First of all, a *huge* thanks to Rick for developing this most excellent software! It is fantastic, exceedingly flexible, and provides a truly amazing set of tools to spark creativity. Also thanks to the developers and publishers of the vast array of plugins that takes the base software and makes it even more amazing!
That being said, I too was seeking a way to bypass the superfluous (at least to me :) 'Save Configuration' dialog box that surfaces every single time I wish to save a copy of a file in a different format (i.e., use 'Save As'). Rick has stated very clearly that this is not a bug, it is a feature and one that he does not intend to 'correct' despite requests here:https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/31775-can-save-configuration-popup-be-by-passed/ and here:https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/115251-disable-window-save-configuration/. That's fair, paint.NET is his baby and if that's what he prefers then so be it. It was worth it to me, however, to seek an alternative to 'just hit enter twice', since I purely hate RSI.
I dusted off AutoHotKey (https://www.autohotkey.com/), a generic Windows-based hotkey scripting program that I used to use to fix the most irritating user interface errors in Lotus Notes, nearly 20 years ago. I was pleased to see that the AHK community and codebase has been flourishing, and the most recent version is fully compatible with Windows 10. After a bit of investigation, I put together the following AHK script that a) waits for the paint.NET 'Save Configuration' window to become active, then b) sends an immediate 'Enter' keypress to dismiss it and save the file using the default settings.
;*********************************
;AutoHotKey Script
;captain_carrot
;Jan 1, 2021
;*********************************
;* Monitors for the superfluous 'Save Configuration' dialog box in paint.NET. When found, sends an immediate 'return' keypress to bypass and save immediately with default settings
;* To disable this behaviour, simply stop this script
;*********************************
; Sets the window title matching mode
SetTitleMatchMode, 3
; This is the tooltip that pops up if people hover over the script in the system tray
Menu, Tray, Tip, In the world-class paint.NET program this script automatically`nclears the extra 'Save Configuration' dialog box when saving.
; The following procedure will only run if paint.NET is the active window, and will keep resetting to the 'Start' label as long as the script is running
#IfWinActive, ahk_class WindowsForms10.Window.8.app.0.b7ab7b_r6_ad1
Start:
WinWaitActive, Save Configuration,
Send, {ENTER}
Goto, Start
;********************************
To use this script, you will need to
a) install AutoHotKey on whatever system is running Paint.NET. Here is the download link: https://www.autohotkey.com/download/ahk-install.exe
b) copy the above script into a text editor, saving it as <whatever filename you want>.ahk
c) double-click on the newly-created ahk file (note: if it opens in Notepad, change the file extension from .txt to .ahk)
That should be it. Now every time the Save Configuration dialog box surfaces, it should be dismissed with an 'Enter' keypress automagically.
Hope that is satisfactory to everyone: we are not mucking with the code to 'fix' this relatively minor user interface anachronism, yet people who find this extra dialog box sufficiently annoying will now have a way to bypass it automatically.
Best regards, and goodbye to 2020!
cap
p.s. AHK is useful for tweaking all sorts of weird Windows quirks, so if this is your first time reading about it, hope you find it a useful tool in other areas of your digital life! I am by no means an expert, but the beauty of AHK is that you don't need to be an expert to get the results you are looking for...much like paint.NET, now that I think of it: in both cases the software is just that good 😄
