MS Paint gets its long-promised dark mode, along with other improvements
- Thread starter JournalBot
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yeah! now i can make terrible ms paint memes late at night and not burn out my retinas. /s
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felisaquis
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
It’s software news that isn’t about some AI bullshit. Just enjoy it.
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How long before they start running non-skippable ads every time you open the app (Unless you pay a monthly fee of course) ?
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Mungus the Unhyphenated
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Good. Now may we please have a fully-functional Start menu back? There was nothing wrong with what it evolved into on Windows 10.
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Well, it's a start.
It won't be long til we get a layers feature, only another 15 years
It won't be long til we get a layers feature, only another 15 years
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Maybe because only a small fraction of UIs support it. Dark mode is my most desired feature for desktop, mobile, and web. I thought the hype was overblown years ago, but now I'm increasingly dumping UIs that don't have it.
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Its only needs to be a feature since everyone seems to have decided that retina searing white has to be the default for everything.
edit: wrong quote
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Have you used Paint previously? The newer version is blindingly white, Dark mode is much needed.
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Layers is harder because you need some kind of format to store layers in that's not the basic formats that Paint supports. I mean, Paint doesn't even support webp (which should be replacing both jpg and png everywhere, it's just better), it's still basically a program out of 1999.
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Nor do most things. Until very recently Photoshop still required an addon to open it rather than just working out of the box.
In terms of compatibility and overall usefulness, WebP is absolutely not "just better".
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Great now can make never-combine-titlebar a feature of the OS? Or at least have a consistent BeOS like tab area that is off limits. I sick of playing find the 5 pixels you can actually click to move a window.
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All the browsers support it, and considering how many desktop/mobile applications these days are built on chromium (most of them), most modern applications support it too. The size difference is substantial, there's really no reason to use jpg or png anymore.
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It might not be newsworthy. But it's still fascinating watching the industry drag its feet on the ui people are asking for , but yet works at lightening speed with the stuff nobody asked for . ( flat ui. White ui. Low density ui . Etc )
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And PHD Candidates everywhere can create illustrations for their dissertation without having to turn on the lights.
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For all the blathering about how fragmented and unfriendly to gui users Linux is, having desktop themes that apply UI colors consistently to everything is a hugely user-friendly feature .
Want a "Dark Mode"? That's a few seconds, as is any other shade on the spectrum.
*Sadly doesn't much apply to Electron apps, but they are dire in many more ways than that...
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I was genuinely happy to see this. I use Paint as my goto for quickly marking up screen captures for sharing or temporary holding for game stuff since unlike Photoshop it loads instantly.
In fact just two nights ago I was marking up an Epic 7 labyrinth map in Paint (this portal goes here, that portal goes there, etc) late at night and thinking 1) dammit, why is this the only blindingly white app I still have left? 2) dammit, 100% is too small but 200% is bigger than the screen, 125% zoom is over 40 years old and would be trivial, why can't you do that?
Now they're fixing both of those. So this is the best news I've heard about Windows 11 in months, thank you Ars.
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Nice to see Microsoft get with the program.
Now if Google would allow dark mode for drive/doc/etc on desktop? That would be golden. They have these suckers in dark mode for apps...why not desktop!?
I am using Chrome when I'd prefer not at work, because there's an extension that turns those suckers dark. Drive and Docs anyway.
Now if Google would allow dark mode for drive/doc/etc on desktop? That would be golden. They have these suckers in dark mode for apps...why not desktop!?
I am using Chrome when I'd prefer not at work, because there's an extension that turns those suckers dark. Drive and Docs anyway.
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I can look at the few WebPs on my system that were forcibly converted when I tried to save a jpg and they won't open or copy into single thing except a web browser. Not even the default Windows 10 photo viewer will open them.
WebM is great, WebP is its annoying cousin touting itself as a solution to a problem no typical user had.
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Okay, so macOS has (or had, that was 5 years ago) a terrible implementation of it. Not surprising considering Apple are the ones who led the awful trend of black on white straining your eyes for decades (with Microsoft dutifully aping them). It was really so it would look like a piece of paper (Xerox's UI metaphor) and then the why got lost with the bogus claims of 'easier to read' - untrue unless you actually have a matte screen (like eInk). It's true on paper, and maybe on monochrome Macs (the original fish tank ones) it was better, but on any emissive color screen, no.
Anyhow, it's 10 AM, the room is bright with sun, and all my windows are perfectly visible and readable in Windows dark mode with all my other apps in dark mode as well. All my Firefox dark mode tabs are instantly readable, as are my Firefox pages (I use Dark Reader to force sites that don't support it into dark mode). Visual Studio is fine in dark mode, and Notepad++ is looking swank in yellow on dark blue. Now I don't absolutely need a dark mode at this time of day but it doesn't hurt at all and is much appreciated when it gets darker - and this way it's always consistent. Sounds like Apple made it too low contrast, which is a common problem if you create a dark mode to check a box but don't actually use it yourself.
But it's been 5 years, maybe they improved it if anyone at Apple actually used it enough to care to fix it. Anyone tried it recently on macOS?
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I unironically love MS paint, it is one of the few things I wish MacOS had now that I use that. I don't need complicated tools to perform very basic editing for drafting user guides, I find MS paint perfect for that specific function. Yes I know there is a weird port, but I don't like it.
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I'm honestly a bit surprised that MS hasn't gone through the (minor) effort of skinning Windows 11 in a way that includes common/pack-in apps.
Creating dark-modes for every app independently sounds like a huge whack-a-mole waste of dev effort.
EDIT: Dark modes are going to be a more and more important feature going forward, as the power-savings on OLED (and other self-lit) screens are non-trivial.
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The real question is why hasn't MS built in paint.net functionality yet. Why so many years later have they not just replaced it with something superior for their users?
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Controversial view - but I’d rather have Windows 8.1 back. Most laptops these days are convertible touchscreens - edge swiping and large touch targets was the pinnacle of simple interaction rather then hunting for tiny targets with a trackpad.
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Most Chrome extensions also work in Edge - you just have to enable the Chrome store.
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Scipio Africanus
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
Just like notepad++ is one of my first installs replacing notepad, audacity for sound recorder, PAINT.NET is also there replacing mspaint.
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