The Plugin Browser v2.0.0.1 (Oct 15, 2023)

[toe_head2001]

The Plugin Browser

by

The Dwarf Horde

 

This is an official continuation of the excellent Plugin Browser originally put together by @TechnoRobbo, @Red ochre,  @BoltBait, and @Ego Eram Reputo.

 

Spoiler

Changelog

 

v2.0.0.1

- Fixed: no longer loads Assemblies incorrectly; now uses AssemblyLoadContext.

 

v2.0.0.0

- Changed: You can now apply multiple filters

- Changed: When you find the Effect you want in the list, you can now run it by double-clicking on the list item.

- Fixed: Minor theme improvements.

 

v1.4.0.0

- Fixed: Compatibility with Paint.NET v4.3

 

v1.3.1.0

- Fixed: Plugins can now be loaded from My Documents on classic installation of paint.net

- Changed: The once-a-month download of the Plugin Index will now happen silently.

 

v1.3.0.2

- Fixed: Fixed reported crashes

 

v1.3.0.1

- Fixed: The Author and the Alphabetical radio buttons got mixed up, during some refactoring in v1.3.

 

v1.3.0.0

- Changed: Effect rending is now done within The Plugin Browser's Render() override

 

v1.2.1.2

- Fixed: Corrected an index bounds check

 

v1.2.1.1

- Changed: Initial scanning of installed plugins is now more robust.

- Fixed: The parsing of the downloaded plugin index is now a little less error prone

- Changed: The left-hand listbox no longer needlessly displays tooltips. Tooltips are now only shown if the text is overflowed/clipped.

 

v1.2.1.0

- Added: Compatibility with paint.net Dark Theme.

 

v1.2.0.7

- Fixed: Compatibility fixes for the new format of the Plugin Index.

 

v1.2.0.6

- Fixed: No plugins were listed when using the AppX (Store) version of paint.net.

- Changed: Added some metadata properties for Plugin authors with multi-language plugins.

 

v1.2.0.5

- Fixed: Misc issues with how the plugin dialog was loaded.

 

v1.2.0.4

- Fixed: Selecting a Bookmarked effect would show an error message.

 

v1.2.0.3

- Fixed: There was an issue with downloading the plugin Index, due to URL changes on the forum.

 

v1.2.0.2

- Fixed: There was an issue with parsing the downloaded plugin Index.

 

v1.2.0.1

- Fixed: Some plugins were not being detected and displayed.

 

v1.2.0.0

- Changed: The Plugin Browser now loads significantly quicker.

- Changed: The search results for Suggested plugins (plugins not installed) are now cleaner looking and show descriptions.

- Fixed: Letter casing (Capitols/Uppercase) wasn't being ignored in the effect ListBox. Regression in v1.1.x.x

- Fixed: In rare cases, plugins would show incorrect icons (ex: Evan Olds' plugins).

- Changed: Many cleanups and optimizations.

 

v1.1.0.2 (Dec 30, 2016)

- There is now a catch-all for plugins without Author info.

 

v1.1.0.1 (Dec 1, 2016)

- Force UTF-8 text encoding when downloading the plugin index

 

v1.1.0.0 (Oct 9, 2016)

- Can properly fetch index updates from the forum again

- Asynchronous download of the Index

- Significantly less UI lockups/freezes

- Removed the bloated and verbose help file

- User Interface cleanup

   - Use a standard ListBox for list of effects

   - HiDPI fixes

   - Respects themes in Windows (e.g. High Contrast, ect.)

   - Disable the Bookmark & Run buttons when they won't have any effect.

   - Cleaner 'Effect Information' pane

 

~~~~~

 

The Plugin Browser was designed to make installed plugins easier to locate and identify, especially when a large collection of plugins is installed.
 
The Plugin Browser does this by allowing the User to search alphabetically by plugin name, keyword(s), author or menu location.  Included in these searches are the Plugin Title and Description. Once you find a plugin, you can run it right from inside of the Plugin Browser.
 
The Plugin Browser gives the User the ability to Bookmark their favorite plugins and add their comments to bookmarked plugins so they can identify it and make notes about its use.
 
As well as being a search tool, the Plugin Browser is capable of displaying an embedded image which we call the Sample Image.  The idea of the Preview Image is to give the User a visual clue to the plugin’s function.  In most cases the Sample Image will be an example of the effect or adjustment.

 

The Plugin Browser can also suggest plugins that you don't have but may want to download.  Once a month the Plugin Browser downloads a copy of the Plugin Index.  This file is used to match keyword searches against plugins by parsing the plugin descriptions from the Index.

 

 

 

The Plugin Browser Plugin

 

 PluginBrowser-Installer.zip

 

or

 

PluginBrowser.zip

 

 

 

Plugin Browser Tutorial for Plugin Authors

Visual Studio & CodeLab

Edited October 15, 2023 by toe_head2001

[Red ochre]

Thank you Toe_head2001!

 

As TechnoRobbo is sadly missing from the forum (and greatly missed), toe_head has very kindly fixed the index download problem and made many other improvements based on TR's original code.
I highly recommend users to download this latest version.

 

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Many thanks Toe-head & welcome to the Horde!

 

This new version of the Plugin Browser is much, much faster. Do try it. It may transform how you deal with plugins in paint.net.

 

[Eli]

Thanks Toe_head2001, I knew there was a little dwarf hidden inside you.   Thanks to the Dwarf Horde too.

[lynxster4]

Thanks toe_head!     It loads so much quicker now.  Looks nice, too.

[pokolo1]

toe_head2001, thank you for the excellent thing.

 

I have a problem on a freshly installed windows & paint.net
Installation goes well.
when I run the plugin he wants to download new plugin index, resulting in the error:
"the index is outside the bounds of the array"

screen: puu.sh/ssSwm/fdb0a96a72.png

[toe_head2001]

On 11/24/2016 at 3:48 AM, pokolo1 said:

when I run the plugin he wants to download new plugin index, resulting in the error:
"the index is outside the bounds of the array"

screen: https://puu.sh/ssSwm/fdb0a96a72.png

Thanks for reporting this. I have confirmed the issue on a Russian installation of Windows. I'll try to resolve the issue this coming weekend.

[toe_head2001]

Version 1.1.0.1 posted.

 

When downloading the plugin index from the forum, The Plugin Browser was using the default text encoding of the OS. This caused an issue for non-latin locales.

The Plugin Browser now explicitly uses UTF-8 encoding when doing the download.

[xod]

UTF8 encoding is always the best solution.
I expected that Windows 10 to come up with this solution for Notepad utility.
But disappointment! ANSI encoding (by default) is still preferred by M$.

 

Thanks toe_head2001 for your very clever work!

[Panchdara]

I do like this plugin. I have one issue that might help? When there are plugins where there is no Author then that plugin is not listed when listing by Author, rather than showing a blank in the Author column (or show "Unknown"?)

Other than that, great addition to the application. Thanks very much

Hugh

[toe_head2001]

2 hours ago, Panchdara said:

When there are plugins where there is no Author then that plugin is not listed when listing by Author, rather than showing a blank in the Author column (or show "Unknown"?)

I never noticed 'blank authors' were excluded. I'll have to resolve that in the next version.

 

What's worse is that some of my own plugins show no author. How'd that happen?! I'll have to update my plugin pack too.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Plugin Index has that info. If the Author field in the plugin is blank just populate it from the Index.

[Panchdara]

Many thanks ToeHead and Ego. Didn't mean to be bearer of bad news. Ego, I'm not familiar enough with PDN and it's plugins so don't fully understand your statement.

 

Best

Hugh

[toe_head2001]

8 minutes ago, Panchdara said:

Didn't mean to be bearer of bad news.

"Bearer of bad news". Non-sense! Please report issues.

 

6 minutes ago, Panchdara said:

Ego, I'm not familiar enough with PDN and it's plugins so don't fully understand your statement.

Don't worry, his comment was directed at me, not you.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Sorry Hugh. My comment was more directed at Toe-Head who is working on the Plugin Browser code.

 

The Plugin Index (link in my signature) details the author of every plugin. As the Plugin Browser imports the Index (when allowed) we should be able to match any missing author info behind the scenes.

 

Beaten to the reply by Toe-Head

 

 

[toe_head2001]

On 12/4/2016 at 9:55 AM, Panchdara said:

When there are plugins where there is no Author then that plugin is not listed when listing by Author, rather than showing a blank in the Author column (or show "Unknown"?)

Done. Version 1.1.0.2 posted.

 

 

Note to plugin authors whose plugins are listed under the "- unknown -" list item:

Please don't forget to add author info to AssemblyCompany. For example:

[assembly: AssemblyCompany("toe_head2001")]

If you're using CodeLab, then it's obvious where the author info goes...

 

I myself am guilty of leaving it blank in a few of my plugins. Those will be updated soon.

 

 

 

On 12/4/2016 at 1:15 PM, Ego Eram Reputo said:

Plugin Index has that info. If the Author field in the plugin is blank just populate it from the Index.

Unfortunately, easier said than done. There aren't that many plugins without author info anyway, so not worth the effort.

Creating an "- unknown -" list item only required adding 3 lines of code.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

6 hours ago, toe_head2001 said:

Note to plugin authors whose plugins are listed under the "- unknown -" list item:

Please don't forget to add author info to AssemblyCompany. For example:

[assembly: AssemblyCompany("toe_head2001")]

If you're using CodeLab, then it's obvious where the author info goes...

 

I myself am guilty of leaving it blank in a few of my plugins. Those will be updated soon.

 

The evil side of me want's to post a "list of shame"

 

[Panchdara]

+++ Thanks Toe_Head.... Happy New Year!

 

Best

Hugh

 

Ego... is that a mean streak in ya?  Happy New Year.

[toe_head2001]

Version 1.2 posted.

 

This release is nice and fast. You no longer have to wait for the dialog to load; it's ready nearly instantly.

On my main computer, with about 390 effects installed, the plugin opens in ~0.33 seconds.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

^^ Oh that won't do at all. What you need is a great big announcement that users will see...

 

Plugin Browser is much faster now!!

[Panchdara]

Troublemaker here again.... Toe Head, thanks for that last update - certainly seems faster. I believe I may have "discovered" another bug undocumented product characteristic. I am playing about with Bruce Bowyer-Smyth's BLUR effects and they are not showing up in the browser. Under Effects/Blurs they are named "(GPU)...Blur". I guess the label beginning with open parenthesis "(" might be an issue? Hope not a bother.

 

Best, Hugh

[toe_head2001]

On 1/22/2017 at 2:56 AM, Panchdara said:

I am playing about with Bruce Bowyer-Smyth's BLUR effects and they are not showing up in the browser. Under Effects/Blurs they are named "(GPU)...Blur".

 

Usually, a plugin will derive directly from paint.net's Effect class.

For example: MyCoolEffectPlugin -> Effect

So to identify a plugin, the Plugin Browser checks for that Effect base class.

 

However Bruce's GPU plugins are structured a little differently. More like this:

MyCoolEffectPlugin -> XyzClass -> AbcClass -> Effect

 

So that is why his plugins are not showing up in the Plugin Browser; it's not able to identify them as plugins.

 

 

Thanks for reporting the issue. Hopefully I'll have it resolved within the next few days.

[toe_head2001]

Version 1.2.0.1 posted. This is fixes the issue with the Hardware Accelerated Blur plugins. Thanks for reporting the issue, @Panchdara.

 

Just had to use  Type.IsSubclassOf to check if they're derived from the Effect class.

 

 

[mackenzieh]

How is the plugin browser installed? The user guide should explain it and it doesn't.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Plugin Browser is a plugin. Install it like any other: Copy the unzipped *.dll to your paint.net/Effects folder & restart paint.net..