Paint.NET

As usual there are two ways to get it:

1. Use the built-in updater from a previous alpha install of v3.5, by going to the Utilities menu and clicking on Check for Updates.
2. Download directly: http://www.getpaint.net/files/zip/previ ... nstall.zip

What's new:

* Added DirectWrite support to the Text tool for Windows 7 users. This has the benefit of greatly improved text rendering quality and performance.
* Added Strikethrough to the Text tool's toolbar, next to the Bold/Italics/Underline options.
* Finished up some leftover text rendering/clipping issues with the Text tool. In particular, there should no longer be any clipping issues with "swooshy" text (that is, fonts with lots of overhanging glyphs). (see screenshot attached to this post)

Note that I have NOT yet addressed the other issues that have been mentioned. I will very soon, don't worry! All this typography stuff took much longer than expected, but it will be worth it and pay dividends in future releases.

The improved text rendering quality for the Text tool is currently due to DirectWrite's implementation of y-direction antialiasing. Read more here, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... 85%29.aspx

The improved text rendering performance with DirectWrite is due to its architecture. I can use multiple threads to render text (performance scaling), and I can also render text on a background thread without blocking the UI thread (mutexing). Try opening the Text tool's font dropdown on XP and compare it to a system running Windows 7. The difference is quite dramatic!

If you are on Windows 7 and want to disable DirectWrite, you can use the /disableDirectWrite command-line parameter. If you'd like to compare side-by-side with GDI's text rendering, use the /mutexName parameter, like in the following re-enactment from a command prompt (cmd.exe):

If you know how to use the command-line, then party on -- otherwise, don't ask me for help on how to do that.

Known issue: You may see rendering artifacts with some fonts at some sizes with the Win7/DirectWrite renderer.

(There's a reason this is an alpha )

Liking the new build.
Large font sizes have again!

Thanks Rick!

Will the new text rendering approach also allow rotation of (anti-aliased) text?
This is one of the (only) features I'm currently missing in Paint.net.

Regards & keep up the great work!

Sorry, no. The features of the Text tool are not changing in this release (except for the trivial addition of the Strikethrough button). I'm starting to think forward towards the next release(s) and how the Text tool will need to evolve -- text layers, rich formatting, etc. For this release I have focused on the areas of text rendering, performance, and stability. These will lay the foundation for improvements later.

Well, I didn't mean "will there be text rotation in the upcoming release". Rather if the use of the DirectWrite API would make it easier/more likely to have such a feature in the future.
In any case, I think it cool that so much effort is invested in improving the Text tool.

Best regards,

Gorecki

DirectWrite won't make that feature more likely to appear, simply because I can only use features that both GDI and DW have.

Once we talk about dropping XP support, however, things change.

You probably shouldn't do that.

I have to at some point.

Remember I'm not talking about "this week". I have to think further down the road than that.

Sorry if I say sth. totally stupid (as I am a noob), but could Direct2D affect the development of Paint.NET? As a far as I know, it's a replacement for GDI(+) and many limitations of Paint.NET (Font Handling, Line Tool) appear to come from that.

Direct2D is available for Vista, too. (See here)

Regarding XP - it gets old at a point. No one can expect that XP is supported forever. And it's not that horrible to spend 70 bucks for a new (improved) Windows once in a decade. Microsoft will eventually drop XP support, too. An OS has a certain lifetime and XP dates back to 2001. If Paint.NET "leaves" XP with "Windows 8" (said to come in 2012) one cannot say that would be wrong.

That's actually not the point. It's the release date of Vista that matters.

You see, many home users never upgrade an OS, they use the one that comes with the computer until they buy a new computer. When was Vista released again? Was it 2006? That means people bought PC's in 2006 with XP on them (probably SP2 though). I'd suggest MS and ISV's (like Rick) should support those machines for (at least) five years.

That being said, allowing them to download PDN 3.x (even after v4 is released) would also mean that those XP machines are supported...

Anyway, XP support is not required for v4 IMHO.

I am all for dropping XP support, even if I use it now. The reason being is that, from what I can tell, we won't even hear much of v4.0 until very late 2010 to mid 2011. By that time, machines with XP bought in 2006 will have had a five year lifespan, a total of ten years worth of use. I estimate that the XP userbase by that time will be below 10% (This is based off of Rick's sparingly infrequent statistics information). Alienating a less than ten percent market to increase numbers in recent technology might hurt at first, but in the long run that will actually help Paint.NET jump in front of The GIMP and Photoshop in terms of bleeding edge technology.

I can honestly say that by 2011, around sixty percent of the computers I maintenance now that are running XP will not be in use or they will be running a 'NIX / Windows 7 / 8 OS.

Most of the discomfort these users would feel would be ameiliorated by telegraphing the change well in advance.

I'm still using XP, and IMHO 18 months is a nice timeframe to tell someone they need to kick their OS if they want all the new toys.

Scrolling through the font list with the mousewheel is dreadfully slow. Win7.

Please elaborate. Do you mean ...

1) The responsiveness is sluggish? In other words, it stalls and lags and doesn't respond to your mouse wheel very quickly.
2) The latency of the previews is sluggish? In other words, the scrolling of the font names is fine but the font previews "trickle in" too slowly?

Single core, dual core, quad core, and do you have HyperThreading? Unless you have 4 hardware threads or more (quad core, or dual core w/ HT), I only render 1 preview at a time in the background. If you have intricate, aka slow, fonts (like "Angry Prego" from dafont.com), and less than 4 hardware threads, then you will see a noticable drop in latency (#2 above). The UI itself will be plenty responsive though.