MS Paint and MS calculator

[Imaginer]

Watched my friend's Vista beta build running on his machine on a few occasions. All of those times with him opening the paint program that we all know and love/hatae/indifferent and the calculator program and I noticed it has not changed since the Win95 / maybe Win3.1 era.

Out of all the improvements, I would think they would at least give these included programs a good face lift. At least make it a bit more featured - granted they can't make it fully featured as a Paint shop pro (heaven forbid, a Photochop clone - I am not asking them to go that far)

One of the reasons I like Linux is that GIMP is free. If MS evolved paint to something similar then I think they can also sell Vista an additional brownie point or two with their new OS.

Not to mention their aged calculator.... We got freaking powerful computers, yet the calc does not even include some simple graphing abilities. With Vista taking the GUI into the graphic card's hands, I would think that they can also take that advantage with their calculator. But alas, there is not a change in the calculator....

Not even a simple conversion function built in (and I KNOW most of us would like that feature).

Thoughts? Opinions? Or am I the only one rowing in this boat???

Edit:

How can I tell this to MS in the most direct and proper way possible??

 

[daniel49]

paint could definately use a few new features...calculator? I just mostly use for basic math, although I have used a few trig functions on the scientific view at times?

 

[Imaginer]

Paint could use some features as what Paint shop pro has. Mind you some. For example, a BETTER zooming system (not that crappy zoom thing that is in paint now) and an easier way of using selections, etc...

Calculator definitely is in the line for "most improvements" needed. Trig would be nice but other stuff as well. Ability to graph is a plus. At least throw in a unit conversion function or something.

If they can make changes to say how chess looks and what nifty new nuiances that solitare does, why not devote some of that development time to more useful apps.

 

[bendixG15]

I have never known anyone who admitted to using the calculator.

Now if you want to rant about....the stupid card games.....solitaire, freecell etc that have been around in the same format since day one, then you got my attention. Surprised they haven't converted them into 3D and added classical music....LOL....LOL...

 

[ivwshane]

I like ms paint just the way it is. I've been using that program since windows 3.1 and I wouldn't change anything

 

[daniel49]

Originally posted by: Imaginer
Paint could use some features as what Paint shop pro has. Mind you some. For example, a BETTER zooming system (not that crappy zoom thing that is in paint now) and an easier way of using selections, etc...

Calculator definitely is in the line for "most improvements" needed. Trig would be nice but other stuff as well. Ability to graph is a plus. At least throw in a unit conversion function or something.

If they can make changes to say how chess looks and what nifty new nuiances that solitare does, why not devote some of that development time to more useful apps.

By this statement may I assume you have never used the scientific view?

 

[daniel49]

Originally posted by: bendixG15
I have never known anyone who admitted to using the calculator.

Now if you want to rant about....the stupid card games.....solitaire, freecell etc that have been around in the same format since day one, then you got my attention. Surprised they haven't converted them into 3D and added classical music....LOL....LOL...

I admit it , I always loose my handheld calculator.
but Hard to loose the entire computer With a calculator on it.

 

[Imaginer]

Originally posted by: daniel49

Originally posted by: Imaginer
Paint could use some features as what Paint shop pro has. Mind you some. For example, a BETTER zooming system (not that crappy zoom thing that is in paint now) and an easier way of using selections, etc...

Calculator definitely is in the line for "most improvements" needed. Trig would be nice but other stuff as well. Ability to graph is a plus. At least throw in a unit conversion function or something.

If they can make changes to say how chess looks and what nifty new nuiances that solitare does, why not devote some of that development time to more useful apps.

By this statement may I assume you have never used the scientific view?

Errrr....

I did not meant to type it in. But you get the drift. I should have said - graphing trig, visual Pi symbols, etc...

Yes I used the scientific view, but its far from your average scientific calculator nowadays. Where's the nCr button????

 

[gfngfgf]

Paint is nice for quick and dirty edits when I don't want/need to wait for a fuller-featured editor to start up (and of course, I'm sure people could point out better picture editors that start up quickly). Technically, I guess they did kinda upgrade Paint for XP by adding jpg support, no? Or maybe it was added earlier...

I don't know if anyone else has seen or used the PowerToys Calculator from Microsoft, but it's a pretty nifty little program. I haven't done too much advanced stuff with it, but it's got things like basic graphing and unit conversion.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: ivwshane
I like ms paint just the way it is. I've been using that program since windows 3.1 and I wouldn't change anything

Why mess with perfection?

 

[Jeff7]

GIMP and Graphcalc. Two freeware solutions that are quite excellent.
Don't like GIMP's long load times or don't need the complexity? IrfanView will do the job. And it comes with the excellent PNGOut plugin, for when you've got simple screenshots and want to compress the hell out of your PNG's before posting them.

 

[spherrod]

Originally posted by: gfngfgf
Paint is nice for quick and dirty edits when I don't want/need to wait for a fuller-featured editor to start up (and of course, I'm sure people could point out better picture editors that start up quickly). Technically, I guess they did kinda upgrade Paint for XP by adding jpg support, no? Or maybe it was added earlier...

I don't know if anyone else has seen or used the PowerToys Calculator from Microsoft, but it's a pretty nifty little program. I haven't done too much advanced stuff with it, but it's got things like basic graphing and unit conversion.

I'm sure Microsoft would like to increase functionality for Paint - probably worried about the anti-competitive issues being raised again though. It looks like Vista will cause problems for the EU with the extra additions anyway so maybe they figure there's no point?

 

[nweaver]

if they did, there would be the whining "OMG, don't chang mey paing 11!!1" and "one word BLOAT, even paint is now bloated"


another good saying, if it aint broke...

 

[Smilin]

paint was revised some time ago to handle file types other than bitmaps.

If you want a free enhancement similar to gimp try paint.net

 

[spyordie007]

Speaking of handling other file types the Vista version now uses PNG as its default format, this is the only change I've come across from the XP version.

Calculator is calculator; another vote for leaving it the way it is.

 

[scottws]

I use calc.exe every once in awhile to do some quick math. But I agree, it would be nice if there was some sort of unit conversion tool or something. I find myself always going to websites to convert units.

 

[ivwshane]

Unit conversion would be nice but anything other than that I would probably look for a different program.

Other than that I do use calc about every other day and having multiple instances of it is nice too.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: ivwshane
Unit conversion would be nice but anything other than that I would probably look for a different program.

Other than that I do use calc about every other day and having multiple instances of it is nice too.

Basically, I agree. The only things I would really like to see added are permutation/combination functions (nCr/nPr) and maybe unit conversion (which is hard to do well). A graphing calculator might be nice, but there are products out there already. I use the built-in calculator all the time for simple computations, or converting hex/binary values to decimal and vice versa. Throw it in the quick launch bar and it's one click away.

For anything more complex I'm probably using a spreadsheet or (for heavy-duty work) something like MATLAB anyway. I don't see much point in trying to add some fraction of that functionality to the built-in calculator, since if I need more than what a handheld scientific calculator can do, I probably need a full-blown programmable computation system and equation solver.

 

[Bassyhead]

Try the Power Calculator PowerToy from here

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: Imaginer
Watched my friend's Vista beta build running on his machine on a few occasions. All of those times with him opening the paint program that we all know and love/hatae/indifferent and the calculator program and I noticed it has not changed since the Win95 / maybe Win3.1 era.

Out of all the improvements, I would think they would at least give these included programs a good face lift. At least make it a bit more featured - granted they can't make it fully featured as a Paint shop pro (heaven forbid, a Photochop clone - I am not asking them to go that far)

One of the reasons I like Linux is that GIMP is free. If MS evolved paint to something similar then I think they can also sell Vista an additional brownie point or two with their new OS.

The GIMP is free on Windows, too! I don't care much about paint, because i use The GIMP when I need features and paint when I need quick, simple, and dirty.

How can I tell this to MS in the most direct and proper way possible??

Call (800) 426-9400 and ask for Bill.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Imaginer
One of the reasons I like Linux is that GIMP is free.

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net

 

[drag]

I don't know about Paint versus Gimp.. They seem to be in completey different classes. You also have Krita, which is part of the Koffice suite.. which again is overkill, but it's closer..

You have Gimp and Photoshop type things which are more along the lines, at least in my eyes, as a 'image manipulation program'. Then you have paint and krita which are more like 'paint' programs.

To me things like Gimp are more for editing images like photos and krita and such are more for _creating_ images. Either one can be used for either, obviously, but it's more how they are setup.

But I think krita is overkill.

There are simplier things like Kpaint and such. And things for children that are easy to use with fancy brushes and even sound effects and whatnot.


But I know at least one catagory that Linux and such kicks Window's butt in... It is in those little office games.

For instance solitaire... Windows solitaire is nasty ugly, has difficult rules and is limited to only a small number of games. However Gnome Desktop's solitare (called Aisleriot) has modern vector graphics that scale along with the size of the window.. (so you can have the screen small or have it big and always the cards are filling up the screen nicely)
http://gnome.org/projects/gnome-games/

And not only is it much more pretty and easy to use it has about 95 different games.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm curious if MS even has the source code to paint. IIRC, it was based on a stripped-down version of ZSoft's "PCPaint". Calc could use a slight overhaul, perhaps plug-ins might be a good idea.

Speaking of which, why not have a shell namespace virtual directory called "apps", and when you clicked the app name on the left-hand pane, the app would open in the right-hand pane in Explorer.exe. Except you could use Explorer.exe extensions to modify those apps. Hmm.

 

[kamper]

If you want a fancier calculator, go out and find yourself one instead of bloating the base system.

1) It's an operating system, not an application suite (well, I guess that is a bit up for debate but...)
2) I hugely appreciate having a simple calculator around, especially when it opens in the blink of an eye via one of those funky special keyboard buttons. That's one of the little things I miss about having a windows desktop.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
I'm curious if MS even has the source code to paint. IIRC, it was based on a stripped-down version of ZSoft's "PCPaint". Calc could use a slight overhaul, perhaps plug-ins might be a good idea.

considuring that Mspaint now has support for PNG formats then I'd say; Yes. Microsoft does, indeed, have access to the source code.