I suggest...

[brcaswell]

I suggest...

-a non plug oriented developer central under Paint.Net Programming / Development in the forum, that centers around website & Forum, Paint.Net feature suggestions.

-a simple login usermode (no password, cleartext storage) that will track intrguing usage statisics in an effort to personalize Paint.Net to the end user.

-a 'plugin wishlist' page, on the website, that lists known Plugins that the Paint.Net team wishes to gain distribution rights from the author, to be distributed with latest release of Paint.Net App.

[Simon Brown]

-a non plug oriented developer central under Paint.Net Programming / Development in the forum, that centers around website & Forum, Paint.Net feature suggestions.

With the small number of feature suggestions, isn't GD&Q appropriate?

-a simple login usermode (no password, cleartext storage) that will track intrguing usage statisics in an effort to personalize Paint.Net to the end user.

In what way would it personalise Paint.NET? If you're talking about, say, organising effects then see "popular feature requests."

-a 'plugin wishlist' page, on the website, that lists known Plugins that the Paint.Net team wishes to gain distribution rights from the author, to be distributed with latest release of Paint.Net App.

I'm guessing that the developer contacts all developers of plugins that he wishing to gain distribution rights for.

Just my unofficial 20 pence.

[david.atwell]

Yeah, no. I don't get it, and we don't have the ability to do this, anyway.

[brcaswell]

With the small number of feature suggestions, isn't GD&Q appropriate?

No, it's not appropriate at all in the manner of classification.

Topics posted in general discussion that are clearly oriented to the category 'Paint.net Programming / Development' is inappropriate, especially when the only thread visible to the average member is specifically restricted to discussions about plugin development. It sort of makes the whole category pointless, you might as well just create a Plugin category, and move the Development Central and Plublishing Only into it.

Also, I'm quite new to this forum, and thus I haven't recorded, or have an estimate of, how many new feature topics

that have been assessed by your 'unofficial 20' up till now, but rationally speaking, I'm a new member that has made three seperate suggestions in my first post, and I suspect, everyone in this forum has an opinion on what would improve paint.net, that isn't plugin effect related.

In what way would it personalise Paint.NET? If you're talking about, say, organising effects then see "popular feature requests."

no, the term refers to personal identification of the end-user to the application, it has nothing to with paint.net's effects. The implementation of a 'user mode' is the personalization of the application. It gives the user a reason to use Paint.Net over a duplicately 'capable' app, because they, the end-user, have invested themselves to the program, by creating their user name, or creating 'an identity' or 'persona'.

I'm guessing that the developer contacts all developers of plugins that he wishing to gain distribution rights for.

I'm not sure why you persume this, I recently downloaded Paint.Net, and it comes quite bare in effects, and contains no 'plugin' effects. I'm quite certain no attempt has been made to gain distribution rights of plugin authors, so that the developers can distribute the authors plugins WITH Paint.Net, not implement the author's code as source into app.

Yeah, no. I don't get it, and we don't have the ability to do this, anyway.

I'm not sure what you mean, you don't have the ability to add a new thread to the forum? create a webpage and links on the website? create a new win form for the app, then set it as the startup form and writing a few segments of code that read and write dataobjects between a dataset and xml file, or textfile? If you are infact, incapable of doing any of this, then this post was obviously not meant to be read by you. However, it's understandable that you may of thought it might have been, as I'm posting it in a general discussion thread. If only someone suggested a seperate thread, under an existing category perhaps, that one could post a topic that was understandably meant to be read by developers...

More feature suggestions:

- implement drag and drop layering

- scrolling zoom

- Improve the save as feature. Saving a multi-layered, non-PDN image file automatically flattens the project you're working on. theres no logical reason for this.

[david.atwell]

I'm not sure what you mean, you don't have the ability to ...

Ah, I understand now. I thought you were talking about changing the Forum to have a non-password login to track usage stats. I'm sorry; I misunderstood.

As for your other ideas:

a non plug oriented developer central under Paint.Net Programming / Development in the forum, that centers around website & Forum, Paint.Net feature suggestions.

That's what the General Discussion forum is for. Why do we need another forum just for feature suggestions? There aren't that many anyway.

Also, I'm quite new to this forum, and thus I haven't recorded, or have an estimate of, how many new feature topics

that have been assessed by your 'unofficial 20' up till now,

Some, but few.

... but rationally speaking, I'm a new member that has made three seperate suggestions in my first post, and I suspect, everyone in this forum has an opinion on what would improve paint.net, that isn't plugin effect related.p

Most of the people with unique (that is, not-covered-in-the-frequently-asked list) features requests are just posting their one or two in the GD&Q and going on with their lives.

a simple login usermode (no password, cleartext storage) that will track intrguing usage statisics in an effort to personalize Paint.Net to the end user.

Rick hasn't shown much interest in automatic (or, indeed, manual) personalization of the Paint.NET UI in the past. He's always wanted it to remain simple for the newcomer to make a first foray into image editing, and when everyone's user interface looks different because the personalization script, it makes tech suppoert a nightmare.

Oh, and there's no reason to use the word "Simple." Unless you coded Paint.NET, you don't know what would and wouldn't be simple with the program. :-P

no, the term refers to personal identification of the end-user to the application, it has nothing to with paint.net's effects. The implementation of a 'user mode' is the personalization of the application. It gives the user a reason to use Paint.Net over a duplicately 'capable' app, because they, the end-user, have invested themselves to the program, by creating their user name, or creating 'an identity' or 'persona'.

Ease over power.

a 'plugin wishlist' page, on the website, that lists known Plugins that the Paint.Net team wishes to gain distribution rights from the author, to be distributed with latest release of Paint.Net App.

Well, first, there is no Paint.NET team. There is one developer. Sorry to burst your bubble. :-) And the lack of release of plugins with Paint.NET is not a matter of distribution rights; it's a matter of not weighing the program down. Several former plugins have made their way into Paint.NET as a whole; remember, Rick is going for simplicity here, not just power.

I'm quite certain no attempt has been made to gain distribution rights of plugin authors....

You're quite incorrect.

I- implement drag and drop layering

I agree.

I- scrolling zoom

How so? Zooming with the control wheel? Done.

I- Improve the save as feature. Saving a multi-layered, non-PDN image file automatically flattens the project you're working on. theres no logical reason for this.

How is it supposed to save a .JPG without flattening the image? JPGs have no layers.

EDIT: You forgot to ask for ponies and photoshop. :-)

[Crazy Man Dan]

I- Improve the save as feature. Saving a multi-layered, non-PDN image file automatically flattens the project you're working on. theres no logical reason for this.

How is it supposed to save a .JPG without flattening the image? JPGs have no layers.

I believe he's referring to the application behavior, not the end file. It's just a rewording of the common complaint: PDN flattens all your layers when you save, making you have to Ctrl-Z back to where you were. I understand why it's a common question, though: I don't know of any other graphics app that does this - they'll perform the merge and export internally, leaving the layers intact.

Honestly, Paint.NET has been the way it is for as long as I can remember, and I don't know if PDN's innards (or the current plans for PDN4) allow this, or if Rick is even interested in changing it at all.

[Simon Brown]

I understand why it's a common question, though: I don't know of any other graphics app that does this - they'll perform the merge and export internally, leaving the layers intact.

I'm guessing the reason for that is to avoid newbie users who aren't familiar with image formats shooting themselves in the foot when they end up having the loaded file as a JPEG with their layers intact and saving it presuming that this will still be the case in the loaded file. As it is a save function rather than an export function IMHO the application state should reflect that of the file copy when they're sync.

[Lance McKnight]

The only way to prevent yourself from flattening all the layers before exporting the "final" image as a .JPG or .PNG file is to first save the layers as a PDN file, and then use the "Save As.." command to export the final image. That is almost a common sense practice and something a lot of us have growing pain with, unfortunately. Until PDN improves with new release, I don't see any reason to push for a better PDN version. Rick is busy working very hard to improve PDN, and I'm willing to wait patiently for the next version, and in the meantime, enjoy the program as it is.

I got to agree with David on making a personalized PDN. If I'm understanding what the original poster is saying, it sounded like a skinning of PDN, and that's something I would rather avoid since it might corrupt the system file somehow.

This is a very helpful forum where there are a lot of "average" users and experienced users who are more than willing to point the way, maybe to the chagrin of the mods, and the search function to help out.

[david.atwell]

@Storm.Shadow: Or just hit undo after you save. I've always found that to be easier, myself. :-)

[Lance McKnight]

As a co-worker once said to me, "There's more than one way to skin a cat," so if undo works for you, that's great. I have developed a practice to save save, and save before flattening.

Now, if we could work on a batch processing.... (wishful thinking I'm sure)

[Benji2]

Isnt there a batch processor prulin or something soem1 made a LONNNG time ago?

Edit: plugin*^

[Simon Brown]

Yes, Pyrochild wrote a batch processor to go with ScriptLab, but i'm pretty sure you're talking about scripting functions, rather than scripting effects or applying effects to several images.

[Lance McKnight]

This batch function would allow me to apply the same effects to other images rather than manually opening each image, do several effects, save, and move on? If so, then as Homer Simpson famously say, "Dooh!"

Edit: Went to Pyrochild's Plugin Thread and found the ScriptLab, checked my PDN, and lo and behold! I had it right under my nose the whole time.

*sigh*

Doooh!

[david.atwell]

Yup.

[Rick Brewster]

I suggest a better thread title. Please look at [rule=6]rule #6.[/rule]

[brcaswell]

I suggest a better thread title. Please look at rule #6.

hmm... yall are making me out to seem arguementative.. lol

'I suggest' as a title isn't a generic, unspecific title...though it maybe frequently used, it is certainly comprehensible to readers that the content of the post is going to BE suggestions by the author of the post (is deriving the author as 'I' the issue?). Would 'brcaswell suggests...' suffice? I guess I could specify the title more by labeling my suggestions in the topic head, but then what would the body of my post contain, 'refer to title'? haha

my post was about my suggestions, and I was to list them in a single topic/post. I don't suppose you are suggesting that I seperate out each of my suggestions, by posting seperate topics with each topic containing my suggestion in title. That could be quite the spam fest.

I believe he's referring to the application behavior, not the end file. It's just a rewording of the common complaint: PDN flattens all your layers when you save, making you have to Ctrl-Z back to where you were. I understand why it's a common question, though: I don't know of any other graphics app that does this - they'll perform the merge and export internally, leaving the layers intact.

Honestly, Paint.NET has been the way it is for as long as I can remember, and I don't know if PDN's innards (or the current plans for PDN4) allow this, or if Rick is even interested in changing it at all.

Again, although it may mean tedious changes, it really shouldn't be difficult to alter the saveas method to not change the values of the object, or structured object, that it will eventually write to file.

Rick hasn't shown much interest in automatic (or, indeed, manual) personalization of the Paint.NET UI in the past. He's always wanted it to remain simple for the newcomer to make a first foray into image editing, and when everyone's user interface looks different because the personalization script, it makes tech suppoert a nightmare.

Oh, and there's no reason to use the word "Simple." Unless you coded Paint.NET, you don't know what would and wouldn't be simple with the program.

Fair enough, if the developer doesn't want to pursue personalization of the application, or feature personalization in the app, that's understandable.

However, irrelavent of the existing code or even language of Paint.Net (which i presume is a .net language anyway) , it is fundamentally simple to program and indeed implement my suggestion. It's beginner windows programming 101 stuff. Also, when I suggested the user mode login should be simple, and not actually referring to how complex it is to program it, I was actually refering to design. However, again, it's not complex to program it, unless the developer is writing his own language and compiler. In which case, It's still easy to implement, as one could 'simply' write the program in a common language and reference to the compiled app.

As far as tech support, I couldn't see a user needing tech support to address issues with seeing a data view control that displays statisics. What would his question be? "How do I make the 'new projects started:' number increase?". I realize users can ask some pretty bonehead questions sometimes, but I would hardly anticipate a nightmare scenerio. I'm talking about a start page here, not a randomized dynamic property altering code segment, or some insane equivalent.

Ease over power.

The objective is to have, or at least attempt to have, both. Though, I fail to see where implementing a user mode complicates matters for the user, nor does the feature reflect, or affect, the power of the app. So, what do you mean by that?

Well, first, there is no Paint.NET team. There is one developer. Sorry to burst your bubble. And the lack of release of plugins with Paint.NET is not a matter of distribution rights; it's a matter of not weighing the program down. Several former plugins have made their way into Paint.NET as a whole; remember, Rick is going for simplicity here, not just power.

the 'overview' at http://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/en/index.html suggested differently.

By simplicity, you mean it's simplier for the user to download and run the Latest version of Paint.Net then go to your website's forum, read/search through each plugin published topic and (freely) download each plugin individually (or by collection, if the author puts them in a pack), and then extract them to Paint.Net's effects folder?

As opposed to, distributing the plugins with the latest Paint.Net versions, after gaining distribution rights from the same plugin authors that are freely distributing them on your forums?

Look, I can see a reason for not distributing the plugins with the program, as it creates traffic to the site, as well as protects the authors intellectual property to a degree, but simplicity?

Furthmore, I weighed these reasons before making my suggestion.

Anyhow, lets call this a hypothetical then, IF Paint.Net was going to actively gain distribution rights from plug authors, I would suggest the method I stated. A wishlist page, with a status report.

You're quite incorrect.

You quoted me out of context a bit. What I said was in reference to zero plugins in the effects folder after downloading the latest Paint.Net. Still, I may be incorrect about 'attempts' to gain distribution rights, but it's still a little difficult to believe of the 100 or so plugins distributed freely on Paint.Net's forums, that these same authors would refuse all attempts by those associated with Paint.Net to gain a right to distribute the authors plugin. My conclusion was to consider the possibility that the decision maker(s) of paint.net did not want to gain the rights, or didn't consider it. So to correct myself, what I really meant was, 'They (which apparently is 1 man, the paint.net developer) isn't pursueing distribution rights of plug authors, because (aforementioned) there are no plugins being distributed in the 3rd version of the program.'

I agree.

FINALLY!.. haha (now I could be accused of pulling your comment of context)

Most of the people with unique (that is, not-covered-in-the-frequently-asked list) features requests are just posting their one or two in the GD&Q and going on with their lives.

Again, I don't judge these things by trends. I know if I was the developer of the program, I would have a thread devoted to feedback of my program to me (or to those that have experience in developing application) that's seperate from troubleshooting. Infact, this is the first forum that didn't actively embrace, or prompt, feedback.

On that note, how does the developer know whether their application is user friendly, if not from user feedback? You have a plugin feedback thread, though its intended purpose is to publish the plugins. As far as I've read, a lot of plugin authors enjoy and rely on that feedback to improve on their plugin.

It's really quite essential to revisional programming, I'm suprised in the lack of promotion actually.

How so? Zooming with the control wheel? Done.

I see, well, that serves to purpose.

I'm guessing the reason for that is to avoid newbie users who aren't familiar with image formats shooting themselves in the foot when they end up having the loaded file as a JPEG with their layers intact and saving it presuming that this will still be the case in the loaded file. As it is a save function rather than an export function IMHO the application state should reflect that of the file copy when they're sync.

You wouldn't wager on such a guess would you? I'm betting it is actually because the developer is using byreference calls to his object (ie your image project) instead of byvalue calls, and has nothing to do with considering newbie mistakes.

Though, If you're correct, then I suggest...

-creating an options/preference submenuitem under the file menuitem and..

-creating a checkbox control to change a boolean value that will disable automatic flattening of your current active project when performing a saveas method.

Other suggestions...

-include a combobox that contain presets in the new document dialog for common sceeen resolution sizes, and other standards.

...btw, Rick.. what was your degree(s) in? And, are there any other projects you're working on right now?

Also, for the forum, it keeps logging me out when I type out these thought provoking, and subsequently slow going posts.. what is the session cookie value set to, an hour?

[david.atwell]

my post was about my suggestions, and I was to list them in a single topic/post. I don't suppose you are suggesting that I seperate out each of my suggestions, by posting seperate topics with each topic containing my suggestion in title. That could be quite the spam fest.

Yeah, we don't want that. But you haven't changed the topic title. Maybe sum up each of your suggestions in one line.

Again' date=' although it may mean tedious changes, it really shouldn't be difficult to alter the saveas method to not change the values of the object, or structured object, that it will eventually write to file.[/quote']There you go, telling us what would and wouldn't be easy again. :-) Please don't. Rick doesn't like that too much. You may be a coder, but you didn't code this program, so you don't honestly have a clue what's going on.

As far as tech support' date=' I couldn't see a user needing tech support to address issues with seeing a data view control that displays statisics. What would his question be? "How do I make the 'new projects started:' number increase?". I realize users can ask some pretty bonehead questions sometimes, but I would hardly anticipate a nightmare scenerio. I'm talking about a start page here, not a randomized dynamic property altering code segment, or some insane equivalent.[/quote']Even in your description of how much of a nightmare it wouldn't be, you make it sound like a nightmare. Shuffle through some of the troubleshooting requests and see how boneheaded it would be and how much of a nightmare it ends up as.

Ease over power.

The objective is to have' date=' or at least attempt to have, both. Though, I fail to see where implementing a user mode complicates matters for the user, nor does the feature reflect, or affect, the power of the app. So, what do you mean by that?[/quote']Obviously that's the objective. And yes, for the average user, there's not much difference in operation either way...until they have a problem and need to seek help. Until they can't figure something out in the program, and ask us why, and we discover that they've changed the UI so much as to be unrecognizable. What do we do then? For experienced users, yeah, that'd be nice. What about inexperienced users?

You quoted me out of context a bit. What I said was in reference to zero plugins in the effects folder after downloading the latest Paint.Net.

That's because they've been integrated into the forum as a whole.

Still' date=' I may be incorrect about 'attempts' to gain distribution rights, but it's still a little difficult to believe of the 100 or so plugins distributed freely on Paint.Net's forums, that these same authors would refuse all attempts by those associated with Paint.Net to gain a right to distribute the authors plugin. My conclusion was to consider the possibility that the decision maker(s) of paint.net did not want to gain the rights, or didn't consider it. So to correct myself, what I really meant was, 'They (which apparently is 1 man, the paint.net developer) isn't pursueing distribution rights of plug authors, because (aforementioned) there are no plugins being distributed in the 3rd version of the program.'[/quote']I think Rick is intentionally working more on the inner workings of the core program than the plugin API for a reason. Paint.NET is what it is because of the plugins, in large part; it's not something he'd want to render moot by shipping all the plugins with the program.

Besides, plugins must by their very nature be released after the Paint.NET program proper. Since they're coded by outside developers, they must be developed to the specs set out by any current version of Paint.NET. For Paint.NET 3.36, for example, few of the plugins from version 3.1 would work, due to some changes in the environment. But the plugin developers had no chance to see those changes before the program was released, so version 3.36 would either be released with buggy or broken plugins, or with no plugins at all. Your suggestion doesn't work for that reason.

Again, I don't judge these things by trends. I know if I was the developer of the program, I would have a thread devoted to feedback of my program to me (or to those that have experience in developing application) that's seperate from troubleshooting. Infact, this is the first forum that didn't actively embrace, or prompt, feedback.

What do you think the point of this entire forum is? Why do you think the General Discussion subforum is listed first? As a forum admin, I'm actually somewhat shocked by that comment. When I first came aboard this forum, I knew exactly what GD&Q was for.

It's really quite essential to revisional programming, I'm suprised in the lack of promotion actually.

There's a link in the freakin' program! How much more promoted do you want it to be?

Also' date=' for the forum, it keeps logging me out when I type out these thought provoking, and subsequently slow going posts.. what is the session cookie value set to, an hour?[/quote']No, in looking at the cookies my browser has received, it looks like it's set to two weeks. Obviously, that isn't what it ends up working out as, but I really don't understand why you'd need more than an hour...copy to a Notepad file, or get Tab Mix Plus for Firefox and set a tab to reload the forum homepage every five minutes to keep you logged in.

That's something we have categorically no control over. :-)

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Also, for the forum, it keeps logging me out when I type out these thought provoking, and subsequently slow going posts.. what is the session cookie value set to, an hour?

Periodically hit the PREVIEW button when typing long missives :wink:

[Simon Brown]

Or use the Lazarus Firefox extension.

[Rick Brewster]

I recommend reading Raymond Chen's blog, http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/ . A common theme are posts where he repeats questions of the type, "Why doesn't Windows do X instead of Y? It would be so easy, and would make my life so much simpler." and the response is, "Well let's consider the alternatives ..." which he then lists, and concludes that those alternatives are actually far worse when taking into account many other aspects of the feature (or, especially, interactions with other features) that many people (esp. the question asker) wouldn't have thought of.

The case of flattening before saving is one of those. The UX* is obtuse on purpose. If you want to save in a format that only supports one layer, then Paint.NET essentially jumps into "single layer mode". It does that by first flattening the image you're working on. In order to be polite, it tells you beforehand what's going on. Now consider the alternative, if it just flattened within the scope of saving or automatically undid flattening after saving (both are effectively the same, the former is just a little less "clumsy"). Now you'd have all these people saving PNG's and JPEG's and then re-opening the image a day later going, "ACCCCCCCCKKKKKK!!! Where did all my layers go!?!?!? :shock: :shock: :cry:" Paint.NET had essentially broken a promise to the user, one that all editing software is implicitly bound by: saving the current document must not lose any data.

If Paint.NET worked this way, it would be seen as a bug. People would e-mail me every hour of every day asking why their PNG's and JPEG's didn't have the layers in them that they had so lovingly worked on for hours and hours.

Also, if you open a JPEG or save as a JPEG (or PNG or other single-layer-only format) and then add a new layer, then Save will switch over to Save As and pre-populate the file type as .PDN because that's the only format that supports layers. Otherwise you end up back in the previous situation of "lost layers." Like previously stated, it's done this way because the alternative is far, far worse.

* UX = User Experience. Sort of a way to refer to a set of UI and interactions with the user as a whole.

[Rick Brewster]

-a non plug oriented developer central under Paint.Net Programming / Development in the forum, that centers around website & Forum, Paint.Net feature suggestions.

We used to have a general development forum. However, this doesn't make sense to have for Paint.NET, since it is not open source (anymore). Having that forum up was sending the wrong message; that is, it was inviting people to ask questions like: how do I learn C#, why isn't the source code available, etc. Many people presumed that the tag on the source code, "for educational purposes," also implied that there were C# teachers waiting and ready for them on the forum. This was not the case -- there are plenty other forums for that. The forum simply wasn't productive, and like I said earlier it was sending the wrong message, and so it was canned. It is not coming back.

-a simple login usermode (no password, cleartext storage) that will track intrguing usage statisics in an effort to personalize Paint.Net to the end user.

I don't understand this, even after reading your follow-up posts. One of Paint.NET's strong points is that it just does what you want it to do. It doesn't try to outsmart you or give you Clippy-like helpful hints and suggestions. "Oh, hi! It looks like you're trying to draw a caption on a LOLcat..." ... ? Or are you talking about skins or something? Windows itself provides plenty of opportunity for "personalization", both via built-in facilities and by 3rd-party software.

-a 'plugin wishlist' page, on the website, that lists known Plugins that the Paint.Net team wishes to gain distribution rights from the author, to be distributed with latest release of Paint.Net App.

If we want distribution rights, we just ask the author and proceed from there. No need to have a "wishlist page." Many of the built-in effects, and the DDS file type support, used to be available as plugins and were not written by myself.

More feature suggestions:

- implement drag and drop layering

Agreed -- just hasn't ever been done because the code for the Layers window is poor anyway. I'd rather implement drag-drop along with several other features as part of a rewrite of that window, instead of having to do it twice (once in the current code, second time in the newer code).

- scrolling zoom

Huh? Scrolling is movement on the X and Y axes. Zooming is (essentially) movement on the Z axis. Both are supported, and have bindings to the mousewheel. Normal mousewheel scrolls up/down, hold shift for left/right, and control for zoom in/out. It follows proper Windows and UI conventions.

- Improve the save as feature. Saving a multi-layered, non-PDN image file automatically flattens the project you're working on. theres no logical reason for this.

See my previous post. It's 100% logical. Any other design would be disastrous.

Honestly, Paint.NET has been the way it is for as long as I can remember, and I don't know if PDN's innards (or the current plans for PDN4) allow this, or if Rick is even interested in changing it at all.

It would not be difficult to remove the forced flattening. It would just be a far worse alternative (see previous post).

A wishlist page, with a status report.

Why do I need to report status to you? :? Why not just go install the plugins that you like? Seems to me that your suggestions are all variants of, "I want you to do a whole bunch of work so that it makes my life a teensy bit easier." Although, heck, if you're willing to pony up cash at a rate of 200 USD$/hour, then we can talk alllll you like.

If you're correct, then I suggest...

-creating an options/preference submenuitem under the file menuitem and..

-creating a checkbox control to change a boolean value that will disable automatic flattening of your current active project when performing a saveas method.

More checkboxes and more options do not solve anything. They actually make things worse.

I'm betting it is actually because the developer is using byreference calls to his object (ie your image project) instead of byvalue calls, and has nothing to do with considering newbie mistakes.

You're betting? I'll take your bet. You're wrong. I win! You have no knowledge of the Paint.NET source code, please stop making assumptions about it and saying that features "are easy", etc. There is more to implementing a feature than just hacking out some code fueled by a liter of Mountain Dew and a quiet Saturday night. Again, I refer to Raymond Chen's blog -- read all of it! There's a wealth of information in there and much of it is relevant here. Paint.NET is about 180,000 lines of code. It has more complexity than you realize.

...btw, Rick.. what was your degree(s) in? And, are there any other projects you're working on right now?

I have a Bachelor's of Science degree in Computer Science from Washington State University. I graduated cum laude ("with honors" -- 3.63 GPA), and also have a minor in Mathematics. Right now I'm working at Microsoft in the Windows Client Performance division, and have project(s) there that I work on full time.