Can a plugin be created in Visual basic - if so how?

[St.Jim]

Subjects says it all realy. I am fairly new at programming, but have made some good progress (Made a paint program - not as good as PDN tho , and a web browser) But I was wondering, can a plugin be created in VB? If so, how do I go about doing this - and If it requires annother programming language (e.g C++, C# e.t.c) can someone give me a quick run through? Thanks in advance!

[BoltBait]

Most plugins are written in C#. Read this thread for CodeLab (a compiler for Paint.NET plugins): viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1096 It also includes links to 3 tutorials to get you started.

If you want to write a plugin in VB.NET, then look at this template: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=23004

[Rick Brewster]

Please remember to post in the right section. Thanks.

Moved to Effect/Development

[St.Jim]

Thanks so much for this! I can't get to grips with C# or C++ and prefare VB! I'll try out the file and get back to you on how it goes!

Oh and sorry for posting in a silly place - I didn't scroll down far enough :oops:

[harold]

If you can program in VB you can program in C#, it's just the syntax that's different (cleaner in C# imo)

[Rick Brewster]

C# 3.0 = (I'd use a 'heart' but we don't have that emoticon ...)

[St.Jim]

Lol - programming sucks the life out of me...

I rarther use a program than create one - dunno why I started VB - I tried to make a paint program and failed misaribly (still better than the program included in Windows )

There goes my Job at microsoft

[Simon Brown]

Lol - programming sucks the life out of me...

I rarther use a program than create one - dunno why I started VB - I tried to make a paint program and failed misaribly (still better than the program included in Windows )

Did you actually manage to create anything that works? You say what you created was better than the ones shipped with Windows.

[St.Jim]

OK, well kind-of, it was better in the fact that you could change the size of a brush by more than 3PX. I have the file here so you can try it out This is the last build that I am gonna do of it - because I know of no more code I can put in to make it better - and I have ruined the vb files

http://cid-bb23b25e4e6df83f.skydrive.li ... ta%7C6.zip

Just click download - don't worry - no virus' --But if you want to you can scan it to double check

[laviewpbt]

It seems to be that few people use VB to create a paint programm.But in fact ,VB,especially VB 6.0 can also process image with high efficiency。We can also use pointer in vb as in c++ with a littile difference.

I have made a paint programm with vb6.0 that works fast. Most effect algorithms in the sourcecode of paint.net can be easily converted to the code form of vb6.0. Here is some codes that makes the same effect with paint.net's Tile functions.

Public Function Tile(Optional ByVal RotationAngle As Long = 30, Optional ByVal SquareSize As Long = 40, Optional ByVal Curvature As Long = 10, Optional ByVal Quality As Long = 2) As Boolean

Dim i As Long, j As Long

Dim k As Long, Red As Long

Dim Blue As Long, Green As Long

Dim x As Long, y As Long

Dim HalfWidth As Double, HalfHeight As Double

Dim SinValue As Double, CosValue As Double

Dim ScaleFactor As Double, Intensity As Double

Dim s As Double, T As Double

Dim TempX As Double, TempY As Double

Dim Width As Long, Height As Long

Dim U As Double, V As Double

Dim xSample As Long, ySample As Long

Dim Samples As Long, Temp As Long

Dim DataArr(0 To 2) As Byte, pDataArr(0 To 0) As Long

Dim OldArrPtr As Long, OldpArrPtr As Long

Dim LineAddBytes As Long, PixelAddBytes As Long

Dim DataArrC(0 To 2) As Byte, pDataArrC(0 To 0) As Long

Dim OldArrPtrC As Long, OldpArrPtrC As Long

Dim mPtrC As Long, m As Long

Dim PixelNumber As Long, DealedPixel As Long

If mImageMode <> RGBMode And mImageMode <> GreyMode Or mHdc = 0 Then

RaiseEvent ErrorOccur("Cannot Processing it.")

Exit Function

End If

RaiseEvent ProgressStart(InnerCall, 0)

If RotationAngle < -180 Then RotationAngle = -180

If RotationAngle > 180 Then RotationAngle = 180

If SquareSize < 1 Then SquareSize = 1

If SquareSize > 800 Then SquareSize = 800

If Curvature < -100 Then Curvature = -100

If Curvature > 100 Then Curvature = 100

If Quality < 1 Then Quality = 1

If Quality > 5 Then Quality = 5

Width = Me.Width

Height = Me.Height

HalfWidth = Width / 2

HalfHeight = Height / 2

SinValue = Sin(RotationAngle * 3.1415926 / 180)

CosValue = Cos(RotationAngle * 3.1415926 / 180)

ScaleFactor = 3.1415926 / SquareSize

Intensity = Curvature * Curvature / 10 * Sgn(Curvature)

Samples = Quality * Quality + 1

ReDim Points(Samples - 1) As PointF

For i = 0 To Samples - 1

TempX = (i * Quality) / Samples

TempY = i / Samples

TempX = TempX - CInt(TempX)

Points(i).x = CosValue * TempX + SinValue * TempY

Points(i).y = CosValue * TempY - SinValue * TempX

Next

For k = 0 To UBound(DealRect)

PixelNumber = PixelNumber + (DealRect(k).Right - DealRect(k).Left + 1) * (DealRect(k).Bottom - DealRect(k).Top + 1)

Next

PixelAddBytes = mBmpInfo.biBitCount / 8

MakePoint VarPtrArray(DataArr), VarPtrArray(pDataArr), OldArrPtr, OldpArrPtr

MakePoint VarPtrArray(DataArrC), VarPtrArray(pDataArrC), OldArrPtrC, OldpArrPtrC

mPtrC = GlobalAlloc(GPTR, mBmpInfo.biSizeImage)

SuperCopyMemory ByVal mPtrC, ByVal mPtr, mBmpInfo.biSizeImage

If mImageMode = RGBMode And mDealChannel = R_G_B Then

For k = 0 To UBound(DealRect)

pDataArr(0) = mPtr + mWidthBytes * DealRect(k).Top + DealRect(k).Left * PixelAddBytes

LineAddBytes = mWidthBytes - (DealRect(k).Right - DealRect(k).Left + 1) * PixelAddBytes

For j = DealRect(k).Top To DealRect(k).Bottom

y = j - HalfHeight

For i = DealRect(k).Left To DealRect(k).Right

Blue = 0

Green = 0

Red = 0

x = i - HalfWidth

For m = 0 To Samples - 1

U = x + Points(m).x

V = y - Points(m).y

s = CosValue * U + SinValue * V

T = -SinValue * U + CosValue * V

s = s + Intensity * Tan(s * ScaleFactor)

T = T + Intensity * Tan(T * ScaleFactor)

U = CosValue * s - SinValue * T

V = SinValue * s + CosValue * T

xSample = HalfWidth + U

ySample = HalfHeight + V

xSample = (xSample + Width) Mod Width

If xSample < 0 Then

xSample = (xSample + Width) Mod Width

End If

ySample = (ySample + Height) Mod Height

If ySample < 0 Then

ySample = (ySample + Height) Mod Height

End If

pDataArrC(0) = mPtrC + ySample * mWidthBytes + xSample * PixelAddBytes

Blue = Blue + DataArrC(0)

Green = Green + DataArrC(1)

Red = Red + DataArrC(2)

Next

DataArr(2) = Red \ Samples

DataArr(1) = Green \ Samples

DataArr(0) = Blue \ Samples

pDataArr(0) = pDataArr(0) + PixelAddBytes

If i Mod 200 = 0 Then DoEvents

Next

DealedPixel = DealedPixel + (DealRect(k).Right - DealRect(k).Left + 1)

pDataArr(0) = pDataArr(0) + LineAddBytes

If j Mod 20 = 0 Then RaiseEvent Progressing(DealedPixel * 100 \ PixelNumber)

Next

Next

End If

GlobalFree mPtrC

FreePoint VarPtrArray(DataArr), VarPtrArray(pDataArr), OldArrPtr, OldpArrPtr

FreePoint VarPtrArray(DataArrC), VarPtrArray(pDataArrC), OldArrPtrC, OldpArrPtrC

RaiseEvent ProgressEnd(InnerCall, 0)

Tile = True

End Function

So with the update of paint.net,1 will update my paint software at the same time .I really appreciate your great work.

Sorry about my poor english.

[Aziz]

=/ Should've posted that in code tags.

Anyways, if I understand correctly, you can write plugins in Visual Studio using the Paint.NET API, right? And since it is .NET, any language on the .NET platform can be used (Visual C++, VB, C#, even J#). It's all compiled to the same stuff, so even if most of PDN is written in C#, you can access it with VB (.NET, of course, no one should be using VB 6 anymore).

And just a word on VB. You said you tried C++ and C# but prefer VB. Now's our chance to learn something different. C++ would be a big step to grasp the memory management concepts, but C# is managed and garbage-collected, and does everything VB does with more (except it doesn't do all the bad things VB does). There's a lot of great online tutorials out there for it - go ahead and look.

C# is also very similar to Java (Except, from what I hear, C# 3.0 has a lot of new features that us Java developers have been hoping for in Java 7)

[harold]

Including real events (instead of a hackish interface trick), delegates, pointers in unsafe code, easy integration with native libraries/programs and the ability to make a thread from any method

Which have been there before C#3 too..

That new LINQ stuff is cool though (especially PLINQ)

[Rick Brewster]

LINQ is awesome. It simplifies so many things -- even command line parsing.

const string helpString = "/help";
var helpArgs = args.Where(s => 0 == string.Compare(s, helpString, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase));
var otherArgs = args.Except(helpArgs);
if (helpArgs.Count() > 0)
{
   PrintHelp();
   return;
}
else ....

(and even that's fairly verbose ... it could easily be simplified and made more expressive/succinct)