iMage is a new image viewer utility which has some features that can not see in others.

- fast thumbnail creation
- makes thumbnail icons for ultra fast reload
- add text comments for images
- load images directly from an URL
- crop, resize images
- save (upload) directly to web or ftp servers

There is a long list of features to be add on, but still undecided what should be in the first release.

Look at this "teaser" video that captured on a Pegasos2/OS4.1FE.

https://youtu.be/zDE3UxRWiag

Your comments are warmly welcome!

Lazi

@Lazi

Nice! Do you use Hollywood?

@Lazi
Do you make versions for all Amiga Systems?

@Lazi

Quote:

- makes thumbnail icons for ultra fast reload

That's not the best way.

A single catalogue file containing all the thumbs is quicker and easier to load.
No drawer scanning on startup, just check if the '.thumbs' (or whatever you call it) exists, as each thumb is processed a stored filename can be used to check if the original still exists and remove the thumb if it doesn't, then finally do a drawer scan to check for new files, add any, sort and save the catalogue file. Doing it this way gets the thumbs on screen as fast as possible which is what the user really wants.
It can contain JPG images so would be far smaller than using IFF or PNG icons.
It doesn't slow down drawer listing.
It doesn't clutter up the drawers by doubling the number of files.

Icons are fine of you don't have more than 100 files per drawer but when you have 10,000 they are a pain in the A**E (donkey's relative for the americans).


Edit: Not sure about the name iMage sounds like some evil wizard app from crapple.

Last edited by Severin on 11-Jan-2016 at 11:31 AM.
Last edited by Severin on 11-Jan-2016 at 11:29 AM.

_________________
OS4 Rocks
X1000 beta tester, Sam440 Flex (733)

Visit the Official OS4 Support Site for more help.

It may be that your sole purpose is to serve as a warning to others.

@Severin

We have this option in Workbench Prefs since AmigaOS 4.1 F.E. Just set an temp path and an index file and the thumbnails are stored on your hard disk. If this is activated, the drawer loads very quick the second time.

After installation there is no path stored but the system gets an massive improvement if it is activated, especially on slower systems.

@Lazi: Thanks fot the software, will try it. Perhaps a funktion for looking into workbench prefs it the temp path is stored and decide to load the thumbs which the workbench has stored before would improve the whole speed again instead of recalculating the thumbs on every start of your program.

Regards,
Thomas

_________________
www.amiboing.de - www.entwickler-x.de

@imagodespira
Quote:

We have this option in Workbench Prefs since AmigaOS 4.1 F.E. Just set an temp path and an index file and the thumbnails are stored on your hard disk. If this is activated, the drawer loads very quick the second time.

if you are referring to the cache in Worbench Prefs Icons/Previews tab, I set the Cache path to HD3:icache and nothing ever gets saved in the cache. It doesn't work for me.

_________________
X1000 with 2GB memory & OS4.1FE

@Xenic

Works fine on sam460 and x1000 here, will try it tomorrow on sam440.

Perhaps we should open a net thread if there is an issue, so we can let this thread here clean for the image viewer. Could be a function some people does not know.

_________________
www.amiboing.de - www.entwickler-x.de

@Severin
It's not drawer scanning that takes so much time, it's the image processing. If you enter "list TBImages: >ram:images" in a shell, you will get a complete listing of the 8000+ images almost instantly. If speed is the issue, I think 10,000 uncompressed IFF or PNG images will load faster that 10,000 jpeg images that need to be uncompressed.

I could be wrong, so do you have a program that works the way you describe? I'd like to see how it works with the TBImages directory.

_________________
X1000 with 2GB memory & OS4.1FE

@Xenic

With this to cache path, under MorphOS it not work.

Thanks for all the valuable comments.

I can separate the two area of the thumbnail handling. The first is for the WorkBench drawer windows and the other is for an application.
The WB icon handling is not so reliable with large amounts of icons, but I don't see it as a crucial problem. The purpose of those windows is to let the user to select one or some files from a manageable amount of icons, use the drag&drop facility. There is no sense to display e.g. tbimages: in such a window.
Of course there is room for improvements, because it is not a nice thing that if you open accidentally a drawer with about 8000 files the system stops user input for a long time and consumes all the memory. Maybe a WB prefs defined file limit for icon displaying could solve this with a new file list type, which doesn't allocate a full bitmap for the whole list (if I know well how this is working now).

The other part is the thumbnails in an application which should has no compromisis in reliability.
Still can not decide which way would be the best.

1. Amiga icons

The flexibility is surely the best.
It is choosed for the current iMage because:
- it is quite fast for loading even if there is some hundred files
- the OS4 png icons are easy to handle
- the tooltype can contain additional informations
- last but not least it is a traditional Amiga way of handling thumbnails

iMage stores the user defined rotation in a tooltype, so the image can be loaded with the stored orientation. Orientation change is fast, because it is only affected by the thumbnail. There is no need to rotate the whole image save it and then recreate the humbnail. (It can be see in the video around 1:40)

2. .thumbs

As Severin suggests a file that contains several thumbnails. It can be stored in the drawer of the images or some other place.
Have not tested yet, but for a lot of thumbnails I think it is too much hassle to maintain a large file. The same problems as some mainstream email clients has.
If you have to refresh only one thumbnail in the file, in the worst case you should rewrite all of the contents.

3. the global thumbs

There is a drawer or file which contains all of the thumbnails you have created. OS4 FE uses this way for the previews view.

After Thomas pointed out the Workbench prefs which I overlooked before, it looks interesting to use that feature and don't recreate a thumbnail if it is already available.
Is there any description of the .index file?

For the other question: Yes, it is made with Hollywood, and would like to adapt it to all platform if it will be really useable.

@imagodespira
Never mind. I got it working. Dumb mistake on my part.

_________________
X1000 with 2GB memory & OS4.1FE

@Lazi
There is a reason why the software used to store computer data is called a 'filesystem'; because it's a filing system! Putting thousands of files in a single directory is like a business storing all it's paperwork in one giant mile-long drawer. I tested the display of the TBimages: directory with normal icons and with the Preview system. In both cases, it takes many minutes to load all the images and kills multitasking while the images are being loaded. Workbench just isn't up to the task of loading and displaying that many icons.

I would recommend giving the user a prefs choice of thumnail methods:
1. As icon files in the same directory.
2. As cached images in a single file or as individual files in a sub-directory.
3. In a global location (directory or file).

If a user opens write protected media like a CD full of pictures, only global caching is possible. in that case I think your program should open a requester asking if the user wants thumbnails globally cached for that media if he doesn't have that option set globally.

_________________
X1000 with 2GB memory & OS4.1FE

@imagodespira

Quote:

@Severin We have this option in Workbench Prefs since AmigaOS 4.1 F.E. Just set an temp path and an index file and the thumbnails are stored on your hard disk. If this is activated, the drawer loads very quick the second time.

I know, I was beta testing it a long time before it was released to the public. One little problem though... I don't use workbench anymore, I rarely see an icon. I use dopus5 with text based listers.

_________________
OS4 Rocks
X1000 beta tester, Sam440 Flex (733)

Visit the Official OS4 Support Site for more help.

It may be that your sole purpose is to serve as a warning to others.

@Xenic

Quote:

I would recommend giving the user a prefs choice of thumnail methods: 1. As icon files in the same directory. 2. As cached images in a single file or as individual files in a sub-directory. 3. In a global location (directory or file).

I Prefer:
1. Single file in the same directory. (Picture_Overiew)
2. cached images in a global location. (Workbench, PhotoAlbum)
3. As cached images in a single file or as individual files in a sub-directory.
4. As icon files in the same directory. (Shudder)

Some form of automatic recursive generation is also needed so you can point the program at a path and it will trundle down it creating a catalogue file (or icons) in every drawer it finds pictures in so you can leave your machine on overnight instead of the usual spending several nights selecting a drawer waiting for the thumbs to generate, save the catalogue file, choose another drawer etc. until you are so bored you give up.

Last edited by Severin on 13-Jan-2016 at 05:26 PM.

_________________
OS4 Rocks
X1000 beta tester, Sam440 Flex (733)

Visit the Official OS4 Support Site for more help.

It may be that your sole purpose is to serve as a warning to others.

@Lazi

It does Magic to your i.

Hope you don't have a Lazi i.

@Lazi

Another VERY important thing is filemanager integration (Which Picture_Overview sadly lacks or I would use it more). iMage needs to be able to be started from dos with a path passed to it eg. AppDir:iMage {s} in dopus5.

Being able to override the default thumb size would also be very useful depending on the job you're doing.

A catalogue file must have a magic number rg. first 4 bytes should be iMag for setting up filetypes for deficons and dopus.

When you get around to an OS4 version I will be very happy to betatest for you.

_________________
OS4 Rocks
X1000 beta tester, Sam440 Flex (733)

Visit the Official OS4 Support Site for more help.

It may be that your sole purpose is to serve as a warning to others.

Another video is online to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_LNy-cMB_w

The main new feature is that it can extract image files from PDF documents.
Currently compatible with PDF 1.4+ RGB images.

You can view images from a PDF file in the fastest way on OS4.
The images not just can be viewed, but can be saved too.

To be continued...

@Lazi

only 2 tinhgs...

- first, all the best for your work!

- Please change the name! Or you are planning to get some money from Apple when they need iMage name or plz dont use it on Amiga-land....realy we dont need that imho...

_________________
Simone"Tuxedo"Monsignori, Perugia, ITALY.