Assorted Plugins for paint.net

I use VS Code The solution and project files are made with Visual Studio 2019. The VS Code information below is kept in case anyone wants to contribute to the project using VS Code. Extra care would have to be taken to avoid mangling the .csproj and .sln files.

Visual Studio

Each plugin copies its built DLL into the paint.net plugins folder on build, so Visual Studio needs to be run as administrator for that action to work. Otherwise you will have to copy the files yourself each time you build.

Template

There is a folder containing a .vstemplate file in the PluginTemplate directory. If you drop a directory junction in the Visual Studio templates folder, it will be picked up and updated if the repo ever updates it:

mklink /D "%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Visual Studio 2019\Templates\ProjectTemplates\PluginTemplate" "C:\Path\To\Repo\PluginTemplate"

VS Code (Legacy)

Note: Some information in this section may be out of date. I use Visual Studio now.

Associated VS Code Plugins

I use these plugins in VS Code for C# and project management purposes. These links will open in VS Code (using the vscode protocol).

• C#
• C# Extensions (New C# Class/Interface in context menu)
• Auto Close Tag (XML)
• XML Tools (XML format)

Debug Setup

As far as I know, paint.net doesn't support sideloading plugins, so the easiest debug setup is to install the plugin as a symlink:

mklink "C:\Program Files\paint.net\Effects\PluginName.dll" "PluginName\bin\Debug\PluginName.dll"

You can also use Link Shell Extension to make this process less painful. I found it much easier to pin the Effects folder in Explorer and drag-and-drop the DLLs while holding right click, which gives a "Drop Here... Symbolic Link" option.

Since the plugin is installed, just use paint.net as the debug program, for example in VS Code launch.json:

"program": "${env:PROGRAMFILES}\\paint.net\\PaintDotNet.exe"

If your paint.net is installed somewhere else, you'll have to adjust the locations of the DLLs in the .csproj file.

Template

1. Copy the Template folder and rename it and the .csproj file
2. Rename the .cs files and update the .csproj file
3. Update the information in Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs
4. Update icon.png for the menu icon
5. Add the project to the solution using dotnet sln add PluginFolder