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Microsoft Paint to be killed off after 32 years

theguardian.com

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Re: Microsoft Paint to be killed off after 32 years

#371

Post by alanh »

mrec wrote: post #46
BatFastard wrote: post #34

Question is why does MS after 32 years still include incredible WEAK tools like Paint and Notepad? They should spent a little and buy up some of the great tools out there and include them in windows.

Notepad is "weak" for a reason: it aims for absolutely minimal dependencies so that it can still be used for system recovery when everything else has gone to hell in a handbasket. Hard to make that argument for Paint though, I'll grant you.

Consider the OS X equivalent, TextEdit. In contrast to Notepad, it remains fairly minimal while being upgraded to always use and showcase the latest OS X APIs and design standards.

Re: Microsoft Paint to be killed off after 32 years

#372

Post by alanh »

toast0 wrote: post #114
donretag wrote: post #107

I remember when I first started using OSX (forgetting OS9 and prior for now) and being shocked that there is no built-in paint program. There still is not one. Paint works amazing well for very quick edits, which is all I really ever need to do.

Preview actually lets you do a lot of things you might have wanted to use paint for. Unfortunately, nobody in their right mind would expect something called 'preview' to do image editing, so I never noticed until someone told me.

Haha, true. I use Preview all the time for cropping, converting, and annotating images. You can even fill out, draw on, and annotate PDFs in Preview.

Re: Microsoft Paint to be killed off after 32 years

#373

Post by alanh »

dcole2929 wrote: post #229
lps41 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about this - why do you no longer listen to music or podcasts? The phone comes with headphones that plug directly into the lightning port, and an 1/8" adapter so you can still use your old headphones. Personally I just keep the adapter permanently attached to my 1/8" headphones. Only downside for me is the inability to charge at the same time, but then the iPhone 7's battery life is pretty great, so that'…

Probably because this person like many has multiple headphones. I have nicer "cans" I use at work. I have the crappy included ones that I use in the gym or when commuting. Noise cancelling buds for travel. And that's not even counting the times I might want to use the aux cord in my car. Having to carry around an adapter is dumb. I have a 6s and will not be upgrading to any phone without a headphone jack

"just" by a dongle for each set of headphones you regularly use. For me, that means one dongle, but if I had 'work headphones' I would instantly buy a second dongle so I would never have to worry about this.

Obviously that is objectionable on a $$$ apple tax $$$ level, but pragmatically it's not much of an issue.

I do still miss the mini RCA jack, however, because on occasion I do forget my headphones & adapter and can't use any other normal headphones. (And I hate charging headphones and wearing batteries on my ears)

Re: Microsoft Paint to be killed off after 32 years

#375

Post by marvy »

tdeck wrote: post #353
bonoboTP wrote: post #340

I never used the new MS Paint after the ribbon-redesign for Windows 7. The XP version was so intuitive, precise and clean. Actually it's possible to use the XP version in newer Windows editions, but it involves some tinkering.

I recently had to use Paint again and noticed the newer versions got rid of the "right click on this color to set the background color" mechanic. Sure it's not very discoverable, but that was a great power feature that I didn't even appreciate until it was gone.

The feature is still there, but the mechanic is different. More clicks needed, but more discoverable.

Re: Microsoft Paint to be killed off after 32 years

#377

Post by krylon »

vram22 wrote: post #325
krylon wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For simply displaying PDF (and a few other formats), I like SumatraPDF. It is pretty lightweight (compared to the crawling horror that is Adobe Reader), and when you re-open a PDF, opens it at the position you were last time(!!!). The latter feature makes it perfect for viewing reference manuals etc. EDIT: https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader.html EDIT²: IrfanView can display many graphic formats and quit…

Interesting, have you tried Foxit PDF Reader, and if so, how does it compare to SumatraPDF? I haven't used the latter but have used the former.

I know Foxit Reader.

SumatraPDF is fairly minimalistic, it is a single executable file that runs without installation. Foxit has far more features than SumatraPDF, it is more like the slim sibling of Acrobat (no insult intended!). (SumtraPDF.exe is something like 3.5 MB, Foxit's msi package is something like 70 MB, IIRC)

But Foxit never has given me any reason to complain. I have across a few tricky PDF files that took forever to open in Acrobat, and Foxit (and SumatraPDF) handled those without trouble. Plus, it installs a PDF printer, which is convenient on pre-Windows 10 machines.

Re: Microsoft Paint to be killed off after 32 years

#379

Post by ntauthority »

mjevans wrote: post #328
profpandit wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Paint is by a long shot, Microsoft's best product. It's easy to build since it's codebase is pretty small and they haven't changed it much since it was introduced. So it's rock solid. IDK why they're fixing what ain't broke.

Worse; Paint is part of a lot of troubleshooting 'screenshot' processes; precisely because it IS easy to use and is /already included/. Quickly taking a look at the most used products where I work... MS Office Installer https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iI... MS Word (I stopped here) https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iI... Darn, it would be nice if MS was forced to brea…

Except... it is released on various platforms. That 'Linux desktop' isn't part of it doesn't mean that Office isn't on pretty much every other relevant platform (Windows desktop, macOS, Android, iOS, web, ...).

Re: Microsoft Paint to be killed off after 32 years

#380

Post by y0ghur7_xxx »

hobs wrote: post #324
slantyyz wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should try Greenshot (free). It also lets you annotate your screenshots in a fashion similar to Skitch.

Checkout ShareX, I was a long time Greenshot user (and it even integrates the nice annotation stuff from Greenshot) but I switched because it has an even nicer UI and a host of additional features while remaining simple to use (still free though.)

But ShareX does not have an image editor, like Greenshot. Which is the whole reason we are discussing alternatives to paint. Or am I wrong and someone implemented one?
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