7 ms·
Microsoft Gives Paint the 11th Hour Reprieve It Deserves
- president 8y agoOne of the most nostalgic things about Windows was messing about with MS Paint to kill time in the days when the internet didn't exist yet. I wish OS X had some kind of native paint program. Seems like such a basic thing, why not include it with the OS?
- weitzj 8y agoI remember drawing ovals, circles and then using the fill feature to put colors in there. That were some fancy colorful circles back then :)
- melling 8y agoBut the Internet has existed for over 20 years. Wouldn’t it be better to encourage the use of open source where a community can develop and the app will get much better? Krita, for example, seems popular: https://krita.org/en/ https://krita.org/en/
- zamalek 8y agoKrita is a simulated canvas and doesn't cover the tiny scope that Paint does. It has the same problem as Paint 3D: too complex.
- melling 8y agoMy point is that including "barely good enough" by default hinders the development of other open source apps for the platform. I know nothing about Krita other than its existence. I imagine there are other options.
- zamalek 8y agoPaint.NET is probably the best option, but Microsoft would probably have to fork it as the UI has novelties (floating panels and so forth, which non-technical users might struggle with). The hard thing about Paint is that it fills a similar niche to Notepad or Nano. > hinders the development of other open source apps for the platform. Filling the same niche as Paint is hardly improving the world. As soon as your Paint clone does anything innovative it fails to fall inside the constraints of Paint. As a simpler example, any Notepad clone that added, say, tabs would instantly fail to be a Notepad replacement. I'd seriously question how much value OSS competition (consisting of a native textbox and menu bar) is adding to the world. Edit: Just because OSS can compete doesn't mean it should.
- avip 8y agoosx has a perfectly useable markup tool, the one that pops-up when you print-screen. Weirdly enough, I don't know how to launch that with a blank canvas.
- jrochkind1 8y agoInteresting. I may figure out a way easily to get a full screen of white (full-screen in a browser on a blank HTML page?) to hackily print screen to use that as MacOS "paint", heh.
- RandallBrown 8y agoThose are the same markup tools found in Preview. If you open an image or PDF in preview, just go to View -> Show Markup Toolbar Or you can choose tools right from the Annotate menu.
- jmkb 8y agoSeashore (a severely gimped GIMP) is a decent simple editor for OSX. https://github.com/robaho/seashore https://github.com/robaho/seashore
- knolan 8y agoYou can do it from Preview. You can even CMD c a video frame in QuickTime and in Preview select File>new from clipboard.
- krackers 8y agoThe irony is that MacOS used to come with a really good paint app up until system 7 or so: https://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/macpaint-and-quickdraw-source-code/ https://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/macpaint-and-quickdraw... The closest 3rd party app I've found to ms paint is Paintbrush, but that's a bit too primitive compared to paint and it doesn't work that well with retina screens.
- bdamm 8y agoPreview.app has all this. Just go View->Show Markup Toolbar.
- Someone1234 8y agoWhat horrifies me is that the iPad still doesn't have a basic Calculator built-in, while the iPhone does. PS - I'm familiar with the Spotlight Search trick (and asking Siri) but that is pretty limited.
- ihuman 8y agoI know this isn't what you're looking for, but if your desperate you can use Siri as a calculator.
- knolan 8y agoI wouldn’t consider using Spotlight as a calculator a ‘trick’. It’s a very powerful way to write out complex expressions.
- Someone1234 8y agoBut yet still not a calculator.
- paulddraper 8y agoSiri needs an Internet connection to do anything.
- titanix2 8y agoPaint3D is not bad per se but replacing the good ol' Paint that everybody like and know how to use was incredibility stupid and hostile towards users. Too bad Microsoft never learn about this kind of moves (Windows 8 UI, Start Menu, etc.)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- MordodeMaru 8y agoWhat on earth is Iker doing in that article?
- trequartista 8y agoHe's saving Paint
- edgarvaldes 8y agoThe connotation of using a goalkeeper is more like "avoiding Paint to pass", which is not what the article talks about.
- partiallypro 8y agoI don't know why they don't just give it a facelift, but keep all the core functionality and interface...instead of the Paint3D route of making it overly confusing and keeping a very dated looking paint .net app.
- ajhurliman 8y agoI know the common sentiment is that software is never "done" and there's always something that could be better about it, but I think Paint is fine as it is without any facelifting.
- criddell 8y agoMost of the software I rely on feels done to me. If anything, I'm afraid that some of the companies have built monstrosities that just aren't sustainable. Evernote, for example, feels like it should be made way, way smaller so that it can be maintained by a small group of people.
- louthy 8y agoI'm surprised MS don't just strike a deal with Paint.NET [1]. It would help fund a worthwhile project (which feels as simple as Paint, but is significantly more advanced) that appears to be run from donations only. [1] https://www.getpaint.net https://www.getpaint.net
- bonoboTP 8y agoIt's a very good piece of software. Unfortunately its early Linux fork (Pinta) is much more unstable.
- freedomben 8y ago+1 Pinta. I use it all the time. Would be overjoyed tho if Pinta got a little more love. It's pretty stagnated but still a great tool.
- themodelplumber 8y agoI used Pinta to make a technical cutout illustration the other day, for fun. I should have saved more often though, because it crashed and took everything with it. I also wondered why it defaulted to saving in JPG. When I opened my .ora save file, the colors had changed in a way that affected the antialiasing. It looked pretty bad. Anyway, while I wouldn't recommend it for illustration work unless you save often and save to PNG, for simple image work and even charting it is pretty nice.
- bonoboTP 8y agoIt is great, but lacks a few key features. For example there is no way to select a part of the image and rescale that part (meaning that the image content of the selection would be resized by dragging the corner of the selection box). My brain just doesn't grok the way of working in GIMP so I highly appreciate the general simplicity of Pinta. Somehow simple tasks are really complicated in GIMP. I usually just want to draw primitive shapes, move or resize image content, add text. Exactly the MS Paint-style basics, but it's a pain in GIMP.
- 8y ago
- cheeze 8y agoI think commenters here are missing the point. Yes there are alternatives. Yes there are open source versions. But Microsoft isn't bringing paint back because it needs a powerful image editor. They are bringing paint back because many folks are very familiar with it, it gets the job done for them, and has a certain nostalgia factor to it to boot. The point is to bring back paint exactly as it has been for years. Not iterate on the project. One of my favorite examples of paint is the popular streamer destiny doing a Bob Ross painting. It actually comes out looking pretty okay... https://youtu.be/8XxsgEw49p0 https://youtu.be/8XxsgEw49p0
- dewiz 8y agoAfter bringing it back though, it would be nice to see some few features being added, without too much complexity. IMO Paint should be the default image viewer, allowing basic editing, my 2 cents :-)
- awiesenhofer 8y agoIsn't that the new photos app?
- lawl 8y agoI find paint extremely useful for screenshots. PrintScreen, Win+R, mspaint, crop it, add some red boxes, done. Using the snipping tool is infinitely slower for me. Win, snipp, click new, select region, click the edit in paint 3d button, wait for Paint3D to open, add boxes. mspaint opens instantly and is sufficient for basic tasks, that's why I like it when using windows.
- manderley 8y agoYou can bind Snip & Sketch to the Print Screen button in Ease of Access -> Keyboard. This is a new feature in Windows 10 1809.
- Someone1234 8y agoI'm a really big fan of that keyboard shortcut (first time I've used the Print Screen key on purpose in years). On a related note I hope they aren't done developing "Snip & Sketch" it still lacks features from the Snipping tool in 1809 (Delay Granularity, Window Snip, Highlighter, and the new Ruler is buggy as heck).
- rconti 8y agoIt made me smile that Paul Thurott's SuperSite lives on.
- wnevets 8y agoEven if the new apps for Windows 10 are better I still go out of my way to uninstall 3D Paint and the rest. If they didn't cram candy crush and all of the other garbage down our throats I probably wouldn't be so sensitive to additions like 3D paint.
- withinrafael 8y ago[I started the Twitter thread this article links to, and work with Paul and Brad.] Some context via a timeline: * Dec 12, 2017: The Microsoft Paint utility in Windows was officially deprecated [1]. * Dec 20, 2017: A Product Alert button [2] was added to the app that, when clicked, indicated Microsoft Paint was going to move to the Microsoft Store [3]. That is, it was going to be available on-demand rather than ship in-box with the operating system [4]. * ~1H 2019: Microsoft has now fully reversed this decision [5] and removed the Product Alert button from the application altogether [6]. There is no official communication as to why this change was made. [1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4034825/features-that-are-removed-or-deprecated-in-windows-10-fall-creators-up https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4034825/features-th... [2] https://i0.wp.com/www.onmsft.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/paint-thing.png?resize=1031%2C580&ssl=1 https://i0.wp.com/www.onmsft.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/... [3] https://www.kunal-chowdhury.com/2017/12/windows-10-paint-3d-to-replace-mspaint-soon.html https://www.kunal-chowdhury.com/2017/12/windows-10-paint-3d-... [4] https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/07/24/ms-paint-stay/#PzlGpp3WmTXhFwEV.97 https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/07/24/ms-pa... [5] https://twitter.com/brandonleblanc/status/1120554869570572290 https://twitter.com/brandonleblanc/status/112055486957057229... [6] https://twitter.com/h0x0d/status/1119940129450184704 https://twitter.com/h0x0d/status/1119940129450184704
- umvi 8y agoI would LOVE something as simple as the Windows XP version of Paint on Linux. Something that opens instantly, doesn't have a bazillion options, nested and floating tool menus, etc. I've tried Gimp and a few others and I end up wasting way too much time just trying to figure out how to do basic stuff like draw a red box around something.
- 0815test 8y agoxpaint is pretty much this, though the UI is rather old style and you may have to experiment with it a little bit to become proficient.
- drusepth 8y agoI've always used Kolourpaint for this, which scratches exactly that itch for me.
- themodelplumber 8y agoKolourpaint is excellent for this kind of work.
- umvi 8y agoI just tried it out, and it's exactly what I want. I can't believe I never found this one when I was searching earlier. Thanks!
- paulddraper 8y agoThe following additional packages will be installed: kinit kio kwayland-data kwayland-integration libdbusmenu-qt5-2 libfam0 libhfstospell9 libkf5archive5 libkf5attica5 libkf5auth-data libkf5auth5 libkf5bookmarks-data libkf5bookmarks5 libkf5codecs-data libkf5codecs5 libkf5completion-data libkf5completion5 libkf5config-bin libkf5config-data libkf5configcore5 libkf5configgui5 libkf5configwidgets-data libkf5configwidgets5 libkf5coreaddons-data libkf5coreaddons5 libkf5crash5 libkf5dbusaddons-bin libkf5dbusaddons-data libkf5dbusaddons5 libkf5doctools5 libkf5globalaccel-bin libkf5globalaccel-data libkf5globalaccel5 libkf5globalaccelprivate5 libkf5guiaddons5 libkf5i18n-data libkf5i18n5 libkf5iconthemes-bin libkf5iconthemes-data libkf5iconthemes5 libkf5idletime5 libkf5itemviews-data libkf5itemviews5 libkf5jobwidgets-data libkf5jobwidgets5 libkf5kdelibs4support-data libkf5kdelibs4support5 libkf5kdelibs4support5-bin libkf5kiocore5 libkf5kiofilewidgets5 libkf5kiontlm5 libkf5kiowidgets5 libkf5notifications-data libkf5notifications5 libkf5parts-data libkf5parts-plugins libkf5parts5 libkf5sane-data libkf5sane5 libkf5service-bin libkf5service-data libkf5service5 libkf5solid5 libkf5solid5-data libkf5sonnet5-data libkf5sonnetcore5 libkf5sonnetui5 libkf5textwidgets-data libkf5textwidgets5 libkf5wallet-bin libkf5wallet-data libkf5wallet5 libkf5waylandclient5 libkf5widgetsaddons-data libkf5widgetsaddons5 libkf5windowsystem-data libkf5windowsystem5 libkf5xmlgui-bin libkf5xmlgui-data libkf5xmlgui5 libkwalletbackend5-5 libphonon4qt5-4 libpolkit-qt5-1-1 libqt5qml5 libqt5quick5 libqt5script5 libqt5test5 libqt5texttospeech5 libqt5waylandclient5 libqt5waylandcompositor5 libqt5xml5 libvoikko1 phonon4qt5 phonon4qt5-backend-vlc qtwayland5 sonnet-plugins That's a lot, but it does work well.
- StanislavPetrov 8y agoAs an avid user of paint, I noticed that it was replaced only weeks after it was first removed (accessed by right-clicking on an image and using "open with").
- jlarcombe 8y agoThank goodness. What would Jim'll Paint It do otherwise? https://jimllpaintit.tumblr.com/ https://jimllpaintit.tumblr.com/
- etaioinshrdlu 8y agoI think it's lame that macOS doesn't ship with anything like Paint.
- c256 8y agoMacOS Preview has (very) basic image editing built in, but it’s not widely advertised. Open it up and look through the menus.
- maxxxxx 8y agoDoes anyone know why they don't update the built-in apps more frequently? Paint, Notepad, Wordpad and others are pretty much remnants from the Win95 days. On some controlled machines it would be a godsend if Windows had a better built-in editor. Updating these apps can't be that hard compared to all the other stuff they are doing.
- jccalhoun 8y agoI don't really care that much since I rarely use paint or paint 3d. I just find it odd that MS devoted any time to paint3d. I remember when they announced it they went on and on about all these great 3d things you could do. And no one cared. Did enough people in charge really believe that people would be into the 3d stuff or was it just trying to convince people that they wouldn't really need Pain any more?
- davnicwil 8y agoIn my opinion Paint is one of the best ever examples of good software UI & UX. It's so simple and obvious how to use it - all the most important controls are right there to hand and the few slightly more advanced features are easily discoverable in a well organised, fairly flat menu system. You can literally figure out every function either by intuition or very quick trial and error. It uses skeuomorphism and icons wonderfully to make everything absolutely clear in form and function, even for a very novice user. And - I think this is an important - it deals with images as a 2D grid of pixels without any abstractions on top. No semi-3D overlapping 'layers', etc. In keeping it simple, they give the user maximum control over the image with no abstractions to get in the way. In all sincerity, I think it should be a case study in simple, right-tool-for-the-job UX and UI design.