Software update: Paint.NET 4.0 build 5143 alpha 5

The fifth alpha release of Paint.NET version 4.0 has been released. As the name suggests, this program needs the .Net framework to do its job. It started out as a study assignment for Washington State University, to replace the Paint supplied with Windows, but now contains a lot of functionality that we also see in more extensive commercial packages. Version 4.0 works a lot faster, especially on multicore processors, but has at least Windows 7 as a system requirement. The main improvements made since alpha 3 can be found below.

Paint.NET 4.0 alpha 5 (build 5143)

• Cropping after several simple selection manipulations (eg move, scale) would often result in an extra row or column of blank pixels in the cropped image
• Move Layer Up/Down would often result in the wrong scroll location in the Layers window
• Panning the canvas via holding the spacebar and click-and-drag of the left mouse button was still panning even after the mouse button was released, but before the spacebar was
• Clone Stamp tool now uses the Primary color’s alpha value (or Secondary if you use the right mouse button)
• Fixed a crash that would happen if you clicked on the image list dropdown button (to the right of the image thumbnail list) too quickly after opening a large image
• The Move tools would revert changes made with the keyboard if the Enter or Esc keys were pressed too quickly afterwards
• Using the “Check Now” (for Updates) button in the Settings dialog did not close the application if you had any images open which had unsaved changes
• Fixed some issues with the Colors window whereby left clicking would reset the Primary/Secondary choice to Primary
• The floating window positions (Tools, History, Layers, Colors) were not being persisted across sessions
• Plugins can now retrieve the correct value for CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture from any thread
• Fixed some rather pernicious crash bugs in several tools related to a “Committing changes” dialog popping up during click-and-drag operations
• Clicking and dragging on handles in the Gradient tool was lagging behind by 1 frame of mouse movement
• Fixed a focus bug on startup whereby you couldn’t use keyboard commands until you clicked on the canvas
• Fixed a crash on Win7 when switching from Aero to Classic theme
• Settings dialog now works correctly in High Contrast mode
• Fixed the pixel grid being off by 1 screen pixel (it didn’t line up with the ruler)
• Fixed a CPU usage issue with the Move and Shape tools. They were running the animations and UI code even if the UI wasn’t visible yet (eg no selection / no shape).
• The “OK” button wasn’t working in the New Image, Resize, and Canvas Size dialogs when the rest of the application’s CPU usage was very high (eg slow CPU, slow GPU, disabled hardware acceleration)
• Reduced CPU usage of animated UI elements, especially when not the active application or when the user has disconnected (locked workstation, Remote Desktop)

Paint.NET 4.0 alpha 4 (build 5105)

• Added Bezier curve to the Shapes tool
• Line/Curve shapes weren’t working with the rounded line cap styles
• When opening an image (eg JPEG), the EXIF ​​orientation/rotation metadata is now applied
• Fixed: If you change the resolution from Image->Resolution, the selection measurement info in the status bar will now update
• Fixed the selection tools not always showing the selection measurement info in the status bar
• Text Tool: fixed Strikethrough being incorrectly rendered as Underline
• Text Tool no longer interprets something like Alt+9 as the Home key
• Fixed some effects leaving an empty progress bar in the status bar
• Fixed the Magic Wand tool sometimes leaving an animated progress bar in the status bar
• Move tool no longer resets the “angle” displayed in the status bar when you let go of the mouse, and it’s now an absolute angle versus relative to the beginning of the drag operation.
• Move tools now let you use arrow keys while the mouse button is down. This allows fine precision control over rotations and moves and scales
• Setup will now install .NET 4.5.1 instead of .NET 4.5
• Reduced download size by 116KB
• Fixed the update and language settings not carrying forward from the installer to the application
• Main window now works in High Contrast mode on Windows 8/8.1
• Settings dialog can now be accessed with Alt+X
• Fixed a cosmetic blemish in the Updater dialog (it had a black “footer”)
• Fixed the Language dropdown in Settings sometimes showing up “blank”
• Fixed a pseudo-crash when using Edit->Paste followed immediately by clicking and dragging
• Fixed a crash on exit related to Direct2D and WARP