Tux Paint

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Tux Paint

Drawing with stamps in Tux Paint
Developer:	William J Kendrick, et al
Latest release:	0.9.16 / October 22, 2006
OS:	Cross-platform
Use:	Raster graphics editor
License:	GPL
Website:	www.tuxpaint.org

Tux Paint is an open source bitmap graphics editor (a program for creating and processing raster graphics) geared towards young children. The project was started in 2002 by William J Kendrick who continues to maintain and improve it, with help from numerous volunteers. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License, and seen by many as a free software alternative to a similar commercial educational software product, Kid pix.

1 Overview
2 Features
3 Example artwork
4 See also
5 External links
- 5.1 Official
- 5.2 Other

[edit] Overview

Tux Paint was initially created for the Linux operating system, as there was no suitable drawing program for young children available for Linux at that time. It was written in the C programming language and uses the open source helper libraries, including the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL), and has since been made available for Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, BeOS and other platforms. (See the Tux Paint downloads page.)

[edit] Features

Tux Paint stands apart from typical graphics editing software (such as The GIMP or Photoshop) in that it was designed to be usable by children as young as 3 years old. The user interface is meant to be intuitive, and utilizes icons, audible feedback and textual hints to help explain how the software works. The brightly-colored interface, sound effects and cartoon mascot (Tux, the Linux penguin) are meant to engage children.

Tux Paint's normal interface is split into five sections:

Toolbox, containing the various basic tools (see below) and application controls (undo, save, new, print)
Canvas, where the images are drawn and edited
Color palette, where colors can be chosen (when applicable to the current tool)
Selector, providing various selectable objects (e.g., brushes, fonts or sub-tools, depending on the current tool)
Information area, where instructions, tips and encouragement are provided

[edit] Basic drawing tools

Like most popular graphics editing and composition tools, Tux Paint includes a paintbrush, an eraser, and tools to draw lines, polygonal shapes and text. Tux Paint provides multiple levels of undo and redo, allowing accidental or unwanted changes to be removed while editing a picture.

[edit] Interacting with the operating system

Tux Paint was designed in such a way that the user does not need to understand the underlying operating system or how to deal with files. The "Save" and "Open" commands were designed to mimic those of software for personal digital assistant devices, such as the Palm handheld. When one saves a picture in Tux Paint, they do not need to provide a file name or browse for where to place it. When one goes to open a previously-saved picture, a collection of thumbnails of saved images is shown.

Similarly, printing is typically a 'no questions asked' process, as well.

[edit] Advanced drawing tools

Tux Paint includes a number of 'filters' and 'special effects' which can be applied to a drawing, such as blurring, fading, and making the picture look as though it was drawn in chalk on pavement. These are available through the 'Magic' tool in Tux Paint.

A large collection of artwork and photographic imagery are also available (under a license allowing free redistribution), and may be placed inside drawings using Tux Paint's "Rubber Stamp" tool.

[edit] Parental and teacher controls

As features are added to Tux Paint, configuration options have been added that allow parents and teachers to disable features and alter the behavior to better suit their children's or students' needs, or to better integrate the software in their home or school computing environment. Typical options, such as enabling or disabling sound effects and full-screen mode are available. There are also options that help make Tux Paint suitable for younger or disabled children, such as displaying text using only uppercase letters or ignoring the distinction between buttons on the mouse.