Random April Thoughts
April 7, 2009 – 11:29 amIt’s April and we finally have some sun in Seattle and I haven’t posted in awhile.
Paint.NET runs pretty well with Parallels on my MacBook Pro, although there’s a few quirks to squash. Hmm … they have an affiliate program. I smell a revision to the System Requirements coming soon. Do you know how many requests I get for a Mac version of Paint.NET? 
“Should Competent Programms be “Mathematically Inclined”?” — Absolutely, Jeff. I can’t believe anyone would question this. “Math is hard, let’s go shopping!” *faceplant*
Paint.NET v3.5 is coming along, but slowly. I haven’t had as much time or motivation, and it’s difficult when you don’t have a build that works because of ancillary code you broke in areas that you don’t really like (the Recolor tool comes to mind).
Blackjack is fun, especially when you’re winning.
27 Responses to “Random April Thoughts”
D’oh. Apparently competent “programmers” don’t have to be good spellers though. My ‘edit post’ button in Wordpress is broken right now so I’ll just leave a comment instead
By Rick Brewster on Apr 7, 2009
I’ve been using Paint.Net since I don’t know when, and I would love to be able to use Paint.Net on my Mac too!
By André on Apr 7, 2009
Do you have an ETA on a beta release of Paint.NET 3.5?
By UltraCody on Apr 7, 2009
Might want to check the date on that Coding Horror posting.
By Nathaniel on Apr 7, 2009
I’ve tried out Paint.NET with VMWare Fussion, and it works pretty well. VMWare has always been a bit more solid than Parallels for me.
By Gus Mueller on Apr 7, 2009
Nathaniel — It wasn’t an April Fool’s joke.
By Rick Brewster on Apr 7, 2009
What about Paint.Mono? Does it run on Mac?
By Lex Li on Apr 7, 2009
Lex Li, you mean “paint-mono” ? Who knows. From what I understand and remember, it has never been completed, nor is it even remotely up to the latest Paint.NET version (it’s based on 3.0). I’m not involved in that project, other than that I gave an unofficial blessing and made sure they didn’t use the name “Paint.NET” (for trademark reasons).
By Rick Brewster on Apr 7, 2009
I just wanted to let you know, PDN scored third place on a “Which Image Editor is Best” poll over at livehackers.com. Congrats (and I really miss it after switching to Linux…)
By Mathias on Apr 8, 2009
Rick,
Mono is pretty solid. I am running a fairly major application on both Windows and Linux that was developed completely in .Net. Although Paint.NET is very cutting edge, the project is quite willing to work with you. Download the Mono Migration Analyzer (MoMA) and run it against your code. It will identify the problem areas. Then send in the results and it will flag you areas of concern as areas for them to work on, because there is someone that cares.
I know going multi-platform is a big commitment, but I’ve always found it a fun challenge. YMMV
By Edward on Apr 9, 2009
I gotta learn programming for mac, but i don’t have a mac yet. PDN is a great editing program, so it will be nice having PDN for mac. you just need to be a mac programmer. and the plugins you’d need like everyone to make a different type of plug in type.
By Spritemoney on Apr 10, 2009
Isn’t the purpose of the Mono project to allow .Net applications to run on Mac? It does seem to be in active development still. They just released an update a bit ago. Has anyone tried running Paint.Net on Mac under Mono? I don’t have a Mac to test with. I know that the last I read through the documentation Mono wasn’t “complete”, as there were some methods that didn’t work with Mono, and I don’t believe there was any support for P/Invokes… This may have changed though, and I do remember that was on the roadmap when I checked last. I think it’s a pretty good project though. Hopefully it will continue development as it has.
By Matthew on Apr 10, 2009
sun in Seattle? YOU LIAR! GET OUTTA HERE YOU DURN POSER!
By gubment_cheez on Apr 12, 2009
Settle down, Beavis.
By Rick Brewster on Apr 13, 2009
Hrm, a Mac version of Paint.NET? I support this only for the wider distribution of Paint.NET in all its awesomeness. However, the portability of C# is questionable. Perhaps C++…?
By Fission on Apr 14, 2009
Edward - Ok. I’m still not porting to Mono.
Matthew - I don’t know.
Fission - It wouldn’t be a Mac version of Paint.NET. It would be a recommendation to use the Parallels emulator.
By Rick Brewster on Apr 14, 2009
I think one of the great things about Paint.Net over other packages is it’s native feel. I fire up PDN and I know how to work it. Even the custom bits ‘fit’ like the thumbtabs and the way tools go semi-transparent.
Using GIMP, Photoshop CS4 or PaintShop Pro X2 just feel like another mess of an interface for no obvious benefit.
I guess I would prefer a Paint.Net fork from a dedicated Mac Developer that would get the OS X interface down perfectly. Not that Rick couldn’t manage it, but getting one guy to develop a dual platform app is a bit of an ask.
Although not free, Pixelmator seems to be doing on OS X what Paint.Net does in Windows.
By Chris on Apr 15, 2009
I managed to compile paint-mono for OS X a few months ago.
It does work somewhat, but it crashes a LOT. The fact that it compiles out of the box is nice, I’m sure it could be turned into a usable tool with a few hours of work. I find myself booting into VMWare Fusion just to use it, even though I purchased a mac native editor a few weeks ago. (Not going to mention which one, but it doesn’t have a clouds plug-in which I’ve gotten used to using a lot of quick backgrounds.)
By Paul K on Apr 17, 2009
Woah! You’re sooo lucky, you live in Seattle.
Hmm…that’s a good idea, I have a PC and a Mac OS Leopard, it’d be nice to have Paint.NET on Macs. (I hateeeeee Gimp, it’s so bulky!)
Carry on, carry on.
By Lish on Apr 18, 2009
It works perfectely with Parallel on my Imac. Good software!
By paint.net on Apr 21, 2009
If I could have a better selection tool… it would perfect. By this I mean the ability to move around an existing selection without losing the previous selection and also resize it if I need to make adjustments. Good luck on your work and thanks for all the work you’ve put in.
By Peter on Apr 21, 2009
Peter, you can already do that. Just switch to the Move Selection tool.
By Rick Brewster on Apr 22, 2009
Seashore is a nicer GIMP for mac. I was thinking if libpdn is portable, it should be easy for a Cocoa# app to use the PDN core.
By Calvin on Apr 28, 2009
It is good time for you to take some rest before the final run for 3.5 release…
By Olivier on Apr 28, 2009
I love PaintDotNet. Nice to hear good news.
Will need to go through the docs on a weekend..
I wish to learn how to build PDN plugins - not sure where to start
By John Williams on May 4, 2009
Thanks for creating Paint.net - ever since I’ve used it on a PC, I’ve been so annoyed at not being able to use it anymore, when I’m on a Mac.. Just for this software alone, I may have to install some form of MS Ware, so that I can use Paint.net - just trying to get something as simple as the HexCode for a colour off an image appears to be impossible in all the 20 odd apps I’ve tried that are freely available for the Mac, or even at a cost..
If you ever do decide you’d like to collect contributions towards a Mac version of the software, then please do be sure to let me know, as I’d happily pay to help support you develop and code up a version that would work natively on OSX! Cheers for making such an awesome product!!
By Farhan Rehman on Aug 31, 2009
I like this program a lot and I hope for an OSX version as well. If a contribution will help development, I would gladly help too. This lightweight program really makes a difference.
By Kleng Hodnefjell on Nov 9, 2009