Windows 11 still gets new features and modifications, and this time, there are important updates on system applications such as paint and notepad. Here is all Microsoft deployed to Windows last week.
You can reach the Windows Insider program to try the experimental features, but some changes are on a progressive deployment and not yet available for all members of the initiate program. You don’t have to install Windows Insider Builds on an important computer.
Window paint
Microsoft has announced some updates to paint to paint, bringing a few steps closer to the application of a complete image editor. Painting can now have project files, allowing you to record your work and edit them later, without losing layer data and other adjustments, such as the .PSD Files in Photoshop. Painting files have a .paint File extension.
The paint also adds an opacity cursor, so you can change the transparency of your modifications when you use the pencil and brush tools. It is not clear if the opacity parameter is only for drawing, or if it can be used for any layer object, as Photoshop and other publishers allow it.
This change is deployed in Paint version 11.2508.361.0, available now in Windows 11 development channels and channels.
Snipping tool
SNIPPING TOOL version 11.2508.24.0, available now in canals and DEV channels, adds a new quick markup tool. When activated and try to take a screenshot, a toolbar will appear with drawing, gum and shape tools. This allows you to make your changes Before The final screenshot is captured and recorded, rather than later. The main advantage here is that you can adjust the capture area as part of the editing process – in case you need more space to draw circles, or something else.
You can activate quick markup by clicking the button in the contextual bar of the snipping tool, or with the keyboard shortcut CTRL + E.
Notepad
Microsoft has introduced a brand new notepad with Windows 11, and since then, other features such as Rich Text Formatting have arrived. However, you might not like this last change: AI’s text features are in progress.
The notepad obtains the same summary, writing and pre-writing tools that you have seen in countless other writing applications. The only torsion here is that if you have a COPILOT + PC, you have the possibility of using a disc model on free and unlimited access, similar to writing tools on supported Apple devices. The other parameter will use a cloud AI model via your Microsoft 365 subscription.
These changes are available in the notepad version 11,2508.28.0, from the channels and development channels.
Click to do
The Click To Do menu is a recent addition to Windows 11, offering you generative selection and context functionalities powered by AI on any co -pilot + PC. Microsoft is now testing another addition: language translation.
From the development chain and the beta channel, you can select text anywhere on your screen with the click to do menu (Win + Q Q Keying shortcut), and if it is in a different language from your Windows system language, you will see an option to translate the text.
Microsoft said in a blog article: “The selected text is sent to the Copilot application, which provides translation transparently in the experience. This feature is currently working if you have the new co -pilot prompt box by clicking so that it starts to deploy in the previous flight. This change is not yet moving to Windows Insiders in the EEE (European Economic Zone) or in China. ”
It is not clear whether this translation occurs locally on your PC or not – most actions and prompts in the COPILOT application run Microsoft’s cloud servers. If the text is sensitive or private, you may want to use another tool.
Task bar and system tray
Microsoft is now testing what could be the most flagrant co -pilot to date in Windows 11, which says something. From beta and development channels, there is now a button “ Share with Copilot ‘when you fly over an open application window in the taskbar, where the window overview is normally displayed.
Microsoft says that this feature will help you “quickly start a new conversation with Copilot and use Copilot’s vision to scan, analyze and offer information on what is shown on your screen from this application at that time.” Honestly, this seems to be a great way to stimulate the use of the co -pilot thanks to a pure accident – how many people will click on this Copilot button via muscle memory instead of the window overview?
I hope that this change will come back before moving to more PC, but knowing how Windows 11 took place recently, I do not make my hopes.
Other changes
The latest constructions of the Canary channel are supposed to improve performance while playing, in particular with the “game bar or other overlays above your game” and configurations with several monitors operating at different refreshing rates.
In the Dev and Beta channels, if you have Windows Spotlight as a chosen desktop (bing images) and right -click the desktop, two new options are available. The first is a menu element “Learn more about this background”, which works like the shortcut of the lock screen, and the second is an option of “next desktop” which modifies the image.
There are also some changes to the Settings application, starting with the Dev and Beta channels. The “Email & Pans” section is now called “your accounts”, unified in other accounts in the system settings.
Source: Windows Insider blog (1, 2, 3, 4)
