[KPhotoAlbum] image stacking, xmp support, feature wishlist

[Jan Kundrát]

> | Maybe I can reach you with this address.

OK, replying with CC to the list. Your reply won't reach the list, sorry 
for complications.

> | As I understand the blog post it is implemented as manual stacking: Mark a
> | few pictures and group them together. What do you think about automatic
> | grouping based on the time stamp? Currently I use a simple bash script to
> | group all pictures which time stamp differs for less then 15 minutes
> | together in a directory and generating numbered directorys for all groups.
> | This is based on the assumption that pictures which are closely related in
> | time are highly likly to be related in content as well and works pretty
> | good for me.

That's indeed an interesting idea. We have discussed something similar 
on the development sprint. I can't promise that it'll be added soon (or 
at all), but it's definitely a good idea to consider.

> | Grouping would fit perfectly with the other feature I miss most: Quality
> | rating. I miss a simple way to rate the pictures on-the-fly by 0.5...5
> | stars, increse/decrese in steps of 1/2. Currently I use token and a quality
> | category to simulate this feature. On viewing the pictures I set the tokens
> | 'a' to 'd' to mark the images with 1/2..2 stars in the viewer and later I
> | convert the tokens to a category entry. I works, but this workaround is
> | neither convinient nor intuitive.

I thought I've already blogged about this one -- yep, rating is going to 
be included in the next version and the prototype is already in SVN. If 
you want to try it, compile a SVN version of KPA [1] and be sure you 
have Nepomuk installed, as we use the KRatingWidget from this KDE framework.

> | An easier way would be to use a a simple keystroke (eg. ',' and '.') for
> | incresing and decreasing the current rating value. Hitting ',' two times
> | decreases the rating by one star, hitting '.' one time increases the rating
> | by 1/2 star. (or set the value 'unrated')

That's indeed interesting, but will need some effort, as you probably 
want a visual feedback about changed value (and from a technical POV, 
updating the InfoBox without flickering would not be a trivial task).

> | A rating should offer these functions:
> |   - a name (of course)
> |   - a neutral 'unrated' value
> |   - a range of possible values: min, max, step size
> |   - a starting value (see below)

I'm not sure what you mean by these -- I'm certainly not going to 
implement user-adjustable step size for rating. Minimum is 0, maximum is 
5 and step size is 0.5, take it or leave it :).

What you mean by a "name"?

> | With rating implemented it can be combined with the grouping feature: If no
> | specific picture is selected by the user use the highest rated picture from
> | the group as the default view.

Yep, the stacking feature needs love, especially a nice GUI where you'd 
be able to incrementally "stash" bad images and thus select a winner. 
We'd like to keep stacking and rating as two different things, though, 
as you don't necessarily want the best-rated image as the selected one 
(think about stitched panoramas).

> |   - rating. Essential function. The reason to use a photo management
> | software at all. - xmp import/export (with sidecar file support like exiv2)

You can be be at least partially happy now, then :)

> |   - stacking: Might even replace the default album oriented view.

Stacking can't be nested (and that's by design).

> |   - file management: move selected images to directorys. Complements
> | perfectly automatic image stacking: generate one directory per stack on
> | camera import. Allow for renaming the auto generated names.

I'm not sure what you mean here -- we don't do any "camera import", we 
just scan for whatever user put into his filesystem.

> - speed:
> | selecting albums with > 1000 files (eg. year oriented directories) is
> | sssssloooowwwww. Way to slow for every day use. I'am happy to hear somebody
> | is working on this issue.

Could you please elaborate what you call "album"? Do you mean opening a 
list of thumbnails which has more than 1000 images?

  Cheers,
-jkt

[1] http://www.kphotoalbum.org/download-svn.html

-- 
cd /local/pub && more beer > /dev/mouth

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 260 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kphotoalbum/attachments/20080924/caa2c8ba/attachment.sig>