This version of MS Paint is like the peak example of covering 99% of basic use cases while being incredibly simple to use. Whenever I need to make an arbitrary image real quick I miss this version of Paint. Nothing else I can find in 2020 even comes close to its intuitive interface.
I find Paint.NET excellent for both basic scenarios and advanced ones too (it supports layers, effects etc). Strongly recommended. https://getpaint.net
It's free but it's also available in Microsoft Store as a paid product, which gets automatic updates as a small extra and mostly works as a donation towards the developer.
Isn't mspaint in Windows 10 basically the same thing but with a ribbon instead of a toolbar?
I don't much care for the ribbon but I'm used to it now. Hitting WinKey-R, mspaint, [Enter] is still my goto for simple picture editing, even just recording a screenshot despite the existence of the snipping tool...
Other than the minor annoyance of getting used to the ribbon I felt as if I was still using the same old paint when I did this.
Just download, rename to "mspaintxp.exe" and put it in C:\Windows\System32. Optionally update Paint shortcut to point to that one so when you type "Paint" in start menu that's the new default.
I’m always perplexed by this. Maybe I lack the artistic talent? Paint could never cover any of my use cases. For that it was always too much about … well … painting … which is something I just don’t need on a day to day basis. The painting focus seems completely misguided to most of the typical use cases I can imagine.
My quintessential perfect tool is always the Preview App on macOS:
You can add simple shapes, arrows and text to any images. You can rotate, crop and resize images. You can reorder, rotate, split and merge PDF documents.
That’s all very well tailored to most common use cases. In terms of image editing I guess you can do all that with Paint but it seems clumsy to me. Not really fit for that purpose.
And if I don’t want to mark something up but create something new (which will typically heavily rely on text even if it’s more visual, like a birthday invitation) the text editing is too weak to get anywhere really useful, so for that I would rather use some kind of either text editor or layouting program.
> This version of MS Paint is like the peak example of covering 99% of basic use cases while being incredibly simple to use.
At some point Microsoft just forgot how to make software like this - sometime between 2005 and 2010 I think. OSes no longer come with simple, lightweight tools that are unsophisticated and just do what you want
Yup, during college I even created electrical schematics in MS Paint during one course, nobody believed it was done using it :) Although I must admit creating schematics in CAD software is more sane ;)
This is awesome! I Still use Paint.Net in my VMWare emulator. There's some things in Paint.Net I really like including Crop to selection and things involving layers. If you ever plan to expand to include that, I'd be all ears!
This is a very good recreation. Pleased to see it even replicates the hidden zoom (below 8x). I also spot a good inaccuracy: the undo doesn't appear limited to 3 :-)
How where you able to implement such a fast floodfill? I tried to make something similar a few years ago, but was not able to get the floodfilling to work in reasonably time
In 1993 I was 12 years old and spent many, many hours drawing a pixel-perfect replica of the Mortal Kombat dragon logo in MS Paintbrush (the name of MS Paint at the time). I believe it was a 640x480 BMP. I so wish I had saved a copy of this and all of the other stuff I downloaded off bulletin boards! Stuff like this got me started in web graphics, HTML, and eventually sysadmin.
To this day I still take screenshots (PrtScn) and save them using pbrush (WinKey+R pbrush).
Holy crap that was fun. Big fan of the history view and the spray effect. Is the cursor lagging behind the mouse intentionally or is it just lag because javascript? I didn't notice anything else lagging, but I don't remember MS Paint having a mass/drag effect like that. FWIW, I found it even easier to write my name with the pencil on a trackpad.
These always miss my favorite hidden feature of mspaint: Control + Scrolling should be able to increase/decrease the size of the brush to sizes much larger than you can normally select. Instead, this just zooms the browser but maybe it could be changed to alt + scroll or something.
For some reason, I can't zoom via main menu (View/Zoom). Level 3 menu just diappears. (My browser is Firefox if this matters.) Keyboard accelerators don't work either (e.g. Alt+V,Z,L). Only level 1 menu works via keyboard accelerator (Alt+V).
Someone I know once got brief access to source code for a version of Windows that included paint. He had just a few mins with it and opened up the source to paint because he liked the software. One of the variable names was something like “fluffy_bunny_rabbit” and he read a comment that said “this fixes bug X, I don’t understand why, but just leave this code here.” Unsure if former softies can confirm this was code quality back then...
Nice work! It would be great if you could include a feature to crop an image, similar to how you can in MS Paint. Crop is the feature I probably use most often in MS Paint.
Started using MS Paint or whatever it was called then after years of drawing on Deluxe Paint on the Amiga. I wasn't very impressed, but now after seeing later alternatives it's actually not too bad. Didn't Hockney do lots of recent paintings on the most basic iPad drawing program?
you know it! It had a sleek and modern look for the time, while still having the simplicity and user-friendliness of MS Paint from Win 95/98. really wish this version of paint was still supported in Win 10
[+] [-] somehnguy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sedatk|5 years ago|reply
It's free but it's also available in Microsoft Store as a paid product, which gets automatic updates as a small extra and mostly works as a donation towards the developer.
[+] [-] smhenderson|5 years ago|reply
I don't much care for the ribbon but I'm used to it now. Hitting WinKey-R, mspaint, [Enter] is still my goto for simple picture editing, even just recording a screenshot despite the existence of the snipping tool...
Other than the minor annoyance of getting used to the ribbon I felt as if I was still using the same old paint when I did this.
[+] [-] MayeulC|5 years ago|reply
https://kde.org/applications/graphics/org.kde.kolourpaint
http://www.kolourpaint.org/screenshots.html (that website could use an update...)
[+] [-] umvi|5 years ago|reply
Well you are in luck: https://archive.org/details/MSPaintWinXP
I use this all the time on my Windows 10 box.
Just download, rename to "mspaintxp.exe" and put it in C:\Windows\System32. Optionally update Paint shortcut to point to that one so when you type "Paint" in start menu that's the new default.
[+] [-] arrrg|5 years ago|reply
My quintessential perfect tool is always the Preview App on macOS:
You can add simple shapes, arrows and text to any images. You can rotate, crop and resize images. You can reorder, rotate, split and merge PDF documents.
That’s all very well tailored to most common use cases. In terms of image editing I guess you can do all that with Paint but it seems clumsy to me. Not really fit for that purpose.
And if I don’t want to mark something up but create something new (which will typically heavily rely on text even if it’s more visual, like a birthday invitation) the text editing is too weak to get anywhere really useful, so for that I would rather use some kind of either text editor or layouting program.
[+] [-] m-p-3|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] voldacar|5 years ago|reply
At some point Microsoft just forgot how to make software like this - sometime between 2005 and 2010 I think. OSes no longer come with simple, lightweight tools that are unsophisticated and just do what you want
[+] [-] Exorus18|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pubby|5 years ago|reply
http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/
[+] [-] asddubs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Macha|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] artifact_44|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chowderman|5 years ago|reply
Note: this is in no way affiliated with Microsoft, its merely a fan project based on my love of Windows XP
[+] [-] apatheticonion|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxmcd|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rexreed|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bevenky|5 years ago|reply
Good work.
[+] [-] ant6n|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nicoburns|5 years ago|reply
He takes requests.
[+] [-] stan_rogers|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] captbaritone|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joeraut|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] 2038AD|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djxfade|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EquallyJust|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moolcool|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jayd16|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _nickwhite|5 years ago|reply
To this day I still take screenshots (PrtScn) and save them using pbrush (WinKey+R pbrush).
[+] [-] lajawfe|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ry4nolson|5 years ago|reply
"XP Paint is a fork of the web-based remake of MS Paint called JS Paint."
[+] [-] anonytrary|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] c9fc42ad|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkup|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glerk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] randomsearch|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thedays|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thorin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] user1234568|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mehrdadn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] destory-everyth|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hirako2000|5 years ago|reply
And I think it should only save to localStorage, so that saving a few images would fill up all the space like I quickly did on my few GBs hardrive.
[+] [-] consultutah|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chowderman|5 years ago|reply