BillGoates

I assumed it was a bug, because I expect the Selection Area to be a temporary layer. Like Bob said, this would defeat the ability to augment selections. In addition, I think it would be confusing to the user to have the active tool changed "under their nose." We have deliberately chosen a more Photoshop-style interface here because it enables much more sophisticated editing. Also, we cannot have the selection tools do double-duty as "Move Selected Pixels" tools (e.g. when you have the mouse "inside" the selection) for many reasons. I followed Bob's link. If I rephrase the 'automatically change' to 'a mouseclick automatically changes' it won't conflict with augment selections. To add another selection the Ctrl has to be pressed. I don't think it will be very confusing, but some well chosen mousepointers could help. But maybe I am just lazy when I say I like software to assume I am doing common tasks till I tell otherwise. Thanks for the help, I also followed your link. The image > flatten works on all layers, but couldn't find how to merge a single layer into the background. And it took me some time, but now I know think I understand how to make my selection. It is a little more difficult than in Paint, but I can do better selections.

I tried the wand, but I can't get it to do what I want it to do. Let me give an example. Take an area, half red, half blue. On the red half some text is typed. And I want cut and pasted on the blue half. In MS Paint, I would set the background (secondary) color to red, set selection mode to transparent, select text area, and drag it to the blue half. It doesn't give perfect results, but in many cases good enough, and can be done in only 6 clicks and without shortcut keys. I gave this remark some thought, and I disagree with you. I think alpha channel support is something different, and also not everyone uses image editing software for the same purpose. My warped expectations of software are that software should be smarter than me and make my life easier. Nice workaround, but I rather see the bug fixed. But how do I merge the temporary layer back into the background? I was wrong before, the Undo works fine, only the delete is bugged. The Ctrl-Ins/Shift-Ins for copy and paste is Windows standard since Windows 95, I even think it's required for a Microsoft's "Designed for Windows" certification. Only Mac based applications don't support it. In a previous post you said that the only thing Paint has that Paint.Net doesn't have is the useless spray tool. Besides that a good spray tool can be somewhat useful, it isn't about the amount of features, but it's all about usability. Take for instance an on first looks simple game, Pacman. I have seen hundreds of adaptations of it, but none ever topped the original, because makers of the copies missed the little things. Same goes for Paint.Net, it now is a Photoshop Lite, and I hoped it to be a Paint Plus. For example, for selections Paint.Net has 3 modes compared to Paint's single mode. I understand the advantages of the new selection modes, but I think a few small changes can make it much easier. Like after making a selection rectangle, automatically change to 'Move Selection' mode, if you drag/click from inside the selection rectangle, change to 'Move Selected Pixels' mode. To get back 'Move Selection' mode, use either the toolbox button or click Top-Right Anchor. To start another selection rectangle make one outside the existing area (or use the button). Also don't forget to add a context sensitive popup menu under the right mouse button, but then you have an extension instead of a functional replacement, old Paint users probably won't even notice the difference at first, but all new stuff is still there. Don't get me wrong about my reaction, I think the features in Paint.Net are good, but the user interface can be improved, and in this, I think that in some areas crappy old Paint does a better job.

@Rick: It all depends what hand is free for keyboard use, what keyshortcuts someone prefers. Also I only am an occasional user of paintprograms, so no real interest to learn all shortcuts. But true, MS paint resizing could be improved by allowing the arrow keys to work when an area is selected. Where Paintnet goes wrong with undoing or deleting, is when you paste a selection into an image. When you delete that selection it also deletes the area beneath the selection. Furthermore does PaintNet undo remember a bit too much for my taste, but that is something I can learn to live with. Alpha channel support is great, and is something MS Paint definately misses. But I also need the transparent/opaque mode for selections, the magic wand will not do. But maybe there is another way to do this.

I need a simple paintprogram to do things like enlarge a custom made dialog, or replace a letter on a tooltip button. These graphics have their own shadow or black line already. To enlarge the canvas with one or 2 pixels is faster by dragging an anchor, than going through some dialog, but true, I could have missed some keyboard shortcuts. But most important for me, any application not supporting ctrl-ins/shift-ins for copying and pasting, I will never use. My advise for the developers of Paint.net, take another look at MS Paint. There are a few more little things that are done better in MS Paint. Such as the undo (undoing a copy/paste erases the selection area), transparent/opaque selection mode, mousepointer over anchors)

No, I wasn't talking about selections. But never mind, I just uninstalled Paint.Net. It's a nice try and it has some nice features, but I will stick with regular Paint, for quick edits it still is much better.

I just downloaded Paint.net, and it's quite impressive, but because of some minor issues, Windows Paint will still be my favorite. Most important issue: The regular version supports windows 95 default keys for undo, copy, cut and paste. Ctrl-Insert : Copy Shift-Insert : Paste Ctrl-Delete : Cut Alt-Backspace : Undo As left-hander these shortcuts are much easier to use than the ctrl-c/ctrl-v. Other issues: In Windows Paint resizing the client area is easily done, by dragging anchors. The line and shade around the edit area gives a nice effect, but makes it less clear what is part of the graphic I am working on. I had this problem while trying to edit a graphical messagebox with it's own line and shadow.