Painting to select cards, boxes, and connections is faster and more responsive. Both fine detailed selections and quick broad strokes feel natural.

A Short History of Magic Paint

Paint selecting is a unique feature of kinopio, it enables really flexible selections/bulk editing in a way that feels both intuitive and creative.

The painting interface actually started it's life at Glitch, where it was something to keep you occupied for the 2-10 seconds it could take for a project to load. People would often try to sweep their mouse around the viewport to fill the screen with color before the loading was complete.

Whether you identify as an artist or not yet, painting is a naturally fun interaction.

Years later, when I first started prototyping Kinopio, I reworked the concept to work for selecting items.

Of course, things have evolved since then, although mostly under the hood. The magic painting system features numerous <canvas> painting and collision detection optimizations to feel fluid and responsive at any size space and with any number of cards.