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Ego Eram Reputo

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This thread is for reporting errors, omissions and any other additions that you think the online paint.net documentation could use.

 

When reporting corrections, please include the URL of the page in question.

 

Thanks. You know, together we can make paint.net even better ;)

 

List of suggestions ( and what I'm doing about them). Anything listed as Fixed will be rolled out next update. Once rolled out I'll hide the entry to keep the list manageable.

 

Green = complete / fixed / done

Orange = open for discussion / comment

Purple = pending

 

Spoiler

 

  1. Headings should have an Id - Installed. It was a long process :(
  2. Apache Rule to exclude .html from URL - One for Rick.
  3. Clarifying tip about URL in Open dialog - done.
  4. Status bar image is too small - fixed.
  5. Pagecount ticker rewording - Reworded.
  6. Image captions & revision text too fain - fixed.
  7. Add higher levels to sub-level navigation - done
  8. FAQ 404 error - Rick spotted this a couple of weeks ago - fixed.
  9. Hyphenation - some of them. Some of the suggestions have been implemented.
  10. The Age of Tips. I'll remove the term "new" and rewrite the tips following this current list of changes. These are non-critical.
  11. The phrase "By default this is blank which places the shortcut "loose" at the top of the hierarchy" could be paraphrased for grammar. Fixed.
  12. "Start menu Programs" should be "Start Menu Programs". Fixed.
  13. "H  (temporary activation)" has an extra space. Fixed.
  14. Getting Started --> License: put link on a separate line- fixed.
  15. "In the center" should be followed by a comma. Fixed.
  16. "thumbnai" should be "thumbnail". Fixed.
  17. "with options to Save, Don't Save, or Cancel" could be "with options to save, not save, or cancel" to reduce awkward phrasing. Keeping the options as these are what the user actually sees. Changed wording to "with options: Save,..."
  18. "through the image History" should be "through the image history". Fixed.
  19. - The phrase "More Adjustments" should be "More adjustments". and The phrase "More Effects" should be "More effects". I Disagree and want to keep the capitalization. It helps differentiate the Effect from the effect.

  20. "This function of these icons... F5 F6 F7 & F8" is ambiguous. Fixed.

  21. "on the this dialog" should be "on this dialog". Fixed

  22. "From here paint.net can be customized and it's behavior set."  Reworded.

  23. the navigation drop-down says "Toolbar", though. It should say "Tool Bar". Fixed.

  24. "In addition" should be followed by a comma. Fixed.

  25. "The behavior of paint.net...to Pencil Tool" is ambiguous. Reworded.

  26. Antialiased or anti-aliased? Rick uses "antialiased" (on his blog and in paint.net itself). I followed his lead.

  27. ...shows information about paint.net" should be followed by a comma. Fixed.

  28. The phrase "In other words" should be followed by a comma. Fixed.

  29. The phrase "For example" should be followed by a comma. Fixed.

  30. Consider removing the word "apparently". Done.

  31. phrase "more dull" should be "dull". Done.

  32. The phrase "When the Curves dialog first appears" should be followed by a comma. Fixed.

  33. The phrase "In this graph" should be followed by a comma. Fixed.

  34. The phrase "the apple retains it's red color" should be "the apple retains its red color". Remove the contraction. Done.

  35. The phrase "On the left side" should be followed by a comma. Done.

  36. The phrase "on a all" should be "on all". Fixed.

  37. The phrase "In other words" should be followed by a comma. Fixed.

  38. Menus -> Effects -> Noise: six commas inserted.

  39. example image for Soften Portrait changes the woman's eye colors. I've decided to leave this image as-is.. It's only fair to give an honest result of the effect.

  40. The spelling typo "centre" should be "center".  Fixed. Twice.

  41. I suggest making the word "With" lowercase in the page header. Done.

  42. should be "by clicking on its name". Remove the contraction. Fixed.

  43. suggest making the word "With" lowercase in the page header. Done.

  44. "Thus the order" should be "Thus, the order". Fixed.

  45. Spelling typo: "Properites" should be "Properties". What? you've never opened the properites dialog? :lol:

  46. phrase "When this pattern is seen" should be followed by a comma. Fixed.

  47. phrase "For the following discussion" should be followed by a comma. Fixed. On both pages.

  48. Screen shots > installing plugins. Done.

  49. A glossary of terms used in paint.net could be useful - Done.

  50. External links like "How To Install Custom Shapes" (in Tools --> Text & Shape Tools --> Geometric Shape Tools) warrant a dedicated page in the official documentation to put all information in one area - Added to the "links" page.

  51. The phrase "This mode allow" should be "This mode allows". Fixed.

  52. The phrase "When the pointer is moved" should be followed by a comma. Fixed

  53. The phrase "When the pointer is moved" should be followed by a comma. Fixed

  54. I suggest naming the navigation heading "Magic Wand Tools". Done

  55. The phrase "Of course" should be followed by a comma. Done

  56. The phrase "Selection By Exclusion" could be "Selection by Exclusion" depending on how pedantic you want to be. I am. Fixed

  57. The phrase "When either Move tool" should be "When either Move Tool" Fixed

  58.  The phrase "Anti-Aliasing" should be "Antialiasing" in accordance with your desire to make it a single word. Aha! I've been caught being hypocritical! Fixed. Note that the one word version is used in paint.net too. Its not just me!

  59. The phrase "In this respect" should be followed by a comma. Fixed

  60.  The phrase "Anti-Aliasing" should be "Antialiasing" in accordance with your desire to make it a single word. Fixed everywhere.

  61. The phrase "To install custom shapes" should be followed by a comma. Fixed
  62. Consider "Additionally, there are plugins to " Reworded.
  63. The hyperlink for "How To Create Custom Shapes" leads to the Forums (I think it's broken). This is also true of "ShapeMaker". Yup. Fixed. Update of the forum software requires links to have a character appended after the trailing hyphen. Any character will do! I had to  tweak the Plugin Index :(

 

 

The next batch of edits and suggestions....

 

  1. Holding Ctrl and clicking the + or - for the brush size can increment/decrement five at a time.

  2. You can hover the mouse over the Fill and brush size properties for the paintbrush and use the mouse wheel to scroll through options.

    Not all users will notice that they can hover over the tools to view the keyboard shortcut, so each tool should have its keyboard shortcut listed on that tool's page.

  3. On the Geometric Shapes page, the tip "Shapes can be forced to have equal height and width..." should come immediately after "When creating a Shape, hold down the Shift key to maintain...", and perhaps be merged with that tip. The tips are highly related (one is for creating the shape and one is for adjusting it), and the current position of the first tip mentioned seems to be out-of-context with its surrounding text.

  4. I thought there was missing information at one point, but there wasn't. However, it did prove that having a seperate Keyboard & Mouse Input page can go unnoticed. Segmenting the documentation of one feature into zones like that, however important, may be improved by linking to that page for convenience. Consider something along the lines of "To view all keyboard and mouse shortcuts, see this page."

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30 minutes ago, Ego Eram Reputo said:

... and any other additions that you think the online paint.net documentation could use.

 

Yes, I'd like every heading to have an id on it, so we can link directly to it.

 

For example, the "Sampling Modes" heading the on Color Picker page would look like this:

<h3 id="SamplingModes">Sampling Modes</h3>

So we could link directly to it like this:

https://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/ColorPicker.html#SamplingModes

 

 

Could you add an Apache rule that rewrites the URLs to exclude the .html ?

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(September 25th, 2023)  Sorry about any broken images in my posts. I am aware of the issue.

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My Gallery  |  My Plugin Pack

Layman's Guide to CodeLab

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Under Menus --> File, there is a tip about typing in a URL to load an image. Explain what a URL is or paraphrase the sentence to be less technical, e.g. "Did you know you could load an image from the internet?". This makes it more accessible and meaningful to non-technical people.

The image for the status bar is difficult to see in full at normal zoom. Perhaps a larger image of the status bar should be used so users can make out what's on the status bar from its image.

Site and Miscellaneous
Here's an obscure error, but the ticker at the bottom of the page that says "you have visited this page X time(s)" counts every page in documentation as the same page. For example, when I visited the Rotate/Zoom page for the first time, it said I visited it 4 time(s).

Image captions (and the revision date at the top of the page) may be too light in color to see.

It's not clear that you can click on nested drop-down menus to get taken to an independent page. Instead of:
Getting Started
-- Installing Paint.net

-- -- Installing Plugins

-- -- Unattended Installation

 

I think it would be more accessible if it was:

Getting Started
-- Installing Paint.net

-- -- Install Instructions

-- -- Installing Plugins

-- -- Unattended Installation

 

Where "Install Instructions" leads to the same page that clicking "Installing Paint.net" leads to. This goes for all drop-downs.

Edited by AnthonyScoffler
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1 hour ago, toe_head2001 said:

Yes, I'd like every heading to have an id on it, so we can link directly to it.

 

Me too. Can you give me an easy way to convert heading text to an id from inside VS?

 

1 hour ago, toe_head2001 said:

Could you add an Apache rule that rewrites the URLs to exclude the .html ?

 

I don't have that level of access. This would be one for Rick. Best if you give him some working code and tell him where to stick it (so to speak :lol:)

 

1 hour ago, AnthonyScoffler said:

Explain what a URL is or paraphrase the sentence to be less technical

 

Can do.

 

1 hour ago, AnthonyScoffler said:

The image for the status bar is difficult to see in full at normal zoom

 

Agreed. I'll replace it.

1 hour ago, AnthonyScoffler said:

the ticker at the bottom of the page that says "you have visited this page X time(s)" counts every page in documentation a

 

Yup. I'm aware of this. I'm using a variable called localStorage.pagecount and incrementing this each time a page is loaded. To individualize that to every page means adding a new variable for each page. That's a fair bit of work.

 

1 hour ago, AnthonyScoffler said:


Image captions (and the revision date at the top of the page) may be too light in color to see.

 

Agreed. I'll darken these pieces of text a bit.

 

1 hour ago, AnthonyScoffler said:

It's not clear that you can click on nested drop-down menus to get taken to an independent page

 

Good idea. I'll look into that.

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I decided to do some spell-checking. Almost every error I found was due to missing hyphens and commas. There were a couple typos and random other concerns.

 

Miscellaneous Points

How new are some of these tips? Reorganizing layer and image order via drag-and-drop won't stay new forever.

 

The FAQ page links to a 404 error currently. The redirect might not be set up yet. The final URL should be https://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/399-frequently-asked-questions-faq/.

 

On Getting Started --> Overview/Features:

- The phrases "brand new" and "third party" should be hyphenated.

 

On Getting Started --> Installing paint.net:

- The phrase "drop down" should be hyphenated.

 

On Getting Started --> Installing Plugins:

- The phrase "drop down" should be hyphenated.

 

On Getting Started --> Unattended Installation:

- The phrase "For a default automatic installation" should be followed by a comma.

- The phrase "By default this is blank which places the shortcut "loose" at the top of the hierarchy" could be paraphrased for grammar.

- The phrase "Start menu Programs" should be "Start Menu Programs".

 

On Getting Started --> Keyboard and Mouse Input:

- The phrase "H  (temporary activation)" has an extra space.

- The phrase "four way" should be hyphenated.

 

On Getting Started --> License:

- The other two redirection pages (tutorials and faq) put the link on a separate line.

 

On User Interface --> Main Window:

- The phrase "In the center" should be followed by a comma.

 

On User Interface --> Image List:

- Spelling typo: "thumbnai" should be "thumbnail".

- The phrase "with options to Save, Don't Save, or Cancel" could be "with options to save, not save, or cancel" to reduce awkward phrasing.

 

On User Interface --> Menu Bar:

- The phrase "through the image History" should be "through the image history".

- The phrase "More Adjustments" should be "More adjustments".

- The phrase "More Effects" should be "More effects".

- The phrase "This function of these icons... F5 F6 F7 & F8" is ambiguous.

- The phrase "on the this dialog" should be "on this dialog".

- The phrase "From here paint.net can be customized and it's behavior set." is a sentence fragment. Also, "From here" should be followed by a comma.

 

On User Interface --> Toolbar:

- The heading on this page is "Tool Bar", which matches "Menu Bar" and "Status Bar". The navigation drop-down says "Toolbar", though. It should say "Tool Bar".

- The phrase "drop down" should be hyphenated.

- The phrase "In addition" should be followed by a comma.

- The paragraph "The behavior of paint.net...to Pencil Tool" is ambiguous. Consider rewording it as "There is a setting to automatically switch to another tool after using the color picker. There are three choices: Do Not Switch tool (default), Switch to Previous tool, and Switch to Pencil Tool."

- The phrase "If Antialiased selection quality is chosen" should be followed by a comma. Also, "Antialiased" should be "anti-aliased".

 

On User Interface --> Help Menu:

- "This shows information about paint.net" should be followed by a comma.

 

On User Interface --> Status Bar:

- The phrase "left hand" should be hyphenated.

- The phrase "right hand" should be hyphenated.

 

On Menus -> Edit:

- The phrase "brand new" should be hyphenated.

 

On Menus -> View:

- The phrase "In other words" should be followed by a comma.

 

On Menus -> Image:

- The phrase "For example" should be followed by a comma.

 

On Menus -> Layers -> Rotate/Zoom:

- The phrase "Using Rotate/Zoom to apparently tilt an image" makes the effect sound transitory. Consider removing the word "apparently".

 

On Menus -> Adjustments:

- The phrase "more dull" should be "dull".

 

On Menus -> Adjustments -> Curves:

- The phrase "When the Curves dialog first appears" should be followed by a comma.

- The phrase "In this graph" should be followed by a comma.

- The phrase "drop down" should be hyphenated.

- The phrase "the apple retains it's red color" should be "the apple retains its red color". Remove the contraction.

 

On Menus -> Adjustments -> Levels:

- The phrase "On the left side" should be followed by a comma.

- The phrase "right hand" should be hyphenated.

- The phrase "on a all" should be "on all".

 

On Menus -> Effects -> Distort:

- The phrase "In other words" should be followed by a comma.

 

On Menus -> Effects -> Noise:

- The phrase "At higher settings" should be followed by a comma.

- The phrase "At high settings" should be followed by a comma.

- The phrase "At low settings" should be followed by a comma.

- The phrase "At low Radius settings" should be followed by a comma.

- The phrase "At higher Radius settings" should be followed by a comma.

- The phrase "In this example" should be followed by a comma.

 

On Menus -> Effects -> Photo:

- The example image for Soften Portrait changes the woman's eye colors. That's probably not preferable.

 

On Menus -> Effects -> Render:

- The spelling typo "centre" should be "center".

 

On Color -> Colors Window:

- The phrase "drop down" should be hyphenated.

 

On Color -> Working with Palettes:

- The navigation header is "Working with Palettes", but the page header is "Working With Palettes". I suggest making the word "With" lowercase in the page header.

- The phrase "by clicking on it's name" should be "by clicking on its name". Remove the contraction.

- The phrase "eight digit" should be hyphenated.

 

On Layers -> Working with Layers:

- The navigation header is "Working with Layers", but the page header is "Working With Layers". I suggest making the word "With" lowercase in the page header.

- The phrase "Thus the order" should be "Thus, the order".

- The phrase "drop down" should be hyphenated.

- Spelling typo: "Properites" should be "Properties".

- The phrase "When this pattern is seen" should be followed by a comma.

- The phrase "For the following discussion" should be followed by a comma.

 

On Layers -> Blend Modes:

- The phrase "For the following discussion" should be followed by a comma.

I don't have time to go over the Tools section tonight. I need to sleep. :)

Edited by AnthonyScoffler
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Quote

Yup. I'm aware of this. I'm using a variable called localStorage.pagecount and incrementing this each time a page is loaded. To individualize that to every page means adding a new variable for each page. That's a fair bit of work.

You could change it from saying "You have viewed this page X times" to "You have viewed documentation X times" or "You have viewed these pages X times" to be accurate, then call it good.

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Thanks guys. I've put together a list in the first post - which I'll keep updated.

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I am finishing my spelling/grammar review that I started yesterday.

Miscellaneous

A glossary of terms used in paint.net could be useful, especially if we could refer to entries by id or something. That way, when somebody asks what anti-aliasing is, for example, we can link to it.

 

External links like "How To Install Custom Shapes" (in Tools --> Text & Shape Tools --> Geometric Shape Tools) warrant a dedicated page in the official documentation to put all information in one area, and on the same server/domain to prevent link rot and the chance of linking to a page with potentially less security.

 

On Tools --> Selection Tools:
- The phrase "This mode allow" should be "This mode allows".

 

On Tools --> Selection Tools --> Rectangle Select Tool:
- The phrase "When the pointer is moved" should be followed by a comma.
- The phrase "drop down" should be hyphenated.

 

On Tools --> Selection Tools --> Ellipse Select Tool:
- The phrase "When the pointer is moved" should be followed by a comma.

 

On Tools --> Selection Tools --> Magic Wand:
- The navigation heading says "Magic Wand", but the page heading is "Magic Wand Tools", which is in line with other items under Selection Tools. I suggest naming the navigation heading "Magic Wand Tools".
- The phrase "Of course" should be followed by a comma.
- The phrase "Selection By Exclusion" could be "Selection by Exclusion" depending on how pedantic you want to be.

 

On Tools --> Move Tools:
- The phrase "When either Move tool" should be "When either Move Tool" to match similar capitalization on the page.
- The phrase "left hand" should be hyphenated.

 

On Tools --> Fill Tools --> Paint Bucket Tool:
- The phrase "left hand" should be hyphenated.

 

On Tools --> Drawing Tools:
- The phrase "hand held" should be hyphenated.

 

On Tools --> Drawing Tools --> Paintbrush Tool:
- The phrase "hand held" should be hyphenated.

 

On Tools --> Drawing Tools --> Eraser Tool:
- The phrase "Anti-Aliasing" should be "Antialiasing" in accordance with your desire to make it a single word.

 

On Tools --> Photo Tools --> Clone Stamp Tool:
- The phrase "In this respect" should be followed by a comma.

 

On Tools --> Drawing Tools --> Recolor Tool:
- The phrase "Anti-Aliasing" should be "Antialiasing" in accordance with your desire to make it a single word.

 

On Tools --> Text & Shape Tools --> Text Tool:
- The phrase "drop down" should be hyphenated.

 

On Tools --> Text & Shape Tools --> Geometric Shape Tools:
- The phrase "drop down" should be hyphenated.
- The phrase "four way" should be hyphenated.
- The phrase "To install custom shapes" should be followed by a comma.
- The phrase "If you wish to create your own Shapes, you may find these links useful..." has an informal tone elicited by the ellipsis at the end. Consider "Additionally, there are plugins to "
- The hyperlink for "How To Create Custom Shapes" leads to the Forums (I think it's broken). This is also true of "ShapeMaker".

Edited by AnthonyScoffler
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^^ Thanks Anthony.

 

@toe_head2001 RE: IDs. 

 

I'm proposing to use simple integer ids which increment as the content cascades down the page. Like this

<h1 id="1">Main Heading</h1>
<h2 id="2">Top of content heading</h2>
<h2 id="3">Sub heading</h2>
<h3 id="4">Tip box heading</h3>

for four reasons:

  1. Its less typing and maintenance.
  2. You can (probably) figure out the number to use by counting the headings on the page.
  3. The same set of ids can be used from page to page.
  4. Tips and Note boxes (which also use headers) can have ids too.
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Heading now have numeric ids. I typed them in. Manually. :Xemote:

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Glossary:

Speak now or forever remain silent :lol:

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Information not covered

Holding Ctrl and clicking the + or - for the brush size can increment/decrement five at a time.

You can hover the mouse over the Fill and brush size properties for the paintbrush and use the mouse wheel to scroll through options.

Not all users will notice that they can hover over the tools to view the keyboard shortcut, so each tool should have its keyboard shortcut listed on that tool's page.

 

On the Geometric Shapes page, the tip "Shapes can be forced to have equal height and width..." should come immediately after "When creating a Shape, hold down the Shift key to maintain...", and perhaps be merged with that tip. The tips are highly related (one is for creating the shape and one is for adjusting it), and the current position of the first tip mentioned seems to be out-of-context with its surrounding text.

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Thanks Anthony, I'll look at adding these changes.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I thought there was missing information at one point, but there wasn't. However, it did prove that having a seperate Keyboard & Mouse Input page can go unnoticed. Segmenting the documentation of one feature into zones like that, however important, may be improved by linking to that page for convenience. Consider something along the lines of "To view all keyboard and mouse shortcuts, see this page."

Edited by Joshua Lamusga
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Not all possible  keyboard shortcuts are listed on the individual tool page. Some appear in the  Keyboard and Mouse page. I will look at the merit of your suggestions and add what I think is reasonable.

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[It would be nice if posts could be deleted rather than deleting the content and leaving this message.]

Edited by Joshua Lamusga
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Only Mods have the power to delete a post. Its a forum setting which I am in complete agreement with ;)

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

@Ego Eram Reputo

Have you noticed the lack of a link to the documentation page from the main Forum Page? I might be blind - but that would mean its difficult to find.

Also the download site.

Links may result in fewer questions.

 

PaintNetSignature.png.6bca4e07f5d738b2436f83d0ce1b876f.png

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Good point.

 

Users can go straight to the Docs by pressing F1 in paint.net, but I think adding a link on the forum would be quite helpful.

 

Thank you for the suggestion.

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Done. Here's how it looks

 

V+aAKo6CWwDywAAAABJRU5ErkJgggA=

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No problem. I've flagged this for the next update.

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