[Digikam-devel] digiKam in dot.kde.org

[Mikolaj Machowski]

Dnia Monday 31 of March 2008, Gilles Caulier napisał:
>
> Just few words to speak about a thread in dot.kde.org talking about
> digiKam for KDE4...
>
> http://dot.kde.org/1206954953/1206962771/
>

Hello,

I edited a bit your post (below), may I post it as a suggestion for
independent Dot article? Any suggestions for additions?

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We have plans to release 0.10.0 in September, if all is fine. 

Regression tests will take a while. I wouldn't provide a "stable" release 
full
of bugs. 

As you can see, porting of Qt3/KDE3 application like digiKam, K3B or
Amarok to Qt4/KDE4 is not a simple task. Because changes in API are huge
all elements must be tested, some parts even re-written. Advantage of
this approach is review of all old code with factorization,
simplification and various other improvements.

digiKam 0.10 is still in alpha. I advise agains use of it in production,
at least until first release candidate.

There are also kipi-plugins and all shared libraries where Marcel and me
are working hard to port to native QT4/KDE4: 

- libkdcraw (including new 16 bits color depth auto-gamma/auto white 
balance)
- libexiv2 (including new full XMP metadata support)
- libkipi (partially re-written and cleaned).
- 7 kipi-plugins fully ported by me (SendImages, RAWConverter, 
JPEGLossLess,
  FlashExport, TimeAdjust, MetadataEdit, and AcquireImage).

I present here few screenshots of digiKam for KDE4 in action:

1.

http://digikam3rdparty.free.fr/Screenshots/newsearchwindow.png

New Search tool make by Marcel. It's not yet complete, we want to
finalize this interface for beta1. Like you can see, big work have been
done to make a clean interface without any database-sql requests. It's
more user friendly. Note that Database schema have been re-written and
improved to include much more photo metadata informations. For example,
GPS info are now stored in DB which means all read-only files can be
geo-localized.

2.

http://digikam3rdparty.free.fr/Screenshots/thumbbarwithpreviewmode.png
http://digikam3rdparty.free.fr/Screenshots/FullColorThemeSupport/thumbbarineditor.png

In digiKam for KDE4, thumbnail kio-slave disappears. All thumbs are now
generated using multi-threading (another part implemented by Marcel) If
you have already played with Showfoto, you have certainly seen
a thumbbar. KDE3 implementation use kioslave without memory cache
mechanism. It's slow.  The new mechanism is faster and can be included
as well everywhere in digiKam without decrease of performance. I have
included thumbbar in Image Editor (F4) and in AlbumGUI with Preview mode
(F3). The same cache is used everywhere. 

3.

http://digikam3rdparty.free.fr/Screenshots/digikam_for_KDE4_with_XMP_metadata_support.png
http://digikam3rdparty.free.fr/Screenshots/MetadataEditor/

In KDE4, XMP is fully supported. I have improved MetadataEditor
kipi-plugin and rewritten all dialog pages to be more user friendly, and
to be homogenous with other tools available under Mac OS X or Win32.

4.

http://digikam3rdparty.free.fr/Screenshots/digikamKDE4_under_MACOSX.png

Gutavo Boiko, have ported several code in digiKam to compile as native
application under Mac OS X. 

5.

http://digikam3rdparty.free.fr/Screenshots/newkipiimagecollectionselectorwidgetKDE4.png

For KDE4 I have fixed libkipi to become a pure image collection
interface: no widgets, no dialogs, no translations. All GUI components
must be re-implemented in kipi-host using the right model/view
implementation. For digiKam, I have already implemented all of them. The
advantage is really visible here: the tree view used for all
physical/virtual albums in digiKam can be used as well with all
kipi-plugins (KDE3 only provide a flat albums list, not really
suitable). 

6.

http://digikam3rdparty.free.fr/Screenshots/gpstracklisteditor.png

In KDE4 I have implemented a new tool to edit GPS track list of several
images at the same time. This tool use Google Maps, but there is a plan
to use Marble if necessary, especially when user doesn't have a network
access.

7.

http://digikam3rdparty.free.fr/Screenshots/digikamKDE4_15.png

With KDE4, multiple root album paths are supported, including removable
media and network repositories. There will be no problems to use digiKam
with a NFS server to host your images.

8.

http://digikam3rdparty.free.fr/Screenshots/FullColorThemeSupport/digikam0.10.0.png
http://digikam3rdparty.free.fr/Screenshots/FullColorThemeSupport/fullcolortheme6.png

Full color theme interface: this was also backported to KDE3. Now color
schemes are applied everywhere in GUI. With dark themes (my preferred),
digiKam looks like a pro-software (:=)))...

9.

http://digikam3rdparty.free.fr/Screenshots/RAW16bitsAutogamma

This is a very important feature : auto-gamma and auto-white balance with
all RAW file format using 16 bits color depth! Before, 16 bits color depth
support required use of color management to have a suitable image in 
editor.
Without color management, you had a black hole image... This is due to 
limitation from
dcraw which do not provide an homogenous interface between 8 bits and 16 
bits
color depth workflow. 

On these screenshots, you can compare a same RAW image decoded:

- On the left by dcraw in 8 bits color depth and converted to PNG. 
Auto-gamma
  and auto white balance is performed automatically by dcraw.

- On the middle by digiKam in 16 bits color depth using libkdcraw with
  a dedicaced auto-gamma and auto-white-balance performed in digiKam core.

- On the right by the LightZone (:=)))... As you can see, digiKam is not 
too
  bad!

digiKam is now able to play with all RAW images in 16 bits color depth 
without
to use a complex color management settings: in your workflow RAW pictures 
can be handled like
JPEG file. This is very productive and fast method, for example
LightZone uses this style. Note that this feature was also backported to
KDE3.

I'd like to remind to all that digiKam have been the first suitable Open
Source photo-management program with support of 16 bits color depth
pictures as well! Gimp, f-spot do not support it! Cinepaint can do it,
but seriously, who will use it to play with pictures? Of course we have
now Krita to work with layers... digiKam+Krita == the perfect photo
suite (:=)))

It's time now for me to close this file and return to underground
hacking-world...

Gilles Caulier
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