Like I said before, the first concrete work I’m doing for Paint.NET v4 is focused on the installer and updater. A lot of people have told me that they use Paint.NET infrequently, or that when they start it up they "just want to get something done really quickly." Updates really get in the way of that, and people are starting to get used to Firefox’s ability to install an update after you’ve finished your current session. As a result, many people are still sitting on old versions of Paint.NET. Bummer 😦
Paint.NET v4 will support this:
I’m choosing to not have a "cancel" or "do not install" button in order to better encourage (trick?) people into installing the update. However, it’s still possible to skip out on installing the update … just click the ‘X’ in the top right corner.
The wording and graphics are still first draft. I’ll probably want a separate button icon for each of them.
Unfortunately this all won’t be available until v4 ships … which means that a v3.xx -> v4 upgrade, which requires the installation of .NET 3.5 SP1 in many cases, cannot benefit from the more casual "install once I exit" option.
On another note, the "Optimizing performance for your system…" portion of installing, which uses ‘ngen.exe’ to precompile Paint.NET, is much faster now with .NET 3.5 SP1. I’ve also made the installer report real progress on this operation instead of using the "marquee" or "indefinite" mode.
Another thing I’m doing is implementing features in an order such that I could potentially ship a Paint.NET v3.50 from this codebase if I decided it was necessary. It might be a good idea to get .NET 3.5 SP1 installed on everyone’s systems sooner rather than later!
30 comments
2008-08-21 at 5:24 pm
Andrew D
The forums are down again….>_>
Otherwise, I’d test this out, but after the bizzare glitch I got the other day, I’m going to let the updater do it’s stuff :p
2008-08-21 at 5:29 pm
Tom
Nice, rick. I just read the blog post about 3.5sp1’s NGen improvements. Have you done much benchmarking on the new/better x86 code? They’re talking about a number of optimizations, like better abstraction stripping (lowering the “cost of abstraction”, as they said). A lot of PDN’s stuff already explicitly does this by way of the pointers, but I’d be interested to see how the perf is improved.
-tjackson
2008-08-21 at 7:49 pm
Cody
Looks good. I can not wait to try the beta out. 😀
Yeah, the forums are down again. Bummer. 😦
“A lot of people have told me that they use Paint.NET infrequently”
Hmm, Odd. I use it everyday. <_<
Stay “Painty”
Cody
2008-08-22 at 12:55 am
L.Rawlins
Can we also have a ‘Paste into active layer’ alongside ‘Paste into new image’ and Paste into new layer’ please.
I have a layer set that I reuse but currently whenever I try to paste something into one there is no easy method of re-using those prior, pre-configured layer assets. You have no choice but to add new ones.
One for the suggestion box. Thnaks for your time.
2008-08-22 at 1:45 am
TheFlamer
I just can’t wait!
Paint.NET is a raster graphics editor, have you ever thought of adding vector graphics editing? Just a suggestion
TheFlamer
2008-08-22 at 1:53 am
Simon
Good concept I do often skip the update because i need to do something now, but then forget to run the update afterwards. But I really think you should have a cancel – don’t update option that is more easily discoverable than the ‘close’ window option.
2008-08-22 at 2:00 am
pipp92
i hate it when the forums are down 😦
it’s so boring without them 😀
2008-08-22 at 2:00 am
Zagna
Bit unrelated, but could it be possible to get an ‘usage statistics’ update?
2008-08-22 at 9:22 am
Rick Brewster
L.Rawlins – What about just regular ‘Paste’ ? That will paste into the current layer …
TheFlamer – Not really. You might try InkScape though, I’ve heard good things about it.
2008-08-22 at 10:07 am
Christophe
Sorry to say this, but I’m not too fond of the method.
You should at least (imho) provide a checkbox to skip the message box for one month.
Anyway thanks for your work !
2008-08-22 at 10:29 am
Alex
When will the forums be back. Im socialy bored.
2008-08-22 at 10:30 am
Rick Brewster
Christophe — The dialog won’t come up again for another 5 days, which is the interval that Paint.NET checks for updates. It’s not like it’ll be pestering you every single time you start the program.
2008-08-22 at 11:29 am
HITMAN-X-
Nice Rick. One thing I got to ask you however. I open Paint.NET for a matter of a few seconds somedays just to do a quick fix and then close. So if I pick the Install on Exit how will I know if PDN is done with the download. Will there be a download precent box in the conner of the screen while I am in PDN ? If I close out before it done downloading will it still download the rest of the file ?
Another question for you. I know we don’t like people using old versions, I know I don’t as I spend most of my time helping people on the forums in T&BR. But as we have seen some people get errors just by updaing. Is there a way to addin an option called Roll Back and Update were Paint.NET will roll back to an old version and then force the new update over again in hopes of fixing an update problem.
PS: I not sure but this is day 2 of no forums for me. I get a 404 page, yet I can get to forumer. Is the forums down or is something up ?
HITMAN-X-,
2008-08-22 at 12:22 pm
Crazy Man Dan
While I agree with the spirit behind the dialog – wanting to keep everyone up to date – I think not having a “Remind me later” style button makes the program look a little pushy. In the end, it’s up to the user whether or not they want to update, and hiding that option seems a bit nefarious, even if unintentionally so.
Perhaps, though, this could be countered by allowing the user to define at first install whether or not they want PDN to check for updates. I’m not sure whether or not that feature exists already – it’s been ages since I did a fresh install.
Other than that one ethical quibble, though, I’m definitely looking forward to the “Update on exit” feature. I’ve more than once canceled out of an update because I just needed to quick-fix a photo right just now.
Thanks for all your hard work. 😉
@Hitman:
The forums were down for me most of yesterday with a non-responsive server. There was about an hour yesterday where the server was responsive but the database was corrupted so the only page that would show was a SQL error message.
Forumer itself was down for a lengthy period of time yesterday as well, but they seem to be working fine now.
2008-08-22 at 12:29 pm
Rick Brewster
HITMAN — If you close Paint.NET before it finishes downloading, then it will just bring up the same “Downloading the update…” dialog that you’d see now.
Basically all that “Install When I Exit” does is immediately hide the updater dialog, and then when you close Paint.NET it just re-shows it and makes sure that termination of the process gets to be controlled by that instead. So, in this case, the update is still being downloaded and thus the update dialog will still be in the ‘Downloading…’ state.
CMD — Don’t worry, I’ll be paying attention to feedback on the lack of a “Do Not Install” / “Cancel” button 🙂 On the one hand, it’s harder to figure out how to accomplish that. One the other hand, it’s much more convenient to proceed with the update now that there is a “install at exit” command.
And yes, the forums are down. I can’t even access forum.forumer.com right now.
2008-08-25 at 4:19 pm
Uncle MythMan
Awesomeness! This feature is one that will enable all smart paint.NET users to have some extra time to ‘flow while the inspiration-bugbite’s still bleeding!’ Thank you!
2008-08-25 at 9:21 pm
Max
waiting fir amazing up date !!
thx !
😀
2008-08-28 at 3:44 am
edison23
hi, just a suggestion: i was wondering if its possible to implement some feature to rotate just the selection of image, not whole layer. because if i wanna rotate something in image i have to put it into a new layer and rotate/zoom layer. 😦
thx very much 4 your work!
2008-08-30 at 8:00 am
Mark
I like the sound of the P.NET 3.50 route, where it starts as basically a port of current code to .NET 3.5 SP1, and then grows from there, with beta releases, and occsional stable ones for those that like to live safely.
2008-09-02 at 4:49 pm
Jamie
Fantastic! So glad to hear this, the “interrupt my work and update” is the #1 thing that I’ve been wanting from Paint.NET. Keep up the great work, and thanks for such a great piece of software!
2008-09-08 at 12:04 pm
Kay Hoffmann
Just a note to encourage you to support .8bf files in PDN. (whine…Pleeeze?)
kh
B-)
2008-09-09 at 2:51 pm
George Birbilis
there’s a third party plugin to rotate only the current selection
2008-09-09 at 3:01 pm
Rick Brewster
edison23 / George Birbilis — Or you could just drag with the right mouse button and the Move Selected Pixels tool …
2008-09-21 at 11:46 am
James
Looking good, although I would consider it bad UI design not to have a cancel button – something to consider. Surely it’s the users right not to update / keep the version they downloaded?
Also what will happen if there is no internet connection?
– James
2008-09-21 at 6:40 pm
Rick Brewster
James — Click the ‘X’.
2008-10-04 at 3:11 pm
James
Thanks for replying, but I would still put a cancel button in.
Also can I ask are you just customising the .NET button control to make those options or using a CommandLink type custom control? I am thinking of implementing a more task orientated design like that in my app too.
Good work.
2008-10-24 at 1:24 pm
Dave
Seeing that 4.0 install dialog is like looking at a steak through a glass window. Geez.
2009-01-31 at 2:59 am
Brad
Hellooo! I Carnt Wait For This
You should make a relection tool to make it easier to reflect art!
2009-04-14 at 1:19 am
George Birbilis
> consider it bad UI design not to have a cancel
> button – something to consider. Surely it’s
> the users right not to update / keep the
> version they downloaded?
I guess if they press [X] at the top of the window they do cancel. It seems in more recent MS UIs they skip the cancel and prefer the [X] for canceling. Less visual clatter and seems newbee users get it more easier than us older ones that they can just close the dialog to cancel
2010-01-11 at 10:58 pm
uberVU - social comments
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This post was mentioned on Reddit by bobsil1: Because if the update b0rks your install, you won’t know until the next time you launch the app, which could be weeks. At that point you won’t remember why it’s screwed….