Layers would be really nice.

Features I would like to see in a pixel art program:

• A STANDARD code base that can be easily ported, or in many cases simply recompiled without changes (assuming it's open source)

• Active palette editing (seeing changes to your piece actively as you move sliders around)

• Palette sorting options, by hue, value, etc.

• A Photoshop-esque history palette with history snapshots

• Restriction check or restriction modes, that is, being able to use, say, C64 restrictions and make sure the image conforms. Somewhat related...

• Pixel aspect ratios other than square, mainly doublewide and doubleheight.

That's all I can think of at the moment :D

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.



Those are all interesting features I want to add.



I assume you mean animated GIFs? Animation would be a pretty low priority, but might be interesting to add later on. MS Paint's image quality is generally awful, and I'd like to solve that problem as well, if that's what you meant.



Open source? I wasn't planning that, but it's an interesting idea though.

I've not yet decided what language to use yet -- I'm weighing between C# (managed) and C++ (unmanaged) at the moment. Using .NET would probably not work too well with your wish to make it portable, however it would take less time to see progress using it. I'm open to arguments.



Might be added further on, however, it is not at the top of my to do list.



Wow, that's a lot. I'll have a look at it later. If you want to be nice, you could summarize some of the important features here.

I'm also considering scripting. Would this be over-kill for a simple pixel editor, or is it worth adding?

ONLINE CAPABILITIES :D

Onion skin is a feature in some animation programs that allows you to see the previous frame in low opacity in the frame you're working on, helping you to gauge how much you are changing between frames etc.

:)

Sometimes it'll make you cry.

The MS paint model seems ideal to me. Most of the time I wouldn't think one would be drawing many things at once, and if you need to, I would hope the app would be lightweight enough to make opening a new window a good idea.

Scripting sounds like overkill but fully customizable hotkeys (and mouse buttons, mayhaps?) are a must.

Mono is far from perfect though. I think I'll be staying away from .NET, however, I don't own a Mac nor a Linux box, so making it work on those platforms would be up to someone else.

I'm still undecided about the document model though.

Oh, I agree 100%. I was just pointing it out for anyone who might not know about it.

MS Paint style it is, then. I've started coding now, using unmanaged C++. It's still very early in development, so if anyone has any feature suggestions, post now.

Edited by Heptagonal - 09 April 2008 at 8:31am

To quote myself:



It's not just a matter of clicking a button to make it cross platform, but I'm trying to keep the platform specific parts as separated as possible.

M.E.,

It is tempting, but I have never coded in Java, and I'd rather not learn another language with its own set of quirks. And I've never really liked that the UI isn't OS native.

I will abstract the Windows code though, and use OpenGL for rendering. I'm sure that when the project is running, making everything work on Mac won't require too much work. There are lots of talented programmers out there.

hmmm interesting, i would like to see like a preview of what we're doing when we're zoomed in like graphics gale!~

Things are progressing, albeit slow -- I'm not a full time programmer. I should probably post some info when there's something interesting to show. Right now, I'm trying to get the architecture right.


Edited by Heptagonal - 10 April 2008 at 12:38pm

Don't let that disappoint you though, I am planning to make it available on Mac as well once ready.