Suggestion: shorter suggestion lists

[semhoze]

1st, thanks for all your great work guys and especially to Rick for starting it all - I just did all editing work for my new online business (icons, logos, banners, etc) in PDN. I also did some photo editing work some time time ago in PS and PSE and don't miss them at all!

I'm not a pro, so apologies in advance if some suggested features don't make any sense.

In no particular order:

1) My vote for Export in addition to Save As. Export would simply do Save As but without replacing current file format PDN is editing. It's quite annoying: saving a file as pdn to preserver layers, then saving it as jpg, closing jpg, and reopening pdn file, over and over and over again.

2) General approach for temp overrides to speed up work. Some examples:

a) Holding Alt while clicking to start Text would turn off AA for that particular text that you are about to type - regardless what the setting on the toolbar is.

holding Ctrl while selecting region with Magic Wand would set tolerance to zero temporarily - regardless what the setting on the toolbar is.

These temp overrides, imho, should be discussed and unified across many tools before implementation, so that for example Alt can be set to temp disable AA for whatever tools AA is applicable/implemented, while Ctrl can be for zero tolerance (selections, masks, eraser, clone/stamp, etc).

3) Ants like in PS - it really helps seeing what's selected.

4) Color picker that can go outside of PDN while picking colors - very handy.

5) Plugins folder (Effects) - PDN should look in subfolders recursively too, if any, so that one can create those and organize plugins anyway one likes. For example, if I want to try some plugins and don't find them of use, I can just delete that folder I created for them and keep everything clean. Right now, I have a whole of bunch of them in one and don't know what belongs to whom and what are dependencies. That would also help with organization if plugins are accompanied by config or other files and prevent conflicts and dlls being overwritten.

5a) Perhaps Plugins menu item tooltip should show full path of the dll implementing that effect - very handy for removing bad/unused plugins or, once 5) is in place, finding author: Effects\BoltBait\BadPlugin.dll ;-)

6) pdt extension for templates - this is like dot or xlt. Those would be just pdn files with renamed extension so that PDN would not overwrite them if we click Save, but prompt for a file name assuming pdn extension. Pretty much the very same way MS Word defines dot files: user-created starting points (just documents) with automatic protection from being overwritten if user forgets and clicks Save. Save As dialog would of course offer pdt type.

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Hope this helps. I'll keep them coming.

Thanks for listening.

 

Edited February 18, 2012 by semhoze

[BoltBait]

I resent the implication that any of my plugins are bad.

BTW, Rick has stated in another thread that marching ants will be back in Paint.NET v4.0.

[Rick Brewster]

Yeah in 4.0, although I've determined the moment that antialiased selections come into the picture, they will have to be scaled back. I think it's a reasonable trade-off.

* This is not a promise of antialiased selections in 4.0.

[semhoze]

Rick, why don't you bring BoltBait and some other guys on board, do an LLC, and commercialize PDN? I'd have no problem paying $99 for it - well worth the money. That way, you'd have more time to do more work and make this big. PSE cannot compete with PDN, and even PS can become a clean target at some point.

You could also allow closed-source paid-for add-ons so that people can make a living from it and create incentives to bring even more quality to PDN.

Thoughts?

[BoltBait]

Rick, why don't you bring BoltBait... on board...

He can't afford me.

[semhoze]

General question: could we get a list of all the tools that do AA automatically without possibility to be turn off? Example: It seems that Move Selected Pixels does AA upon resizing even if Quality=Pixelated? Imho, AA should be controllable by user (on, off, Alt key for temp off) for any applicable tool. Otherwise, image degradation is based on number of actions even though the final result may the same - e.g. same object size achieved by 10 resizes vs 2 resizes. I know that degradation is present even without AA, but in much lesser degree and it's easier to spot.

7) Separating image types from file extensions (animated gif vs regular gif) - there is a plugin that had no choice but to save as agif, which we had to rename manually afterwards.

8) This is a major design suggestion (hope it makes some sense): ability to rearrange layers in any hierarchal order - pretty much like folders in OS. Layers will be in a parent-child relationship. This way, one can organize what's behind what and which layers & sub-layers compose one logical group - so instead of having to remember that 5 layers starting with no 6 compose that fancy text effect, you would simply see that in the layers list (e,g, parent layer with 5 children).

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Paint.NET is a registered trademark of dotPDN LLC

Ants and Layer hierarchy: http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/2940-

[semhoze]

Paint.NET is a registered trademark of dotPDN LLC

Ants and Layer hierarchy: http://forums.getpai...hp?/topic/2940-

Thanks for the link EER.

LLC was my money reference and not a registration one. PDN has grown and now it's a major effort to work on it while there's no compensation. That's why so many open-source projects get abandoned - you have to be wealthy to be able to afford working on it for free. People underestimate software production costs and efforts involved - just because the barrier of entry is low.

Edited February 20, 2012 by semhoze

[pdnnoob]

Rick, why don't you bring BoltBait and some other guys on board, do an LLC, and commercialize PDN? I'd have no problem paying $99 for it - well worth the money. That way, you'd have more time to do more work and make this big. PSE cannot compete with PDN, and even PS can become a clean target at some point.

You could also allow closed-source paid-for add-ons so that people can make a living from it and create incentives to bring even more quality to PDN.

Thoughts?

I know a fairly large group of people that would move to GIMP...especially those without a credit card that can't buy stuff online without parental permission.

As for me, I'd go cry in a corner because GIMP gets buggy on my computer. I would have to resort to pirating photoshop because I don't have the heart to steal from Rick.

Edited February 20, 2012 by pdnnoob

[semhoze]

I know a fairly large group of people that would move to GIMP...especially those without a credit card that can't buy stuff online without parental permission.

As for me, I'd go cry in a corner because GIMP gets buggy on my computer. I would have to resort to pirating photoshop because I don't have the heart to steal from Rick.

Rick, could you please talk to those parents? ;-)

Jokes aside, my dear young Sir, you have to realize that $99 is nothing compared to all the benefits you can get from it - you can actually make a living by doing business card / logo design for your clients, etc, etc - all in PDN. Every time Rick improves it, you automatically get better productivity for yourself. What are you going to do if Rick can no longer afford to work on it for free - what's the benefit? Is keeping those $99 going to change your life in any significant way?

You are still young, but you'll eventually learn that great talent, great ideas, and great work are hard to come by, and every time you do, you should rejoice. So, tell that fairly large group of people to do some house chores or get a temp job at the fast food restaurant and earn $99 for PDN.

[Rick Brewster]

Or they could recommend it to all their friends, which is free