Best Layer-based Image Editor for Mac. Paint.NET may be the best photo editing software for Windows, but Pixelmator takes its position on Mac OS X. The Layer palette is one important reason for that. Layers are the basic of a rich image. In fact, there are enough quality games on Mac that I could easily rattle out a list with 30 more, but ain’t nobody got time for that. For our money (and yours), these are the best. Paint.NET is a free yet very powerful and feature-rich image editing application. Unfortunately, it cannot be used on Mac systems, but if you were interested in a Paint.NET for Mac by Rick Brewster version, you could try one of the alternatives listed below. Best Layer-based Image Editor for Mac. Paint.NET may be the best photo editing software for Windows, but Pixelmator takes its position on Mac OS X. The Layer palette is one important reason for that. Layers are the basic of a rich image.
Developer(s) | Apple Computer, Claris |
---|---|
Initial release | 1984; 36 years ago |
Stable release | 2.0 / January 24, 1988; 32 years ago |
Written in | Pascal |
Operating system | Classic Mac OS (System 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 System 6 System 7) |
Type | Raster graphics editor |
License | Proprietary |
Website | www.apple.com |
MacPaint is a raster graphics editor developed by Apple Computer and released with the original Macintoshpersonal computer on January 24, 1984. It was sold separately for US$195 with its word processor counterpart, MacWrite.[1] MacPaint was notable because it could generate graphics that could be used by other applications. Using the mouse, and the clipboard and QuickDraw picture language, pictures could be cut from MacPaint and pasted into MacWrite documents.[2]
The original MacPaint was developed by Bill Atkinson, a member of Apple's original Macintosh development team.[3] Early development versions of MacPaint were called MacSketch, still retaining part of the name of its roots, LisaSketch.[4] It was later developed by Claris, the software subsidiary of Apple which was formed in 1987. The last version of MacPaint was version 2.0, released in 1988. It was discontinued by Claris in 1998 because of diminishing sales.[5]
Development[edit]
MacPaint was written by Bill Atkinson, a member of Apple's original Macintosh development team.[3] The original MacPaint consisted of 5,804 lines of Pascalcomputer code, augmented by another 2,738 lines of 68000assembly language.[6] MacPaint's user interface was designed by Susan Kare, also a member of the Macintosh team.[7] Kare also beta-tested MacPaint before release.[7]
MacPaint uses two offscreen memory buffers to avoid flicker when dragging shapes or images across the screen.[8] One of these buffers contained the existing pixels of a document, and the other contained the pixels of its previous state.[8] The second buffer was used as the basis of the software's undo feature.[8] In April 1983, the software's name was changed from MacSketch to MacPaint.[9] The original MacPaint was programmed as a single-document interface. The palette positions and sizes were unalterable, as was the document window. This was different from other Macintosh software at the time, which allowed the users to move windows and resize them.
The original MacPaint did incorporate a double zoom function with only head on. Instead of a zoom function, a special magnification mode called FatBits was used. FatBits showed each pixel as a clickable rectangle with a white border. The FatBits editing mode set the standard for many future editors.[10] MacPaint included a 'Goodies' menu which included the FatBits tool. This menu had been named the 'Aids' menu in prerelease versions, but was renamed 'Goodies' as public awareness of the AIDS epidemic grew in the summer of 1983.[11]
Release and version history[edit]
MacPaint was first advertised in an 18-page brochure in December 1983, following the earlier announcement of the Macintosh 128K.[12] The Macintosh was released on January 24, 1984 with two applications, MacPaint and MacWrite. For a special post-election edition of Newsweek in November 1984, Apple spent more than US$2.5 million to buy all 39 of the advertising pages in the issue. The Newsweek advertisement included many pages dedicated to explaining how MacWrite and MacPaint worked together.[13] After launch, a New York Times reviewer noted how MacPaint unfolded numerous graphic possibilities for the personal computer; he went further to say 'it is better than anything else of its kind offered on personal computers by a factor of 10.'[2]
MacPaint 2.0 running on System 7
MacPaint 2.0 was released on January 11, 1988 by Claris.[14] It added many improvements to the software, including the capability to open and use up to nine documents simultaneously.[15] The original MacPaint operated as a single-document application with an immovable window. MacPaint 2.0 eliminated this limitation, introducing a fully functioning document window, which could be sized up to 8 x 10'.[15] Several other features were introduced, such as a Zoom tool, MagicEraser tool for undo actions and stationary documents.[15] MacPaint 2.0 was developed by David Ramsey, a developer at Claris.[16] MacPaint 2.0 was sold for US$125, with a US$25 upgrade available for existing users of MacPaint.[15] Claris discontinued technical support for the original MacPaint in 1989.[17] Claris stopped selling MacPaint in early 1998 because of diminishing sales.[5] There has been an unofficial update called MacPaint X which is 3.0 beta, mainly for people who wished to be able to use the program.
Since 2010 MacPaint 1.3's source code (written in a combination of Assembly and Pascal) is available through the Computer History Museum,[18] along with the QuickDraw source code, a library to draw bitmapped graphics,[19] due to the support of Steve Jobs.[20]
MacPaint inspired other companies to release similar products for other platforms;[21] within a year a half-dozen clones existed for the Apple II and IBM PC.[22] Some of these included Broderbund's Dazzle Draw for the Apple II, Mouse Systems' PC Paint for the PC, and IBM's Color Paint for the IBM PCjr.[23]
Version history[edit]
Version | Release date | Release information |
---|---|---|
1.0 | January 24, 1984 | Initial release with System Software 1.0[24] |
1.3 | May 1984[25] | Released with System Software 1.1[26] |
1.4 | September 1984 | Released with Macintosh 512K |
1.5 | April 1985 | Released with System Software 2.0[citation needed] |
2.0 | January 1988[27] | Last release |
References[edit]
- ^Young, J.S (1984). 'MacPaint: The Electronic Easel'. Macworld. pp. 50–61.
- ^ ab.Sandberg-Diment, Erik (January 31, 1984). 'Software for the Macintosh: Plenty on the way'. New York Times.
- ^ abElmer-DeWitt, Philip (December 3, 1984). 'Let us now praise famous hackers: a new view of some much maligned electronic pioneers'. Time. p. 76.
- ^Hertzfeld, Andy (2005). Revolution in the Valley. O'Reilly. pp. 153–155. ISBN0-596-00719-1.
- ^ abWalsh, Jeff (November 24, 1997). 'Claris puts old Mac applications out to pasture'. InfoWorld. p. 35.
- ^Hertzfeld (2005), p. 174
- ^ abMcGeever, C (September 10, 1984). 'Q&A: Susan Kare: 'I Never Planned to Be a Guiding Force in the Macintosh Design''. InfoWorld. p. 64.
- ^ abcHertzfeld (2005), p. 171
- ^Hertzfeld (2005), p. 172
- ^Hertzfeld (2005), p. 147
- ^Hertzfeld (2005), pp. 155-156
- ^'Apple Macintosh 18 Page Brochure'. DigiBarn Computer Museum. Retrieved April 24, 2006.
- ^'1984 Newsweek Macintosh ads'. GUIdebook, Newsweek. Retrieved April 24, 2006.
- ^'Apple Computer unit introduces enhanced versions of MacDraw, MacProject, MacWrite and MacPaint'. Reuters. January 11, 1988.
- ^ abcdMartinez, Carlos Domingo (July 1988). 'MacPaint (Software Review)'. MacUser. p. 103.
- ^'Apple fires key programmer'. Newsbytes. July 4, 1989.
- ^'Claris restricts tech support'. MacWEEK. February 7, 1989. p. 1.
- ^'MacPaint and QuickDraw Source Code'. Computer History Museum. July 20, 2010.
- ^Hesseldahl, Erik (July 20, 2010). 'Apple Donates MacPaint Source Code To Computer History Museum'. businessweek.com. Archived from the original on February 9, 2012.
- ^'The quest to save today's gaming history from being lost forever'. Ars Technica. June 1, 2015. Retrieved January 17, 2016.
[Jobs] sent a one line e-mail saying it was a good idea, and it was done the next day,' Spicer recalled. 'Having an internal advocate is key.
- ^Bartimo, J (October 8, 1984). 'Programs Paint a Rosy Picture'. InfoWorld. pp. 38–39.
- ^Bartimo, Jim (February 25, 1985). 'Macintosh: Success And Disappointment'. InfoWorld. p. 30. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
- ^Elmer-Dewitt, Philip (March 18, 1985). 'The New Breeds of Software'. Time. Retrieved April 26, 2008.
- ^Apple's new MacIntosh: specs
- ^'Macintosh MacPaint: Fill'. Apple Inc. March 9, 1998. Archived from the original on May 30, 2012. Retrieved April 26, 2008.
- ^Mac Finder..etc.. upgrade available FREE
- ^MacExpo: Bursting at the seams
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MacPaint&oldid=979514534'
The Devil's Advocate - Mac UI Ain't All That: The Future & History of the User Interface (with Snazzy New UI Videos)
byJohn Kheit- August 15th, 2006
The current state-of-the-art User Interface (UI) we've been enjoying has remained largely stagnant since the 1980s. The greatest innovation that has been recently released is based on video card layering/buffering techniques like Apple's Expose. But, there is a large change coming. Rev 2 of the UI will be based on multiple gestures and more directly involve human interaction. Apple is clearly working in the area as some of the company's patent filings demonstrate. Nevertheless, these videos might make Mac (and Windows) users experience a huge case of UI envy, as a lot of UI development (in XGL in particular) makes the current Mac UI seem creaky and old fashioned.
I've been collecting these links to cool new UIs for a while (yea, I know, what a geek). Despite its geekiness, I thought some of you might enjoy them as well. It seems there is a good chance that multi-gesture/multi-input (MGMI) UIs will be in our future at least on some level (apparently they will be accompanied by no dearth of techno music).
Basically the rest of the article has a bunch of links, and brief descriptions to those links, to cool videos of various UI that include: Wobbly Window UIs (WWUIs), Multi-touch UIs, Mixed Physical UIs, Brain UIs, Art tools, and even a little bit of history on the UI. Enjoy!
Wobbly Window UIs
The 'wobbly' UIs, largely represented by XGL, all seem to use layering techniques. All this layering of UI elements lets you see the desktop UI from more vantages. Wobbly Window UIs seemed to have started at SUN with Project Looking Glass (although they may have originated elsewhere, I'm unsure). It seems that Project Looking Glass 'inspired' Apple's Exposé. Others have gone on to build on both SUN's and Apple's progress with the current state-of-the-wobbly-art with XGL. The 'gist' of how these UIs seem to work is they put a bitmap into a buffered backing plane and allow you to quickly move the resulting 2D bitmap layers through 3D space. Modern 3D video cards then allow you to move these relatively simple bit-mapped textured planes through 3D space rather easily.
WWUI Links:
- SUN Project Looking Glass seemed to get the ball rolling.
- BumpTop synthesizes a lot of work done with the notion of document piles. You can see that this technology, if coupled with multi-touch UIs will be quite useful.
- Multi-display XGL demo.
- XGL comparison with Mac OS X and Vista.
- Yet another XGL demo with interesting DVD interaction.
- Novell presentation of an XGL demo (long, thorough, and a bit dull).
Multi-touch UIs
Multi-touch UIs are much like the UIs on a touch pad or a tablet UI. You get to touch things directly on the display surface. However, this technology registers more than one touch, and it is capable of interpreting gestures as well. In reality, some of these UIs do not even require touching the surface, but just interpret your gestures near the surface. Multi-touMulti-touch UIs, along with mixed physical UIs, seems to be the direction where UI development is headed.
Multi-touch UI links:
- Perhaps an early form of this was first seen with this line of gesture keyboards that mapped to regular desktop functions. They have since ceased operation. Rumors abound; among them that Apple may have bought them out.
- One of the first Multi-touch UIs I saw (on OS X as well, though it mysteriously went 'poof' a while ago).
- Here is a good intro to multi-touch UIs.
- Here is another version of the above multi-touch UI; it has more demo flash (and has been shown all over the place).
- I've seen this one in malls already.
- This is just a 42inch touch-screen, and not a multi-touch interface. However, I wanted to show that these new interfaces may force computers to take on new form factors and actually become our desktop surface.
- For you WoW fans.
Mixed Physical UIs
Mixed Physical UIs build upon multi-touch UIs, but they introduce physical objects into a multi-touch input plane. Some of the more advanced Mixed Physical UIs identify the types of physical objects that are placed onto the input surface, and then let you manipulate the computer environment when you manipulate the physical objects.
Mixed Physical UI links:
- Mixed reality interface.
- Sense table.
- Architecture.
- Tiles.
- Virtual art show.
- Car.
- Blocks.
- (Mostly useless) Bar tech!
- This one is a bit dull up until about the 5:13 second mark; a physically morphing table.
Brain UIs
Brain UIs employ techniques of reading brain impulses in order to control a computer.
Brain UI links:
- Brain computer interface.
- This head gear is similar to the ones we used back in my research lab and developer days (when I was still developing using NeXT computers).
Art tools
Art tools use UI techniques, already discussed above, to further artistic ends.
Art tools links:
- The I/O Brush.
- Audiopad.
- Paint tool.
History
Ain't For Mac
Sadly, a great many people in the computer field have a pathetic sense (or rather ignorance) of history. They are pompous and narcissistic enough to ignore the great contributions of past geniuses. My hope is that more will watch some of these historical videos and learn from these innovators.
Perhaps, if more learned from the great computer science innovators of the past (who managed to make systems using computers with 192KB of memory that rival the responsiveness and features of modern systems having orders of magnitude more processing power), then later generations of computer scientists might adopt their elegant design philosophies, rather than the current philosophies responsible for the ill-thought out and implemented bloat software we 'enjoy' today. It might be time to add a 'History of Computers' class to the computer science curriculum so as to give new practitioners this much needed sense of history.
For example, it seems rare to find someone in the computer field who knows about the contributions of Ivan Sutherland and Douglas Engelbart. Ivan Sutherland came up with one of the earliest graphical interfaces (and threw in objected oriented programming techniques for good measure); he did this all in one year in the development of Sketchpad circa 1963. Amazing.
For a good historical overview of user interfaces and more, check out this video with Alan Key; it's fantastic.
Douglas Engelbart's demonstration of the online system, NLS, is THE demo that started them all. Most think that Apple/Microsoft stole their UI ideas from Xerox, but in reality, Douglas Engelbart and his team at Stanford made most of the conventions responsible for current computing (as well as current UIs). This is really the mother of all computer demos; Steve Jobs and others have basically copied this format, but no demo has ever equalled the thermonuclear impact of the NLS demo. Keep in mind, it was made in 1968! Douglas Engelbart is known as having invented the mouse, which is true, but that's a bit of a backhanded compliment as he did so much more. In reality, he and his team came up with our current paradigm of computer interactions, abstractions and development. It is beyond bizarre that he is not commonly credited with more.
Although a lot has come from Mr. Engelbart's work, I think he is actually disappointed with our current state of the art. I don't think he believed we should make UIs that are 'simple' (or dumbed down), but instead, he was trying to develop UIs that empower us to embrace and engage in complexity; blame Jobs and team for our going astray with the one button mouse et al. Anyway, this is a long video and is somewhat tedious to those without a computer science background or sense of history as the technologies are not as whizbang by today's standards (and no techno track to keep you distracted). For its time, however, this was incredible; after this demo, many at the presentation left not believing the technology was real. Keep in mind this was achieved on a 192 Kilobyte (not Megabyte, not Gigabyte, but Kilobyte!) time share computer (that supported 20 users) with 0.5 MIPS of processing power.
This video is really the precursor to all modern demos and systems. In so many ways, it's frightening. Just setting up the demo was a technological marvel; it was projected on a huge display (using a very rare projector for the time) that they hacked to work with NLS; they even conducted a video teleconference with custom microwave based modem communications that they 'just whipped up' to enable the demo.
How Douglas Engelbart, Ivan Sutherland, Doug Ross, and others have not collectively received a Nobel Prize for bringing forth modern computing is a mystery.
Xerox Smalltalk environment (one of the Xerox UIs from which everyone 'borrowed').
Restart
I get the feeling we are about to enter a computer user interface renaissance. My guess is that somewhere in the next 2 years (and maybe as soon as with Mac OS X 10.5), we'll see the revitalization of the entire computer field because of UI advances. And with any UI renaissance, we will also see increases in new hardware sales supporting the new paradigms, which in turn will lead to further gains in personal productivity levels. If you find some other cool UI videos, share by adding links in the comments below.
John Kheitis an attorney. Please don't hold that against him. This work does not necessarily reflect the views and/or opinions of The Mac Observer, any third parties, or even John for that matter. No assertions of fact are being made, but rather the reader is simply asked to consider the possibilities.
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