Phred

He wants to view two pictures side-by-side. Actually, it's less that than having a consistent way to switch from document to document - alt tab, to be specific. Yes, I know about ctrl-tab or whatever it is, but it's still not alt-tab. I know it may seem obnoxious or naive to say "it seems easy," and though I'm not a Windows programmer, I've done more embedded stuff, and I have at least an idea of what features could probably be easily left undisturbed and which would hopefully be a very short list. When you have a program that prevents multiple instances, does it actually start to run a second instance and then hand off the document to the first instance and shut down? If so, that would "probably" be a very easy fix. The overwhelming majority of MDI and the rest of the code remains untouched (assuming that is how the multiple instance blocking works). I can't for the life of me figure out why people want different document switching conventions for different types of documents, but to each their own. I just appreciate it when you can address 2 different approaches and satisfy everyone, as Firefox has done since they added tabs (bleck).

Well, generally, I agree, but a single 'settings' or 'options' entry under the edit menu probably wouldn't lead to any major overload. You wouldn't even have to mess with the 'file -> open' or thumbnail code, just one check box to allow (or disallow) multiple instances. Or is it much more complex than that?

Hi again, just seeing if anyone has had any time to look at making the forced-MDI interface optional and allow multiple instances. I didn't see any options in 3.20, and it still intercepts external attempts to open an image or run another instance.

Awesome, thanks Bob! It may not seem like it, but I did search and most places have removed it or redirected any links from 2.72 to 3.01. Oldversion.com didn't have it either.

Thanks. Is there anywhere to download older versions? I can't seem to track down 2.72. Thanks again!

PdN is made to open images. I said, "intercept opening a new image an optional thing." IOW, instead of intercepting the opening of another image from Explorer by a currently running instance, allow a new instance to run. I think we all understand that this program opens images, and asking it not to isn't very useful. Precisely what I was getting at - and not surprisingly, Firefox was the reason for the last time I joined a forum dedicated to an application and asked how to tear out some feature that some percentage of the population was totally ga-ga over . Thanks for taking the time to consider it and reply - but I hope it's something that might remain on the table for future builds. What's the last release before it went MDI, and are there any critical bugs to be aware of? 3.x seems much snappier, but I'd gladly sacrifice some speed for SDI. Thanks.

Well, alternately, just don't prevent other instances from running, and make intercepting opening a new image an optional thing. I know that's probably easier said than done, but it would be nice to have both options available.

I know there are some related topics, but is there any way to make the MDI interface optional, or at the least not prevent another instance from running? I can't stand MDI interfaces, especially for something like this. Alt-tab (IMHO) should take you to any document you have open. Yes, I know about ctrl-tab or whatever it is, but that's annoying to me. All that said, I'm really enjoying Paint.NET. Great program, and nice speed improvement with 3.x.