[KimDaBa] Re: Next release one week, then what?!

[Benny Rochwerger]

Hi all, 

I have been using KimDaBa only for a couple of weeks, but I am very
impressed with it (and personally I like the name) and even though it
still doesn't have all what I need, it comes very close.

Up to now I have been using IMatch on Windows, and since I started using
KimDaBa I have been trying to understand what is what I really missed
from IMatch and I think that it is not a particular set of features but
the way that it allows each one of us to define a workflow and follow it
easily.  In my opinion what will make KimDaBa unbeatable is to focus not
only on image categorization (which I think it is already the best I've
seen) but on the entire workflow (which is probably a little different
for each one of us, but has common patterns). For instance what I
normally do with my images is:

1. Move them from flash memory to disk (I use a card reader so support
for all the possible cameras is not really an issue for me)
2. Rename images by timestamp (yyyymmdd-###)
3. Open up a image viewer (such as the Configuration Window) where each
image is:
 a. categorized
 b. mark for further processing (to post, to print, to edit, ...)
 c. compared with similar images to select the best (this is where
displaying EXIF info comes really handy as part of the learning process)
 d. delete the bad ones
4. Return to marked images to do some additional work with them. In many
cases this involves creating a copy of the image with some differences
(edited, changed size, compression, etc). Quite often I do not want the
resulting images in the database (for example when I resize an image for
posting I do no keep a copy of the posted smaller image). Marked images
are either umarked (since processing was done) or move to another
marking category (from "to edit" to "to post"). Batch processing of the
marked images is common (resize, recompress all the "to post" images",
save results in temporary directory)
5. Burn to CD
6. Remove from disk (but want the thumbnails for future searching)

For me to achieve this workflow entirely within KimDaBa I will really
like to see in future versions, is (in order of importance for me):

1. Better support for offline data

2. Display (selectable) EXIF info in the "Configure image(s)" Window

3. Flexible support for batching operations, for example send the
selected set to a shell script (dragging the selected images to a shell
kind of enables this, but is not as intuitive as to right click and
select a "Send to command"  menuitem. The result of the script anywhere
in the filesystem (i.e., do not necesarily get added to the image
database).

4. Support for a special "State" category that enables images to be
assigned to a single member. This category can then be used as the
driver for the workflow by moving images from one member (state) to
another.  If this is not possible, then at least I think the capability
of "uncategorizing" a set of images together is a must (I used category
members to mark state, and although I can add many images to a category
member with a single command, but I have to remove them from the
temporary (state) category one by one)

Again I think this is a really cool program - Thanks Jesper

Benny