MS Paint Gets Its Long-Promised Dark Mode, Along With Other Improvements (arstechnica.com) 25
Windows Insiders in the Dev and Canary channels now have access to an updated version of MS Paint, featuring dark mode support and more granular zoom settings. The update also introduces a zoom slider in the lower-right corner of the app, a new Settings page, new keyboard shortcuts, and "many accessibility and usability improvements to dialogs throughout the app." Ars Technica reports: Paint's new dark mode is only subtly different from the version that Microsoft promised and pulled back in August 2021. If anything, the dark mode we're getting looks a little darker, and the app makes wider use of the "Mica" material that picks up a subtle color tint from your desktop wallpaper.
Updates to the Paint app are notable partly because the app went without updates for so long, and Microsoft even went so far as to announce the end of its development in 2017. The features that have been added to the app during the Windows 11 era have been relatively minor, all things considered, but minor updates are much better than the decade-plus of inactivity the app was subjected to before. Other longstanding built-in Windows apps like Notepad, Sound Recorder, and Media Player have gotten similar attention over the last two years.
Updates to the Paint app are notable partly because the app went without updates for so long, and Microsoft even went so far as to announce the end of its development in 2017. The features that have been added to the app during the Windows 11 era have been relatively minor, all things considered, but minor updates are much better than the decade-plus of inactivity the app was subjected to before. Other longstanding built-in Windows apps like Notepad, Sound Recorder, and Media Player have gotten similar attention over the last two years.
Re: Das Rayciss! (Score:3)
Whew (Score:2)
MS Paint Gets Its Long-Promised Dark Mode
Finally. Thank you. [...puts down knife, rolls down sleeves...]
Paint's new dark mode is only subtly different from the version that Microsoft promised and pulled back in August 2021. If anything, the dark mode we're getting looks a little darker, ...
That's it? [...rolls up sleeve...]
Re: (Score:2)
I was amazed this got media coverage, never mind /. coverage. I use Paint and I still don't care about this.
Re: (Score:2)
I was amazed this got media coverage, never mind /. coverage. I use Paint and I still don't care about this.
I know, right? I actually find "dark modes" annoying and literally couldn't care less about apps have them.
stop this madness (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft, please. Stop fucking with the classics.
LOL! You act like user choice/control is something Microsoft cares about. Perhaps you should give Linux another try.
Too late, Microsoft! (Score:4, Funny)
I already switched to Linux.
One question (Score:1)
So how is it tracking you, stealing your work or mining your techniques for its version of ChatGPT?
It's Microsoft. If you think they're giving you something for free, it's only because you haven't yet noticed how comprehensively they're raping your privacy.
Let's call it mspAInt then! (Score:3)
THIS!
This is what is needed in MsPaint! A "Dark Mode" is so 2015... MsPaint needs real innovation! Let's be bold! What it needs is an AI! An AI that could fill part of the images just like the one Photoshop has, except trained on a dataset of all the MsPaint images ever made with the software - stealthily collected by Microsoft without user knowledge or consent, all in preparation of this! Yes, they have also mined all our spectacular MsPaint drawing techniques! Let the AI assistant also draw crude lines wi
Re: (Score:1)
Like a lot of aggressively average people, you naively assume that the current state of the art is also the future state of the art. You have no more clue than I do what "spectacular MsPaint drawing techniques" may prove relevant to future applications, what trends may emerge when they're applied with minor variations millions of times by hundreds of thousands of people.
Now consider your head patted and potter off to bed. There are adults in the room, and you don't belong.
Dark theme is a hollow offering (Score:3)
Remember way back with the "Classic" desktop, that you could get even with Windows 7 (just turn off Aero), or even further back in Windows 2 or 3, you can have whatever colors you like? Not just "Dark theme" or "light theme", you can have "Amber theme", "Green theme", or even "Psychedelic theme".
Heck, take a look at one of the "Upgrading Windows 1.0 to 10" - the guy sets custom colors at Windows 2.0 stage, https://youtu.be/t0rCTZ_3TQ4?t... [youtu.be] - and they are still there in Windows 2000 https://youtu.be/t0rCTZ_3TQ4?t... [youtu.be] .
Dark theme, Pfft. Fine, I guess it's one better than "Only the default", but sucks anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
This is exactly what I was thinking. The classic Windows interface (available from Windows 2.0 through Windows 7) permitted me to have any color scheme I liked for the whole goddamned OS. I have dark mode configured across my system on Linux. Microsoft is exactly like Apple in this regard, in that they forgot everything they ever knew about good UI.
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Dark and light mode are not themes. Themes didn't affect content as well. Comparing dark mode to setting the theme colours black in early versions of windows shows you know little of what is being discussed. Themes are still a thing you can still change them.
I'd be proud of MS Paint in Windows 3.11 (Score:2)
Btw,I haven't used Windows in ages, does Notepad still not show line and column number? such barebone-ness you can see the bone marrow.
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The other day I opened up wordpad for the first time in ages. They put a lot of work into changing things around making it look like office.
Hahaha it still doesn’t have spell check or nested bullet points. In the past I assumed this was because they didn’t want to compete with Word but in 2022 that’s just feature sparse enough that someone will go out and download something free that might also include features that one day might have had them upgrade to Word. Not even the most braindea
Re: (Score:3)
Notepad always did, but you had to turn off word wrap. . Also, if you put the entry .LOG at the top of your text document, it'll date stamp every time you open the document. Still does. That you needed to know dark necromancy to get at these features was part of the fun.
Recently, it updated so it shows row and column even with word wrap turned on. They also added tabs. They're actually improving Notepad. Paint? Not so much.
But seriously, if someone wants to do some heavy text editing in Windows and they don
Anyone else gets reminded of Soviet cars (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, where the technical standards were so far behind it sounded quaint and almost cute when they touted some new feature with much fanfare and your only reaction was "Wait, you DIDN'T have this before?"
I distinctly remember the Trabant (a GDR car) getting an "update" (google the car, this model was produced until the very end in 1990) somewhere in the 80s where they announced that it would now have a (drumroll, fanfare blast) fuel gauge.
Comic Sans (Score:3)
I am altering the deal, pray I don't... (Score:2)
...alter it any further.
It seems like trying to update something like Paint just adds more problems. Kinda like Sticky Notes after it started updating twice a month. How do you turn a square with text into a buggy mess? Why does it need to be updated in the first place? Recently, I had to change an OS setting just to get it to start when I logged in and show my notes. Why? Why make changes to dead simple stuff?
So good fix guys! Now fix the part from the last big Paint update where the title bar text stays b
Why? (Score:2)
Can someone tell me WHY dark mode is such a huge thing that it is listed as a major feature on whatever release it comes out on?
Is anybode actually using MS Paint ? (Score:1)
Even the basic editor of IrfanView is on par with its editing capabilities.
And something like Paint.Net is equally easy to use, but packs a LOT more features. Even allows for community-provided plugins.
The whole concept of "dark mode" baffles me (Score:2)
Changing screen, border, and text colors was one of the first POKEs you learned on a C-64. Later on, the OSs had system colors you could set. You could even shoot yourself in the foot by making it white-on-white. I don't know when we took this particular steering wheel away from users, but the fact that people trumpet the restoration of such functionality as "long promised" would be funny to me if it weren't so sad. "Dark mode". It shouldn't even be a thing. It's baffling.