paint.net 5.0 beta (build 8376)

[Rick Brewster]

First, check out the post for the first 5.0 alpha build to read about all the latest changes, additions, and fixes. There's a lot!

 

We're now at the beta stage for this release, which means 5.0 is feature complete, translations are complete, and all that's left is to squash any outstanding bugs. If you find any bugs it is very important for you to report them! Do not assume that a bug has already been noticed or will be fixed.

 

This build is available via the built-in updater as long as you have opted-in to pre-release updates. From within Settings -> Updates, enable "Also check for pre-release (beta) versions of paint.net" and then click on the Check Now button. You can also use the links below to download an offline installer or portable ZIP.
 

Here's what's been fixed or changed since the previous build (5.0 alpha build 8368):

• Fixed many long-standing issues with keyboard/mouse focus, whereby tool shortcuts would not work when the mouse was in certain places (e.g. over the Tools or History window)
• Fixed a bug in the Brush Size, Corner Radius, and Font Size drop-downs where the value would be missing from the drop-down list
• Fixed a bug in the Bokeh blur effect where the image would be sharpened or blank when the radius was less than 1.0
• Fixed a few translation related bugs
• Fixed a rare crash in the canvas rendering code
• Fixed the Move Selected Pixel tool's rendering when pixelated selection quality was chosen in the toolbar. The outermost edges were being incorrectly antialiased.
• Fixed the Move Selected Pixel tool's rendering when using Nearest Neighbor and antialiased selection quality. It was sampling pixels outside the selection.
• Optimized startup performance a bit
• New: Added a Direct2D ShadowEffect2 which supports the same HighQuality mode as GaussianBlurEffect2. Plugins can use these for higher quality rendering when it's necessary to avoid certain types of rendering artifacts.
• Changed: The wrappers for Direct2D's built-in Directional Blur, Gaussian Blur, and Shadow effects now default their Optimization property to Quality instead of Balanced
• Removed "Preserve Background" from Rotate/Zoom

System Requirements

• Windows 10 v1809+ or Windows 11
  • NOTE: Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1 are no longer supported.
• 64-bit CPU and 64-bit version of Windows
  • Both Intel/AMD x64 and ARM64 are natively supported.
  • NOTE: 32-bit x86 is no longer supported.
• Optional:
  • A pen or drawing tablet that supports Windows Ink
• Recommended:
  • A CPU that supports AVX2, which includes most CPUs released since 2013.
    • Note that AVX2 is not required. It simply helps performance, especially at app startup.
  • A discrete GPU such as an NVIDIA GeForce, AMD Radeon, or Intel Arc
    • or an AMD Radeon APU (a type of integrated GPU)
    • or an Intel Iris Plus or Iris Xe integrated GPU
  • The GPU must support Direct3D 11. Otherwise the CPU will be used for rendering, which will have poor performance.
  • An Intel CPU with an Intel "HD" or "UHD" iGPU works fine but will probably not show much, if any, performance improvement over previous versions of Paint.NET (which used the CPU for most rendering). The default quality used across the app (e.g. in distortion effects, and the Move Selected Pixels tool) will be automatically lowered to compensate.

Downloads

Offline installers, portable ZIPs, and deployable MSIs are available over on GitHub. The "web installer" will be available at a later date.

 

Here are direct download links for convenience:

• Installer (x64): https://github.com/paintdotnet/release/releases/download/v5.0-beta.5.0.8376.1056/paint.net.5.0.8376.1056.install.x64.zip
• Installer (ARM64): https://github.com/paintdotnet/release/releases/download/v5.0-beta.5.0.8376.1056/paint.net.5.0.8376.1056.install.arm64.zip
   
• Portable (x64): https://github.com/paintdotnet/release/releases/download/v5.0-beta.5.0.8376.1056/paint.net.5.0.8376.1056.portable.x64.zip
• Portable (ARM64): https://github.com/paintdotnet/release/releases/download/v5.0-beta.5.0.8376.1056/paint.net.5.0.8376.1056.portable.arm64.zip

 

[StephanP]

I noticed the following, which may or may not be a design choice.

• Start pdn with a blanc canvas
• the default filename is shown in the top window border
• Open a random adjustment or effect
• the default name receives an asterisk indicating unsaved changes, but nothing has been done as of yet
• without having done any adjustment, click the Cancel button to close the adjustment/effect dialogue
• The asterisk is removed from the filename again.

So, opening an adjustment or effect dialogue in itself triggers the "file is modified" flag, which is removed when the action presumed to be taken is cancelled.
I would have expected this flag to be raised after an adjustment has been made or an effect actually applied, which would be upon pressing the [OK] button.

[AlexDolmatov]

"Crop to selection"
I see no reason to use when selecting the entire canvas. In fact, the action is running idle. We don't have an image outside of the canvas, do we?

[AlexDolmatov]

It may be worth disabling a number of actions (rotate, flip, scale) for single-pixel images (1x1), because these actions will have no effect. For plugin-effects, this is less clear, since there the effects "work" to a certain extent.

[AlexDolmatov]

The properties menu is transferred to the second monitor if there is a border between screens nearby.

Not sure if this is the desired behavior if the program's main window doesn't cross the border.

 

From example:
Black program window with buttons;
White browser window on the entire screen of the first monitor;
On the right is the colored background of the second monitor and the transferred menu.

[Josey21]

Effects/Object/Outline Object does not work. Well it does after Bolt Bait's extension but then it is under selection.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Josey21

[Rick Brewster]

34 minutes ago, Josey21 said:

Effects/Object/Outline Object does not work.

Isn't that one of @BoltBait's plugins? Can you be more specific about how it doesn't work? And do you have the updated version? (BoltBait has updated plugins for 5.0, in this same forum section)

[Josey21]

That is the one. With it it works without it no.

[Josey21]

1 hour ago, Rick Brewster said:

Isn't that one of @BoltBait's plugins? Can you be more specific about how it doesn't work? And do you have the updated version? (BoltBait has updated plugins for 5.0, in this same forum section)

It does not work when you select effects/Objects/Outline object. It does work if you install BB plugin for 5.0 but it also creates duplicates and Plugin errors. For now, I have gone back to 4.3.1.2. Thanks for all the great work you do.

[ReMake]

I don't find in PaintDotNet.Strings.3.resx string for R32 format (Linear, Float) for DDS file type.

 

[midora]

19 hours ago, Rick Brewster said:

• Fixed many long-standing issues with keyboard/mouse focus, whereby tool shortcuts would not work when the mouse was in certain places (e.g. over the Tools or History window)

 

 

I did various tests and for me this fix worked flawless on Win10 now.
 

What I'm still missing is a solution for the non-letter control shortcuts like Ctrl++ (Zoom In) in various keyboard layouts. I expect that paint.net looks for Ctrl+OEMPLUS and Ctrl+ADD. But in many cases you have to add Shift to reach the plus sign. So this is not working in paint.net.

 

In my own applications I'm asking the system which key code produces the plus sign and add Ctrl to get the right key combination.

        if (keyData == DeviceKeyboard.OemCharacterToKeys(Keys.Control, '+')) ...

       

        public static Keys OemCharacterToKeys(Keys modifiers, char c)
        {
            return modifiers | CharactertoKeys(c);
        }

        private static Keys CharactertoKeys(char c)
        {
            // Map character to scan code
            short scanCode = VkKeyScanW(c);

            // Translate scan code to key
            Keys key = (Keys)(scanCode & 0x00FF);
            if ((scanCode & 0x0100) != 0) key |= Keys.Shift;
            if ((scanCode & 0x0200) != 0) key |= Keys.Control;
            if ((scanCode & 0x0400) != 0) key |= Keys.Alt;

            return key;
        }

        [DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
        private static extern short VkKeyScanW(char ch);

 

This would work also if you are changing the keyboard layout while the application is running.

 

To center the content below the mouse pointer in the window Ctrl+. may be used (together with shifting the mouse using Cursor.Position=centerPoint).

 

 

[Rick Brewster]

1 hour ago, ReMake said:

I don't find in PaintDotNet.Strings.3.resx string for R32 format (Linear, Float) for DDS file type.

 

 

@null54, I'm not seeing this in the DdsFileTypePlusStrings ... did it get missed?

[null54]

20 minutes ago, Rick Brewster said:

I'm not seeing this in the DdsFileTypePlusStrings ... did it get missed?

 

Yes it did, I just opened a PR to add it.

[Rick Brewster]

7 hours ago, AlexDolmatov said:

The properties menu is transferred to the second monitor if there is a border between screens nearby.

Not sure if this is the desired behavior if the program's main window doesn't cross the border.

 

From example:
Black program window with buttons;
White browser window on the entire screen of the first monitor;
On the right is the colored background of the second monitor and the transferred menu.

 

Repros for me, but this isn't new. It's a WinForms bug/issue.

 

It correctly pushes the dropdown to the left if the window isn't too close to the border of the monitor, but then it jumps to the other monitor at some point.

 

For example, in this screenshot the window is positioned about (half the width of the dropdown) away from the monitor on the right. If I move the window just a little more to the right, suddenly the dropdown decides to show up on the monitor on the right.

 

[ReMake]

FYI: Settings -> Plugin Errors displays an error for WaveyTransform.dll from PDN v5 Samples (GPU), although this error was not displayed in build 8368.

< snip >

In both builds, the Wavey Transform effect works without problems.

Edited December 7, 2022 by ReMake
Wrong post.

[Rick Brewster]

@ReMake, did you build that yourself? All of the sample effects get built into 1 DLL, not separate DLLs. It's not called WaveyTransform.dll.

[Rick Brewster]

14 hours ago, StephanP said:

I noticed the following, which may or may not be a design choice.

• Start pdn with a blanc canvas
• the default filename is shown in the top window border
• Open a random adjustment or effect
• the default name receives an asterisk indicating unsaved changes, but nothing has been done as of yet
• without having done any adjustment, click the Cancel button to close the adjustment/effect dialogue
• The asterisk is removed from the filename again.

So, opening an adjustment or effect dialogue in itself triggers the "file is modified" flag, which is removed when the action presumed to be taken is cancelled.
I would have expected this flag to be raised after an adjustment has been made or an effect actually applied, which would be upon pressing the [OK] button.

 

This is intentional behavior since version 1.0

[Rick Brewster]

4 hours ago, Josey21 said:

It does not work when you select effects/Objects/Outline object. It does work if you install BB plugin for 5.0 but it also creates duplicates and Plugin errors. For now, I have gone back to 4.3.1.2. Thanks for all the great work you do.

 

It's hard to look into this if you won't be more specific about how it doesn't work correctly 🤔 

[ReMake]

18 minutes ago, Rick Brewster said:

@ReMake, did you build that yourself?

 

Sorry I was wrong. No, I didn't build this effect, but it came to my effects folder earlier (in May) and I forgot to delete it.

 

[Rick Brewster]

Yeah that old thing isn't going to work, you should delete it

[TrevorOutlaw]

7 hours ago, Josey21 said:

It does not work when you select effects/Objects/Outline object. It does work if you install BB plugin for 5.0 but it also creates duplicates and Plugin errors. For now, I have gone back to 4.3.1.2. Thanks for all the great work you do.

Effect > Objects > Outline works fine for me even using PDN V 5.0 beta.

 

Effects > Selection > Outline also works when you make a selection; otherwise, it will render to the border of the canvas.

[TrevorOutlaw]

Just installed the beta. Must say the installation on a SSD was zippy. No complaint on my end.

[JamieP]

Great work bringing pen functionality back, however when using a graphics tablet the cursor flickers between the pen and normal arrow cursor

[Rick Brewster]

3 hours ago, JamieP said:

Great work bringing pen functionality back, however when using a graphics tablet the cursor flickers between the pen and normal arrow cursor

I just fixed that and will be pushing out a new build soon 

[midora]

Accessibility: Mouse Pointer Size
If paint.net could adjust is cursors using the multiplier provided in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Accessibility\CursorSize then this would help some users.
In the moment only the standard arrow and move selection adjusts its size. Size is 16 * (CursorSize + 1). CursorSize [1..15].
BTW: I'm getting the system move cursor for Move Selection and Move Selected Pixels. I thought that earlier they looked more like the icons in the tool window but it's the same in 4.2.16 (win 10) so maybe I'm wrong.