Feature request: fixed windows

[Deluxe Paint]

Hi!

 

Big thanks to those who have made this beautiful software!

 

I just hope that in the future the UI could be customized a bit more and by that I mean the behaviour of the floating windows (tools, history, palette, layers).

 

The problem is what happens when changing the Paint.NET main window size. Sometimes I need to maximize the main window, sometimes I need to split the screen, move the app window to the left or right etc. So the floating windows should move automatically with the main window. But they only do so if they are docked inside the main window!

 

Okay, why not dock them inside the main window then? Well, the reason is they overlap the image! If they are docked to the left, I can't see nor edit the left edge of the image without hassle.

 

400-500 pixel wide fixed panel would solve the issue:

The panel on the left is fixed sized just like the main window toolbar and status bar. The corners of the image area are marked with red. This way, the image edges are always easily accessible and resizing the app window is not a problem.

 

I also hope that one day the color palette window could be configured so that it always starts maximized.

 

Thank you one more time and have a nice day! And sorry for my English.

[Deluxe Paint]

Just one feature request more!

 

What about 20px width / height visible "scrub" area (or whatever it's called) when image is scrolled enough to its edges?

 

 

This would help user in many ways:
- improved visual clue of viewing position
- sometimes the image has one pixel width border that is not enough distinguishable from the scrollbar graphics. Scrub area would make it more distinguishable.
- selecting pixels near the edge would be easier

[Lemonade]

Hi, interesting idea. Reminds me of Gimp and Gimpshop (Gimp with Photoshop panels style).
 

14 hours ago, Deluxe Paint said:

400-500 pixel wide fixed panel would solve the issue:

Downside is the panel width, anyone using laptop (1280, 1366 px width and so on) would probably hate 1/3 or 1/4 of their screen covered with panels.

[BoltBait]

Just drag your docker windows outside of the Paint.NET window.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

20 hours ago, Deluxe Paint said:

why not dock them inside the main window then? Well, the reason is they overlap the image!

 

Keep them docked and simply hide them by pressing F5, F6, F7 & F8 all at the same time   Turn them back on with the same four keys.

[Tactilis]

3 hours ago, Ego Eram Reputo said:

Keep them docked and simply hide them by pressing F5, F6, F7 & F8 all at the same time  

Are you a piano player? 😉

When I try to hit all 4 keys at the same time, I generally miss one of them; now 3 docked windows are gone but one is left displayed. It's a faff to work out which of F5, F6, F7 or F8 I now need to press to remove the remaining window.

What does work for me is to quickly swipe a finger across the keys F5 -> F8 to hide all the windows and then swipe F5 -> F8 again to re-show them. This is easy because my laptop keys are 'low travel'; it might be harder on a 'high travel' mechanical keyboard.

Having a single key, for example F9, to hide/show all the docking windows would be welcome.

[Disk4mat]

7 hours ago, Tactilis said:

Having a single key, for example F9, to hide/show all the docking windows would be welcome.

 

That sounds like a great idea.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

20 hours ago, Tactilis said:

Are you a piano player? 😉

 

101 key standard keyboard:

 

 

These days I use two hands. This is due to my ergonomic keyboard which splits the keys.

 

[Tactilis]

3 hours ago, Ego Eram Reputo said:

 

101 key standard keyboard

...

 

These days I use two hands. This is due to my ergonomic keyboard which splits the keys.

 

The 101 key standard keyboard with the grouped F5-F8 keys makes an easy target for the 4 finger press.
Your split keyboard also makes targetting easy.

Aiming for F5-F8, either with 4 fingers or to do a single finger swipe, is a lot harder on my laptop, hence the request for a key to hide/show all the docking windows.

 

 

[Deluxe Paint]

I'm well aware of these F5-F8 function keys.

And I'm not saying that floating windows should be removed. Some users with SMALL displays may prefer them over fixed tool bars.

But I strongly believe the majority of users would like more if the windows were fixed. Not only because of better window handling and productivity but also because of more intuitive GUI. I have done several Paint.NET installations for not-very-tech-oriented people and I can say they are not comfortable with the floating windows. Especially those who need to use the app only a few times a year.

 

[Ego Eram Reputo]

2 hours ago, Deluxe Paint said:

I strongly believe the majority of users would like more if the windows were fixed.

 

I disagree. I think most users would find they take up valuable real estate.

[Roochie]

The request for dockable tool panels for paint.net keeps appearing regularly. It's clear that some users do want this otherwise it wouldn't keep coming up. It has been for the last 10 years. I've been waiting for this feature for 10 years. Here is an example where it was requested in 2008 and it's periodically been requested ever since.

Why do we want it? Well it depends on the type of user you are. I'm a software tester and often need to quickly annotate screen shots or create documentation screen shots, mockups etc.. I typically don't work in full screen mode because I need to access all of my other apps concurrently. The frustration with undocked panels are:
1) They constantly get lost in my sea of other open windows. I usually have to toggle the top toolbar icons for the panel to trigger some movement on my screen so I can see where they are.
2) I'm using multiple screens and I tend to drag windows all over the place depending what i need to access at the time. Most of the time the panels open on a different monitors to my main window because I've been dragging the windows all over the place. It would make my life %100 better if the panels could be docked.

I appreciate that dedicated graphics users etc... my prefer to have the windows undocked because the application is the main focus of their work. But for others that's not necessarily the case. 
Frankly I don't understand why there are so many arguments and pushback to the idea of making the panels dockable. Understandable that technical it's a bit of implementation work, but with the plethora of available libraries that support docking out there, I wouldn't have thought it's that difficult either. 

[Ego Eram Reputo]

21 hours ago, Roochie said:

1) They constantly get lost in my sea of other open windows. I usually have to toggle the top toolbar icons for the panel to trigger some movement on my screen so I can see where they are.

 

21 hours ago, Roochie said:

It would make my life %100 better if the panels could be docked.

 

Return the Utility windows to their default location with Ctrl + Shift + click on the icons in the toolbar ( and ). Once you've done this they will stay pinned to the corners of the main app window.

[Rick Brewster]

On 8/23/2023 at 3:14 PM, Roochie said:

Frankly I don't understand why there are so many arguments and pushback to the idea of making the panels dockable.

There aren't "so many arguments and pushback" on this idea. It just isn't requested much and it isn't a priority, despite how much you yourself could benefit from it. I'm not saying it wouldn't be good or useful, I'm not dismissing the idea. It's just nowhere near the front of the line, and right now I don't see that changing. I wouldn't hold your breath, in other words.