Help Create a Paint.NET Online Review!

[Sozo]

I've been in contact with Samer, creator of the Freeware Genius website, one of many freeware sites I frequent. He's offered me the opportunity to write a review for Paint.NET that he will publish on his wonderful website.

This is where you guys, the community, come in. I want to collaborate with all the Paint.NET users here to create a review that will interest people. The basic outline could go something like...

1. A description or summary of the program's abilities.

2. Key features/points we want to highlight.

3. Pros/cons.

4. Requirements

I also want to include info about this forum, and especially the plugins section. And a screenshot would be great, maybe one of Ash's or Rick's car one.

I would advise you guys check out Samer's website, not only to get an idea of what to include, but to look around, it's a great site.

Here's an example review from here:

Circle Dock: a beautiful, highly customizable launcher

Author: Samer

*screenshot*

Description: Circle Dock is a free, customizable launcher in the shape of a circular dock that can grant instant access to your favorite programs, files, or folders.

If you’re looking for a launcher for your favorite apps, folders, and/or files take a look at this one. Circle Dock looks like a circular version of the Mac dock and manages a balance between being useful and practical on the one hand and providing a visually interesting launcher with a lot of room for creative customization and on the other. More notes below:

* Activated by hotkey: (F1) by default. Also invoked by middle mouse-button and moving the mouse over a side of the screen. All of these can be customized and/or switched off (which is good if you, like me, don’t care much for things popping up on screen when you accidentally move the mouse over the edge).

* Drag and drop: to add icons to the launcher simply drag and drop program execs, files, folders, bookmarks, etc. Dropping shortcuts will work too, except the launcher will always point to those shortcuts rather than their target destination and the connection will break if the shortcuts are removed or moved.

* Behavior: you can rotate icons on the circular "disc" with the arrow keys or mouse wheel. Great effect, but apparently has no practical function. Hovering over the icons will display the title of the program, file, or folder.

* Managing shortcuts: done by right-clicking on the icon, whereby both the Windows context menu entries and the Circle dock entries are available. You can set command line parameters for each item on the dock as well as the startup folder. You can also drag and drop icons to change their placement.

* Organize in dock folders: you can create dock folders that can help organize your shortcuts (e.g. a folder for bookmarks or for your personal files or for all video-related software, etc). Clicking on the button in the middle of the launcher will bring you back from folder view into the main view.

* Customizable: most every feature can be changed/customized in the settings section, including the icons, the visual style of the dock itself (as well as it’s width, transparency, etc.) as well as the "button" at the center of the dock. The behavior of most every visual element is customizable as well.

* Icons: comes with a large collection of cool icons that can be used to further customize your apps and folders, should you feel that the default icons are not up to the coolness standards required.

* Memory consumption: approx 10 megs or so, it seems. This is a .NET app so memory use is a bit ambiguous - I’ve seen it at as little as 6 megs and as high as 11 megs. Memory use seems reasonable/acceptable overall.

* Installation: unzip and run. Not a portable app though as it requires .NET. Add to the startup folder if you want it to start with Windows.

Wish list

* A way to launch shortcuts without using the mouse: for example, rotating the disk with the arrow keys until the icon was in a "special place" and pressing enter. I want this only to make the rotation action somewhat meaningful .

* Automatically link to the program/file behind the shortcut: this would be great. It would mean that if I drag a shortcut from my desktop onto the launcher and then delete the shortcut Circle Dock would maintain the connection to the actual program.

* Automatically remove extensions from the names of items added to the launcher: if I add drag Firefox.exe to the launcher and hover over the icon I would prefer "Firefox" to be displayed rather than "Firefox.exe".

* A hotkey to instantly display all the icon labels on-screen.

* Automatic centering: the launcher can either appear where the cursor is placed or it can be permanently placed wherever you want it. It would be nice if a third option was provided to automatically center it on screen.

* Bugs: this is alpha software and I experienced some bugs that lead to crashes. Expect these to be fixed in upcoming versions.

The verdict: this is a well rounded launcher overall (sorry could not resist the pun!), and manages to provide a user experience that is different from the usual Mac-dock style launchers such as RocketDock. I like that it can hold shortcuts not just for apps but for favorite folders as well. One thing to note is that unless you customize the icons for your various folders they will tend to look samey and somewhat uninteresting next to the cool program icons, so… go ahead and customize your folder icons; Circle Dock provides plenty of good icons for you to choose from.

Version Tested: 0.9.2 Alpha 8

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista (32 or 64 bit) and a "somewhat recent" graphics card. Requires .NET Framework 2.0 or higher for XP

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 7.6 megs).

This is the basic framework we'll be following.

So what do you do if you want to contribute? Post your ideas here!

[del_diablo]

Since i got nothing better to do I THINK i will write a piece:

Paint.Net is a simply 2d picture/grapic/art editor, it is a open source editor like GIMP. It got layers, alpah, neat buildt in tools, stable versions, a source for editing and a decent plugin support.

What is the big difference is that this image editor is using the microsoft .NET framework, and that it got a less messy interface than GIMP.

GIMP is divided into 3 messy chunks where PDN is 1 big chunk, and its easyer to se stuff.

While GIMP got a ridiculessy messy interface, PDN is clean. This is where the difference begins.

The layers is in 1 chunk and can be an eyesore so its also a hotkey to remove it til you feel like bringing it back with the same hotkey:

And also what is really making people go for Paint.Net, the pallete. Like layers its also liked to 1 key for removing, getting back. Did photoshop have someting so userfriendly? Nope, Gimp? Nope, Paint? Nope! Just move the dam thing or click it and voila you got an color, if you hit the more button you got some more stuff you will likely need anyway like Alpah and similar things:

And on the top is the basic stuff in order as following: name of what your editing, size you view it in, version of PDN. And the somewhat standard tools and layout:

Paint.Net got a unlimited History redo(hotkey remove/visisble too), somewhat standard tools(select, magic wand, brush, paint bucket, that stuff), and then the plugin!

Plugins is what is importent to Paint.Net, and it are the "Why is PDN h4x????" Arguemtn you can use against 1337-speakers, but also against people who know what their doing but yet has to sworn their eternal marriage oath.

I mean, Paint.Net got amazing plugins like Shape3D, random plugin, a ridiculess amount of Distort type plugins, Varius fire effects, i do not know how man Rendering effects, Water stuff, and a ridiculess lot more.

Simply, the only problem over there might be keeping a certain controll over it. But a plugin manager is rumored to come on the 4.0 version, so we will jsut have to pray for it It could make life eayer.

Pros:

*Powerfull

*Fast

*Clean interface

*User friendly

*Plugins(way to many somebody said)

*Easy adding plugins

*Supports many filetypes

*Big community

*Many tutorials

*Palette

*Free software

*Open Source

*Shape 3D

Conz:

*It takes time to start the download of the plugins

*It can take time to find your buggy plugins and remove them

*No buildt in remove plugin utility(this IS a pain, simply because at times i want to remove all faulty plugins)

*No plugin auto-updater

*2 people working on Paint.Net itself(aka new versions takes time)

*Lacks a proper buildt in brush tool

*Lacks to be able to build in new tools

*Consumes and eats RAM for dinner in certain cases

*Does not support other Operating Systems by default

*No scrollbar while browsing plugins, rarely a need, but when its first needed its a big need.

Requirements:

*a semi-powerfull PC i guess

*Windows with .NET framework

I acutally got no clue on this, nor have i an old computer at hand to test it. I guess 0,5-1gb ram should do it, storage should be big enogh for a few pictures, i got noe clue on grapic card nor proccesor frequency.

-del_diablo

[Sozo]

Pros:

*Powerful

*Fast

*Clean interface

*User friendly

*Plugins(way to many somebody said)

*Easy adding plugins

*Supports many filetypes

*Big community

*Many tutorials

*Palette

*Free software

*Open Source

*Shape 3D

Conz:

*It takes time to start the download of the plugins

*It can take time to find your buggy plugins and remove them

*No buildt in remove plugin utility(this IS a pain, simply because at times i want to remove all faulty plugins)

*No plugin auto-updater

*2 people working on Paint.Net itself(aka new versions takes time)

*Lacks a proper buildt in brush tool

*Lacks to be able to build in new tools

*Consumes and eats RAM for dinner in certain cases

*Does not support other Operating Systems by default

*No scrollbar while browsing plugins, rarely a need, but when its first needed its a big need.

Requirements:

*a semi-powerfull PC i guess

*Windows with .NET framework

Thanks for your input! I emphasized a few points I thought were noteworthy. Also, I like the comparison to GIMP. It's a fairly well known product, so presenting Paint.NET as an easier, yet powerful alternative would be worthwhile.

[del_diablo]

I did not really know how to describe PDN, nor how you wanted the outcome so it did kind of become a ridiculess rant I guees unless other memeber got free time, this would in the end have to do(and that not good because this is just 1 pair of eyes).

[LJXD]

This is a great idea. Definetly mention the big community dedicated to helping out and getting users started. Also mention the fact that theres only Rick doing the whole thing, and that he doesnt sell out. People love it when products dont try and redirect them to crapware or install 3rd party trial programs on their computer.

[Sozo]

Amen to that. Lack of crapware and a No BS Developer are definitely being added. An yep, Paint.NET's community is definitely going to be part of this review.

[Simon Brown]

*Powerfull

I would reccomend removing this point and breaking it down into several points. Photoshop or GIMP users would probably disagree, although it would seem very powerful to PBrush users.

*Clean interface

*User friendly

I agree mostly here.

*Plugins(way to many somebody said)

I agree that plugins are a huge advantage, although I advise against posting any opinions that you cannot attribute to a particular person.

*Easy adding plugins

This will probably not be the case if the only plugin system the readers have experienced is Firefox, where installing them is much easier.

*Supports many filetypes

In my opinion, it supports very few out-of-the-box, and with not huge contrast even to PBrush. Additionally most paid-for software I have used support a wide range of formats. (Hint: MS Office Save-As menu)

*Big community

*Many tutorials

What counts as a big community? There are many more Photoshop, GIMP, PSP and probably PBrush users than of Paint.NET, so naturally they probably have larger communities. Whether they are better is another question.

*Palette

I gather you mean custom palettes?

*Free software

*Open Source

I would not personally call Paint.NET "open source" given that there isn't even a public version control system and they do not accept code contributions. "Free Software" is also a term closely associated with "Open Source".

*Shape 3D

I suggest placing details of this in the plugin item, along with ScriptLab and Smudge.

*It takes time to start the download of the plugins

Yes, umm... downloading thing takes time.

*It can take time to find your buggy plugins and remove them

I agree here.

*No buildt in remove plugin utility(this IS a pain, simply because at times i want to remove all faulty plugins)

*No plugin auto-updater

As well as here, and this contradicts the part about "easy installation of plugins".

*2 people working on Paint.Net itself(aka new versions takes time)

I agree here.

*Does not support other Operating Systems by default

I agree, although I suggest mentioning Paint-Mono.

Requirements:

I suggest simply posting a copy of the official system requirements here.

[Sozo]

Points taken Simon. :wink:

I agree that mentioning Paint.Mono is a good idea. Your point about the plugins (not so easy adding) is also taken. When I talk about plugins, incidentally, it won't be advertising. I'll just give an overview of some of the best known ones.

After the soccer game tonight I'll try to pound out an outline.