Stroke effect on text, the outline for readibility, feature request with reasons

[DeerDance]

I know about boltbait's and pirochild's plugins

But I believe its time to have the text outling feature as part of the default text tool

• using the plugins with closed circle letters and longer text it can take ridiculous time to do the outline, adding innards of A, B, D, O, P, Q, R to the selection so that inner lines are outlined as well
• 
• It's a feature that many young meme makers will look for when they dont feel like doing their stuff online, but I feel like its essential beyond just silly memes
• making 10+ clicks to get it with plugins, instead of ~2 clicks if it were default part of the text tool, that feels inefficient

It's just that I am the IT guy in my circles and it's starting to bother me, how I have to babysit and install plugins for the less tech-savvy people because paint.NET lacks that feature and I am the guy who lead them to paint.NET so it's suddenly my responsibility. I even have to record gif of how to do it with the plugins, so they can remember later...  new layer, magical wand, select empty space, add innards with ctrls, go to effects,... you know...

 

maybe have a look at the linux competition? No, not gimp, I mean Pinta, its nowhere near as good as Paint.NET but they did the text outline right

 

Thanks for reading.

 

 

Edited July 26, 2015 by DeerDance

[Ego Eram Reputo]

You're doing it all wrong if it takes that amount of time.

 

1. Open a new blank image (it will have a white background by default)

2. Add a NEW LAYER.

3. Activate the text tool.

4. Select your text font and size

5. Click on the canvas and start typing on the new layer

5. Run Object > Outline and either will do ALL the outlining - inside the characters as well. All in one go.

 

Notice there is no selection required.

 

The reason you're having trouble is that you're not putting your text on it's own layer. Therefore the plugins don't know where the "holes" are.

 

Always put your text on it's own layer which is otherwise transparent

[DeerDance]

Thanks! I always did a new layer for text, but somehow I got the idea that I need to have something selected to have that's object outlines

It still sucks that text does not have stroke or at least paint should have outline plugin present out of the box.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

@BoltBait has released an "Outline Selection" plugin - you may have confused the "Outline Object" plugins with that.

Outline Selection - requires a selection (obviously ) and creates the outline within the selection.

Object Outline - requires pixels be on a transparent layer. Outlining occurs outside (or in addition to) those pixels by recoloring the transparent pixels at the edge.

 

BTW: "object" refers to a pixel or group of pixels surrounded by transparency. All the plugins under the Effects > Object sub menu require surrounding transparency to operate correctly.