should be held to unrestrained clapping and cheering.
The key remaining problem is that Blender is now a "Advanced 3D package", where the less primary features such as animations still has a terrible UI. But advanced users can't tell that because they have learned it, and gotten used to the quirks. This extends to rendering, physics, and all other tools as well.
I hope since they used it they finally added a direct selector to texture painting, instead of randomly having one of 3 possibly windows having a non visible selector.
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Why would I prefer to download and install this over GIMP?
You don't prefer it. It is just there, given to you, rolled out with every Windows update regardless of how much you try to get rid of it.
By the way GIMP is truly horrible software. Crappy crappy stupid arsebackwards UI.
Re:Don't get, please explain (Score:4, Informative)
Paint.NET is standalone software. You're thinking of the Paint program that comes with Windows.
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Err actually I'm thinking of Paint 3D. But otherwise you're right.
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Paint 3D- what Microsoft did because Paint wasn't awful enough.
Paint.NET- 3rd party freeware that fixes both.
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You don't need to install Paint.NET to fix the problems with Paint3D. Typing "Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.MSPaint | Remove-AppxPackage" into Powershell already does that job just fine.
GIMP respects your software freedom, not Paint.net (Score:2)
If you want software that respects your software freedom, you'll want to get off of using Microsoft Windows (because Windows is proprietary, user-subjugating, non-free software) and use the GIMP. Paint.net is non-free software. It's license clearly states "You may not modify, adapt, rent, lease, loan, sell, or create derivative works based upon the Software or any part thereof." which includes free software freedoms—distributing for a fee, making derivative works, and altering the software.
You see Ric
What has happened to /. (Score:1)
Once upon a time a would get value add news about tech and science from /. Now a days what passes as news is abhorrent. Would the real /. Please stand up? #wheresmalda
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Easy (Score:3)
Readers like you stopped submitting things of interest to you and started relying on others. Other people came with other interests. A news aggregator like Slashdot is nothing more than the will of its readers. You want to change this?
Click Here [slashdot.org]
Firehose is a placebo (Score:2)
The firehose is basically a placebo. I repeatedly saw stories voted way up, and never post to the site, while really junky stories with lowball firehose rankings got posted.
That's why I never bother with it. Just a waste of time.
real men stay their ground : paint.exe (Score:2)
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The one to buy is Affinity Photo if you can't afford Photoshop+Lightroom.
For design, Xara Photo and Graphics editor.
Paint.net is just a toy.
Minor nitpick .. Affinity Photos is a Photoshop replacement, not a Lightroom replacement. While Lightroom has a subset of Photoshop editing tools, it also has Digital Asset Management tools, something that Photoshop and Affinity Photo don't really have (Although Affinity keeps dropping hints that they'll have DAM tools sometime)
And while I can't vouch for it Affinity's Designer looks pretty spiffy for design work.
Because it has Electrolytes! (Score:1)
Affinity Photo is not spyware (Score:2)
I very nearly bought Affinity Photo until I discovered that it's spyware which phones home every time you run it
Well what a shame for you as its great software.
The claim it's "phoning" home is quite a big stretch - it's merely trying to fetch some content for the initial welcome screen, passing up things like platform info so it can present the right content.
It also tries to do some updating of internal resources...
Simply block go.seriflabs.com (resources) and welcome.serifservices.com (welcome past stuff)
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640gig downloads oughtta be enough for anyone.
Um....
Re: Yet another dead MS technology ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft have rewritten the .NET Framework and made it cross-platform. Do you think that's a bad thing? Should they carry on putting loads of effort into the slower Windows-only version?
Re: 4.8 coming in 2019 (Score:4, Informative)
It's being developed more slowly than .NET Core is as it's far more widely installed and changes that are being made in Core are not necessarily going to be applied to the framework as they might break things. It's not being abandoned but Core is the future.
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.NET Framework is the next VB6. It will be around for a long time, but new development will transition away from it. Though Core is so similar that the skill set transfers quite easily.
Re: 4.8 coming in 2019 (Score:2)
And like VB6 it will hang around for a very long time. Even .NET 3.5 will be supported until 2028.
what I would like to see in Paint.net (Score:2)
Dockable palettes or some other way to make sure they stop overlapping my artwork. Esp. the color palette is bloody annoying.
Re:UI Framework (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't get the Core hype. It's supposed to be more cross-platform, such as running on Linux and Android, but for typical business apps, what does it give one besides migration headaches from pre-core?
The industry is sorely missing a desktop-friendly GUI standard for productivity/CRUD applications. HTML/JS/CSS has sucked for that. You can get HTML+ to act like a real desktop with lots of blood, sweat, and tears, but why does it have to be that way? Billions are wasted using UI rocket science on what should be bicycle science.
Java applets tried to solve that, but Java tried to be an entire OS, making it bloated and full of security holes. A standard should focus on GUI's and only GUI's, offloading as much work to the server as possible to keep the client & standard simple.
Make it coordinate-based on the client-side with any "auto-flow" being calculated on the server. Client-side layout auto-flow is probably THE biggest mistake of the HTML stack (except maybe missing common GUI widgets). The client can send its dimensions or size preferences to the server, and the server can then auto-flow placement as needed, and send simple x,y,z coordinates to the client ("z" being the panel overlay level.). People would also have a choice of layout engines, since they are on the server, not the browser.
Controlling the layout is why PDF is still common. People can't stand it when HTML browsers butcher their layout plans and intent. "Autoflow this, Tim Burner Lee!"
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I don't get the Core hype. It's supposed to be more cross-platform, such as running on Linux and Android, but for typical business apps, what does it give one besides migration headaches from pre-core?
It lets you run your server software on a Linux cluster in the cloud. That's basically it.
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It's been a while since I checked out Java GUIs, but you can make them.
Most developers are inclined to more broadly used technologies, e.g. like a web UI. React is the hot tamale at the moment. If you need a true think client app you can do electron.
There are some mold and oldy options too like Tcl/Tk that have cross-platform GUI options.
I'm not the biggest fan of
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Being just for C++ doesn't help much. A good standard would work in any language that can send/receive text over HTTP, probably with the UI communication express-able as text protocols like XML and JSON.
Do you mean make a GUI browser with Java, or use Java applets? Applets failed because Java tried to do and be too many things, creating versioning and security headaches.
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The industry is sorely missing a desktop-friendly GUI standard for productivity/CRUD applications. HTML/JS/CSS has sucked for that.
You already have Qt and Python, as long as Microsoft is pushing C#, Apple is doing Swift and Google Java-ish I don't see how you'd get more unified. I suspect the future for that kind of apps is Electron or something like it. I don't know what it's like to work with but the results like Discord and Visual Studio Code are pretty good. Remember Javascript won over ActiveX, Java applets and Flash so it's not going anywhere. The native platforms are backed by billion dollar companies. What's left for middleware
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Why are you tying it to a programming language (Python)? The standard should not be tied to a particular programming language. Past attempts keep making these mistakes:
1) Ties it to a specific programming language or OS
2) Packs in crap not related to UI's: EMACS-syndrome. That makes something too hard to keep up-to-date/plugged.
3) Uses a binary protocol instead of text-based
4) Proprietary
5) Designed for LAN's, not HTTP (like X-window)
6) Relies too much on DOM/CSS, which is scr
Paint.NET is awesome for intermediate editing (Score:5, Interesting)
Side-effects? (Score:1)
I tried installing Paint.NET about 7 years ago, and it hosed up my PC. The memory of that keeps me hesitant to try again.
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Did Paint.NET hose it or did the .Net Framework do that? I find it hard to see how a simple .Net program could have any adverse effect on your system.
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Either of those hosing it is not a good sign. I don't remember the install parts. I did have to go to Microsoft.com to get a required component or two, but I don't remember what those were.
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Oh I agree, but the overwhelming most likely scenario is that the deeply integrated into Windows .Net framework is what hosed your machine. In which case Paint.Net is a poor target to complain against since if it wasn't that then it was likely something else. The whole point of the .Net framework is that it's abstracted away from the underlying OS and therefore shouldn't have the ability to ruin anything.
That said the framework itself was a clusterfuck of versions and installers and downloads from the Micro
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I suspect it wouldn't be a major port.
But then its not my time.
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Bring back WordPerfect for that sweet keyboard action.
It never went away.
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is/was fast (Score:2)
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Targeting .NET Core (Score:5, Interesting)
The most interesting part of this is the statements about the .NET Framework. I need to look at the links he posted and really digest them. I suspect Paint.NET is pretty heavily tied to Windows right now, and he mentions COM and GDI+ which seems to confirm it. But I've been under the assumption that if you are targeting Windows, you build against the .NET Framework it is already preinstalled and optimized for that machine. If you are targeting cross-platform, then target .NET Standard and compile against the full framework for Windows machines, and the Core framework for non-Windows machines that won't already have the full framework installed. The idea that .NET Core is "superior" to the .NET Framework is new to me. I suppose just compiling against the .NET Core framework only is more consistent than using .NET Framework on Windows and .NET Core on everything else?
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My current project at work needs COM, SMO, WMI, Registry access, SCM, and P/Invoke. I wonder how much of that will be in Core 3.
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The upcoming versions of .NET Standard and C# will not be supported by .NET Framework either.
They state difficulty in maintaining feature parity between two separate codebases as the reason for doing this, especially when the Framework has a much slower release cycle.
To make Core a more viable replacement, they're porting over Windows Forms and WPF and bringing the exe back for desktop apps. Obviously these will continue to work on Windows only, though they'll be open source.
Time to start upgrading your cod
So... (Score:2)
Could you say .NET Core one more time? (Score:3)
And this time explain what it is and why I, as a user of a paint program, should care about .NET Core?
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It will make it more easily portable to Linux and MacOS.
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Something they should have mentioned in the article. I'm guessing they did not because it doesn't instantly make it portable and they currently do not have it working.
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I was hoping they'd announce release under MIT license.
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