Bubblegum Theme

Bubblegum Theme

Introducing the 🫧 Bubblegum theme!

Office software has never looked so refined, as with the Bubblegum theme's elegant Business Pink color scheme.

All the icons in this theme were AI-generated, as an experiment.

Current mainstream AI technology really struggles at creating a full set of icons in one go, and the style is always a little bit different from image to image, so the process involved generating many, many images, usually prompting it to create an "icon set" in order to hopefully get a few icons that match, to add to the overall icon set.

There's very little control, and things often come out wonky or overly generic, but overall it takes very little effort, so it's a strange thing.

Luckily, I could get away with some stylistic differences between the abstract shape icons and the more detailed tool icons.

I hand-edited a few of the icons, but they're mostly as they came out of the AI. My favorite is the Eye Gaze Mode pause button icon (), which I got for free randomly due to the AI misinterpreting "eye dropper". I love the way it blends seamlessly into the button.

The 3D bevels are also AI-generated, applied with copious usage of 9-slice borders.

Try The New Theme

On the Extras menu, click Themes, then Bubblegum.

The icons aren't optimized for legibility at small sizes, so be sure to try it out together with Extras > Eye Gaze Mode, or else increase your browser's zoom level, by scrolling the mouse wheel while holding Ctrl or ⌘, for the full effect.

Maintenance

In other news, I've been investing a lot into making JS Paint more maintainable.

You won't see these changes in the app directly, but they help make the code more malleable, like adding water to clay to shape it without breaking it.

• Converted the codebase almost entirely to ES Modules.
• Made remaining usage of global variables explicit in each file.
• Split up some huge files into smaller files.
• Added type annotations to the codebase, using JSDoc comments. This way errors can be spotted earlier, and editors can provide better autocompletion, all while keeping the code in plain JavaScript, with no compile step.

These changes will make it easier to add cool new features to JS Paint in the future.

Themes and File Formats

New and Updated Themes

The Modern theme has been renamed Modern Light and a new Modern Dark theme has been added.

Modern Light before (tool icons from Windows Vista):

Modern Light after (custom SVG icons):

I designed a custom icon set, inspired by Windows Vista's icons. I also customized the icons significantly for the Modern Dark theme, to improve the contrast across the board.

Modern Dark before (tool icons from Windows Vista, with aliasing artifacts when viewed against a dark background):

Modern Dark after (custom SVG icons):

When adapting the Vista icons to scalable vector graphics, I had to make lots of subtle design decisions, but the biggest difference you'll notice is that the Brush tool matches the Classic style of a flat tipped brush (albeit with added gradients), since I really didn't like the Vista Brush tool icon. I mean come on, it's the only icon that's cut off, by design! And it just looks like a blob to me, at least the purple version. (There's also a green version.) Besides, a wide brush emphasizes the distinction from the Pencil tool.

The Classic theme has been renamed Classic Light, and the Classic Dark theme has been updated.

Classic Light (still using tool icons from Windows 98):

Classic Dark before:

Classic Dark after:

I wasn't happy with the Classic Dark theme's icons, especially my use of color; it felt like a cheap RGB color inversion, even though I'm sure I gave it some more thought than that. I also wasn't sure how to achieve good contrast with the pencil tip while maintaining a consistent skeuomorphic style, since graphite is dark just like the background. So I've redesigned the pencil in a more abstract way (all white including the tip), and I've made the icons monochrome.

I'm actually a big fan of color in icons, as I think it helps to distinguish them, so if anyone wants to try their hand at a Classic Dark theme with colored icons, I'd be interested to see it!

That said, monochrome has a nice elegance to it; it's less attention grabbing, and I'm sure some people will always prefer it.

I also updated the Occult theme. I changed the Fill With Color tool into a pouring cauldron, the Pick Color tool into a dagger, and the Magnifier into an eyeball.

Occult before:

Occult after:

(Still needs more ideas.)

Check out the themes in Extras > Themes!

File Formats

File > Save As now asks for a file name and format. PNG, GIF, and BMP are supported, including indexed color BMPs.

See the Supported File Formats table for details.

Tip: Use PNG if you don't have a specific reason to use another format, as it has the best quality when saving.

Black and White mode in Image > Attributes is generalized to handle two arbitrary colors (although it's still called "Black and White" in the Attributes window.)

If an image has only two colors, when switching to "Black and White" mode, it automatically adapts to these colors and fills the Colors box with appropriate dither patterns.

If you use Image > Invert in Black and White mode, it now swaps the two colors present in the image, instead of converting colors to their RGB opposites. If the image is pure black and white, these two operations are equivalent, but now, for example, a green-and-black image will become a black-and-green image, rather than pink-and-white.

Colors > Save Colors also now asks for a file name and format. An absurd number of file formats are supported. You can even export CSS variables for use in a web design project.

RIFF Palette (*.pal) is compatible with MS Paint, and GIMP Palette (*.gpl) is compatible with many open source graphics programs such as Inkscape and Krita.

You can find lots of palettes to use on Lospec. Download a palette as GIMP GPL and use Colors > Get Colors to select the file, or drag and drop the file onto JS Paint to load the palette.

API

I also documented a first version of the API for JS Paint.

I have not yet put much design into the API; rather, I have just documented the interface I came up with for my own use in 98.js.org. In other words, this is more of a draft of an API, though I will certainly create a changelog when I decide to clean it up. So feel free to start using it if you don't mind updating your code as the API changes.

If you want to embed JS Paint in your own project, you can take a look at the Embed in your website section of the readme.

Homepage

JS Paint now has a homepage at jspaint.app/about.

I designed it like a 90s website. You know, one of those thoughtless background pattern filled ones.

Open Source

JS Paint is now finally open source, licensed under the MIT License.

The project has been source-available from the beginning, since I never felt the need to obfuscate or hide the code, but it is now legally open source.

I look forward to seeing how you use JS Paint in your own projects!

There is not yet a formal API for JS Paint, but if you want to get in on the cutting edge, you can take a look at how 98.js.org embeds JS Paint. Expect the API to change significantly in the future.

I've been meaning to open source JS Paint for a long time. There are some legal issues, resources I don't have the copyright to, but I think they should generally fall under fair use. And I have created beautiful SVG versions of the icons, so it's likely possible to have a version of JS Paint without any directly copyrighted resources. But I've finally decided to stop worrying about it, and just open source it already!

I hope you enjoy JS Paint!

The GUIcci Update

New Features

View > Zoom > Show Thumbnail to show a preview of the image at a small size, great for pixel art. Make fine, precise edits, while keeping it all in perspective.

Pinch zooming: If you have a touch screen, use two fingers to zoom in and out, and pan the view.

Alt+Mousewheel to zoom in and out quickly on desktop. Unlike the Magnifier tool, this allows you to zoom while making (or moving) a selection, for added precision.

Added View > Fullscreen to toggle fullscreen mode. This is nice for using JS Paint on your phone.

The Text tool now automatically expands the textbox as you type. When resizing, there's now a minimum size based on the text in the textbox. It previews exactly what size it will end up with when resizing.

Docking: If you drag the Colors box or Tools box out into a window, you can now dock it back when dragging the titlebar. Previously to dock it you had to double click the titlebar, or drag it by the edge of the window.

Menus are now fully keyboard (and screen reader) accessible. In particular, you can hold Alt and press the access key of a menu button to open the menu, and then (without Alt) press the access key of a menu item to select it. The access key of an item is the underlined letter, or the first letter of the item's text if there's no underline.

Error details are now hidden by default in error dialogs. The details may be more overwhelming than useful in a lot of cases, but if you need them, you can expand the details.

File > Exit now exits to the official web desktop, 98.js.org, a re-creation of Windows 98, full of games and applications.

This project spun out of JS Paint, and I have implemented now Sound Recorder, Notepad, Calculator, and even Windows Explorer, to a high level of detail.

It also includes projects from other people, other recreations of old programs, like Webamp, a meticulous recreation of Winamp, and JS Solitaire, a Solitaire clone (I tweaked it for accuracy, adding the card back images, etc.)

Pixel Perfect

All interface elements are now thematically styled, powered by OS-GUI.js and 98.css.

The whole interface is now pixel perfect accurate to Windows 98. (Okay, there's a few things that are a pixel off or so, but seriously, I lined up a screenshot and got it essentially perfect.)

Improved layout of View > Zoom > Custom Zoom window, matching the design in MS Paint.

Added padding to all dialogs so they don't feel cramped anymore.

Message boxes now include warning or error icons, and play a sound when they appear.

Improved View > View Bitmap: it now uses the theme's wallpaper background color, if the image is smaller than the window. It now closes with a click or key press, and doesn't let you edit the image (which was weird).

The Help window can now be minimized to the bottom of the screen, even though there's no taskbar. It works like how Windows 98 does if the process managing the taskbar crashes.

Fixes

Menu buttons are easier to open on a touch screen. Sometimes you had to tap twice before the menu opened.

Fixed large square brush continuity (it left gaps before, due to a half-implemented optimization).

The selection and textboxes no longer "blow up" if you resize them to a minimal size. They are now limited when you drag an edge past the opposite edge.

Fixed a bug where vertically thin selections were difficult or impossible to drag (despite showing a drag cursor). (The draggable region was offset outside of the selection box.) Fixed a similar bug where tool previews would get offset if the canvas's height was very small.

Resize handles no longer get smaller when the object to resize is very small. The draggable region for handles no longer gets smaller either, except in dimensions where it must. It's now considerably smarter than Windows 10 about where it lets you drag handles from.

In Image > Flip/Rotate, you can now click the custom degrees input field before selecting the "Rotate by angle" option.

The magnifier preview and other tool previews are now hidden while dragging the Colors box or Tools box. It looked confusing when the magnifier preview was shown at the same time as the preview outline for dragging/docking a tool window.

For languages that read right-to-left, the History view (Edit > History) now uses a right-to-left layout, and the color box and tool box no longer flip their layout when dragging them into a window or docking them back to a side of the application.

The history view and error messages use more localized text.

Fixed cut off icons in buttons in the help window toolbar in the Modern theme.

All windows now have a default-focused control, and the last focused control in the window is remembered for when you refocus the window.

File > New and File > Open now create a new autosave session, instead of using the current session.

Winter Theme

Updated the Winter theme with advent calendar-style tool buttons, that reveal (improved) holiday pixel art for each tool when you select them.

This means that the Winter theme is more usable, since it doesn't obscure the functions of all the tools with pixel art.

Also, if it doesn't feel quite enough like an advent calendar for you, you can hold Shift to select multiple tools at once.

Perhaps you could make a drawing using only one tool for the 16 days leading up to Christmas, with exceptions for the Pick Color and Magnifier tools, of course.

Snowflakes in the menus indicate what letter you can press to select that item.

To disable the Winter theme, click the Grinch at the bottom of the screen, who will then smile a nasty smile and steal Christmas from you. You can get it back with Extras > Theme > Winter.

The Accessibility Update

Multi-Lingual Support

JS Paint is now largely localized into 26 languages.

How am I releasing so many languages at the initial release of multi-lingual support, you may ask? Well, this project has the somewhat unique opportunity to reuse localizations from an existing program, since it's primarily a remake of MS Paint.

I downloaded and installed 26 versions of Windows 98 in virtual machines, and extracted text from mspaint.exe in each one of them, using a set of scripts that I wrote to to help me automate the process.

To change the language, go to Extras > Language. Your preferred language may already be detected, if specified in system or browser settings.

For Arabic and Hebrew, right-to-left layout is supported!

I tried my hand at some Arabic calligraphy...

If you want to contribute translations, get in touch! I need to do some technical work to set up for community translations on a public platform, but I'm glad people have already expressed interest in helping translate! (I also want to simplify the language in various parts of the UI before asking people to translate them.)

Eye Gaze Mode

Eye Gaze Mode lets you control JS Paint without using your hands.

It's intended for use with an eye tracker, head tracker, or other coarse input scenario.

You don't need a thousand-dollar eye tracker device to play around with this, just a webcam and some free software.

I recommend Enable Viacam, which is not an eye gaze tracker, but rather a general video movement tracker that you can set up to track your head movement (or your torso or hand or anything else).

Eye tracking via a webcam has a ways to go, but it's also pretty amazing in its own right. Try GazePointer.

Eye gaze tracking requires significant calibration, and if the calibration is off, it's hard to use because you can't look where you want to look to interact with things. This is why I recommend head tracking (if that's an option for you), because then you can freely look around, and control the cursor independently, so if it gets offset, you can just tilt your head a bit.

Eye Gaze Mode is built mainly for people with movement disabilities like ALS or Cerebral Palsy, but it can also just be a sort of magical experience. It can also be frustrating, and takes some practice to master.

A good place to start is coloring line art using just the Fill tool ():

• Find coloring pages online, and copy and paste them into JS Paint.
• You can convert them to black and white in Image > Attributes, and then switch back to Colors. (This makes it work better with the Fill tool.)
• Enable Eye Gaze Mode with Extras > Eye Gaze Mode and note that it will start clicking where you hover. You can disable this dwell clicking with the eye icon in the bottom of the screen.
• Make the image fill the screen with View > Zoom > Zoom To Window.

Bonus: Since I implemented a vertical color box for Eye Gaze Mode, I decided to make this available as a separate option. Access with Extras > Vertical Color Box.

Speech Recognition

Using only your voice, you can switch tools and colors, pan the view, click on buttons on the screen by name, and use most menu items. You can even say "draw a cat in a party hat" to have JS Paint try to sketch a cat in a party hat.

This feature pairs well with Eye Gaze Mode for a more complete hands free experience.

The feature is only available on Chrome, and only understands English. Note that Chrome sends your voice to Google servers.

Access with Extras > Speech Recognition. If this option is grayed out, your browser is not supported.

JS Paint will show what it thinks you said in the status bar at the bottom of the screen.

There are many synonyms for commands, and often you can do things with very short phrases like "Curve" to switch to the Curve tool. If it's not recognizing your voice for short commands like "Curve" or "Cut", you may want to try longer phrases like "Curve tool" or "Cut selection", as this helps it distinguish the sound as speech, rather than a cough for instance.

Edit Colors Dialog

I also implemented the Edit Colors dialog. Previously this used the native system color picker, and didn't work for some people.

Access with Colors > Edit Colors or double click a color in the palette to edit.

Keyboard shortcuts are supported in this dialog, and for mobile devices with small screens, I made it treat adding custom colors as a separate screen.

Conclusion

JS Paint should be way more accessible now. And futuristic.

Of course there's always more that could be done. Eye Gaze Mode could use brush stroke smoothing, and Speech Recognition could use Artificial General Intelligence.

I'd love to see people using JS Paint, especially the Eye Gaze Mode and Speech Recognition, so if you record a video of using JS Paint, please send it to me through this form. This lets me know what's actually important to people, and what's confusing, and it gives me motivation to work on new features.

Winter Update

Winter Theme

A new UI skin is available, under Extras > Themes > Winter, featuring winter and holiday icons, festive fonts, and a palette with seasonal colors and peppermint patterns.

Merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah!

Better History

• Click on Text in the history view to go back to text editing.
• You can return to when a selection existed.
• Note: these states are skipped over with normal Undo and Redo, so you need to use the History window.
• Branching history: if you undo, and then make changes, you can get back to everything. Future states are preserved.

Improved Mobile Support

New: Use two fingers to pan the view.

I recently made it easier to grab handles for resizing things. With that, combined with multitouch panning, JS Paint is much more useable on a phone.

Caveat: It's slow on some devices, and parts of the interface are still too small for touch.

Polygon, Text, and Select

Handles are now way easier to drag, with extended click targets, similar to Paint from Windows 7. It's not unreasonable to use with a touch screen now! This applies to selections, textboxes, and the main canvas handles.

Resizing things while zoomed in is finally fixed!

The Text tool now perfectly previews the pixels that will be placed on the canvas. What you see is what you get! Also it retains all browser editing behavior, like spellcheck, using a convoluted, yet elegant overlaying strategy. (I prototyped this here and here if you're interested.)

With the fill-only option selected, the Polygon tool now previews with inverted lines, like MS Paint does. (When you finish the polygon, the boundary of the shape matches the preview exactly, because it actually does draw a stroke, just the same color as the fill.)

Zoom To Mouse

New: The Magnifier now lets you zoom to a specific location, showing a preview of the new viewport.

Also, when zooming out with the Magnifier, or changing the zoom from the toolbar or menus, the top left corner of the viewport is now kept anchored.

Also, pasting a selection will now go to the top left of the viewport, instead of the entire document.

The Grid, Custom Zoom, and Dynamic Cursors

New: The Grid. Zoom to 4x+ and use View > Zoom > Show Grid or Ctrl+G to enable. This works with browser zoom as well to provide crisp gridlines even if you zoom in with your browser.

New: View > Zoom > Custom Zoom, including an actually-custom numerical zoom option, unlike MS Paint.

New: Dynamic cursors for brush and eraser, so you now have a preview of exactly where the tool will draw.

Also, in the event that your browser clears canvases to free up memory, you should be more likely to be able to undo to get back to a useful state.

Full Clipboard Support

JS Paint now lets you copy real image data to the Clipboard, both with keyboard shortcuts and from the Edit menu. This feature is available in Chrome 76+. Other browsers don't support it yet, as of Sep 2019.

Also: paste the URL of an image, and JS Paint will load and paste the image. (This is an alternative to File > Load from URL, which replaces the document.)