[KPhotoAlbum] KDE4 svn (rev834494) comments & test report

[Risto H. Kurppa]

Hi!

I installed the SVN version with the instructions on the KPA website
on a 64-bit KDE4.1rc1 Kubuntu Hardy. I tried earlier to install it
without the extra KDE3 libraries (to the real KDE4 dirs) but didn't
succeed. But anyway, here are some comments and stuff. Let me know if
there's anything worth reporting to kde bug tracker:

- When starting the demo database, the first tip I got was 'this is
the last tip'. I was able to find the rest of the tips with the arrow
buttons.

- Generally I like the looks of KDE4 :)

- When in search dialog when I:
   select a text input box with a mouse
   start typing a name of a tag
   the list is dynamically edited and a tag there is selected
   but I can't use enter to select a tag and fill in another one.
Earlier this has been possible but I noticed in 3.1.1 (Ubuntu Hardy)
the same unwanted behavior. Is this KPA or KDE4 that has something
wrong?

- the slideshow dialogs ('starting slideshow' and time delay boxes)
are ugly on the yellow background. Is there a change to use something
nicer. I like the style Amarok uses for it's OSD :)

- I like the statistics menu item. Good idea with the 'if you have a
tag to indicate an image has been tagged, specify it here'. Too bad
that I use tags to indicate images that have NOT been tagged :) but
anyway..

- I would like to see 'eventes' as one of the default categories to
tag 'birthdays' or 'parades' or so. I know some use 'keywords' for
this, I myself use keywords for 'car', 'dog', 'building' and so on. (
I even created me a 'animal' category with latin / english animal
names when spending a summer in Costa Rica and had good books where to
define the names. But now it's mostly useless :). Hmm.. This and the
previous point gives me the idea to create a category for metatags,
like 'photos by someone else but me', 'peoples need to be
tagged/recognized', 'place needs to be tagged/defined' and so on..

- Open list of files - what's this? You can type in file names to do what?

- for snapshots I home you remove menu items like 'convert backend..
Experimental'.. If it's not meant to be used, please remove it..

- plugins menu is empty for me (right, I know I don't have kipi
plugins or -dev installed). Would it be possible to hide this if
plugins are not installed? Would it be good or should it be left there
to indicate a user that it might be possible to have plugins or will
the user think that KPA is broken because of not showing plugins
there?

- generally I think KPA is not very responsive for some reason: for
the settings dialog to open I have to wait for 1-3 seconds

- the green bars in the date/time/whatever bar in the main view are
not that nice looking either: some kind of support for KDE theme
colours would be nice there as well

- To select/ limit to a time frame, you have to know to press the
mouse button down on the time scale, not on the boxes of the time bar.
I think this is not that easy for a new user to find. I suggest that
all the selections (also jumping to a specific time) would be made on
the white area of the time bar, not on the date text.

- How about moving the 'reset the time limit' red button from left to
the right where all other buttons are as well? The small button is
difficult to notice on the left.

- I think the Home button should also reset the time limit. To really
take home & show all images

- the order of the buttons in the toolbar could be changed a bit. This
is my recommendation based on konqueror and openoffice toolbar button
order:
save|back forward home refresh | copy find | run slideshow    || searchbar
or
save|back forward home refresh | copy | run slideshow | find || searchbar

- How about adding icon view and list view buttons as default in the
toolbar? And by default use the custom icons, if they're set.

- I added the list view and icon view buttons in the toolbar. Pressed
the icon view button and KPA crashed:
ASSERT: "category.data()" in file
/home/rhk/Ohjelmat/KPA-kde4/extragear-graphics/kphotoalbum/Browser/BrowserWidget.cpp,
line 265
Same happens every time with list & icon view buttons with the same message

- and actually after this I lost some buttons from the toolbar: home,
copy, save, find are missing!

- How about new photos for the KPA demo database? I think it's cool
that Jesper has provided some 'live footage' but I think they might
not be that hmm.. attractive material for people. It's the same as
when you're trying to sell your house, you're not supposed to have any
personal stuff (photos. toothbrush and so on) there but something that
anyone could have and identify with. So maybe some nice animal shots,
flowers, landscapes and so on? Maybe we all here on the list could
provide some photos for Jesper? Hmm.. ok, since I cannot code I'll
volunteer to create a new demo database. I'll write another mail about
this soon.


Well ok, this for now.. Next I'll start my real database, this was
with the demo database..

(ok, need to recompile & stuff to get the exif stuff working.. )

- Starting a new KPA installation you have the option to choose
'Feature check'. Here all the texts are blue and underlined (plug-ins
available, exif info supported and all those) so one could think
they're links. But nothing happens when I try to click on them. Not
good.

- Feature check says Plug-ins available: yes but no kipi plugins in the menu?

- OK, when I open the feature status tool from menu I see that they
really are links.. Hmm.. I think either the links should be removed
from the start-> feature check or the button should open this feature
status tool that also shows how to solve this problem and the links
make sense..

- I tried to enable more features, another mail about that, I need
some help there..


That's it for now. I'll try to enable more features before trying
KDE4-kpa with my real database.


So you're welcome to ask more details and comment and so on.


r



-- 
| risto h. kurppa
| risto at kurppa dot fi
| http://risto.kurppa.fi