Adobe CC failure - Strategic considerations for XnViewMP

Ideas for improvements and requests for new features in XnView MP

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m.Th.
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Adobe CC failure - Strategic considerations for XnViewMP

Post by m.Th. »

As perhaps you know already, the Adobe's decision to have the next version of Creative Suite (called Creative Cloud) on subscription only basis - generated a big backslash in the community and many are searching for other tools to do their work. For ex. see http://www.dpreview.com/articles/664838 ... comments=1

In the link above the comments are at least of equal importance with the text. Be sure to read them.

(there are much more links and discussions, some of them much more vocal, but I think that for our purpose the above one is sufficient)

In this huge market shift, I think that XnViewMP has a great opportunity if Pierre/XnViewMP team knows to play correctly his cards.



First of all, let's see what are the tasks which XnViewMP does / should do:
  • Display
  • Manage
  • Catalog
  • Edit
  • Trust/Brand Quality
So, in order to suceed XnViewMP must be an useful, streamlined program, having "all" the basic tools needed to acomplish a certain task. Let's take them one by one:

Display

Well, XnViewMP seen as viewer by itself is a good program, but there are many other (free) programs which implement the same functionality, sometimes even in a way which XnView cannot acieve (see IrfanView), hence the program value here is rather median, IMHO - and this is not because of poor quality of code but because many others have the same thing. The thumbnails engine is better than FastStone Viewer and faster than ACDSee tough. If we can overcome some XnViewMP disatvantages (see bellow) then we will be in a very good position.

Manage

I think that here is the great thing - the big opportunity for XnViewMP. With little effort (see my other posts from http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=28007 and http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=28011) we can streamline this and then we will be pretty competitive in the Manager/Viewer area.

Catalog

A big plus for XnView here is that it is fast and doesn't need the import phase which other programs require. It is a big oportunity, but only after we have fixed the Viewer/Organizer roles. A big minus here is that its keywording engine is very barebone, plain-vanilla etc. The main things which are missing are a good compare engine in order to allow us to rate/reject accordingly (http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=28020), shortcuts to allow us to quickly add Categories (http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=27998) and Sets to allow us to catalog with ease, knowing that on certain photo sessions certain categories will likely appear (http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=27999).
I can say much more on this topic upon request.

Edit

Difficult to compete here with some other programs (eg. Lightroom, ASP, Darktable, RawTherapee etc.) but some enhancements like in FSViewer would be wellcomed: Exposure, Curves, Remove Noise, Drawing tools etc. But firstly we must be strong on the above categories. The main selling points of XnView will be there.

Trust/Brand Quality

The main problem here is the version number. Imho, the program must advance much faster, and I mean now not on big features but on version number.

Release early, release often.

Get users by giving small features which streamline the actual workflow and mitigate their fear which come from seeing a 0.5x version number. Add the features from "Manage" part, perhaps few from "Catalog" and release it as 1.0. You need many users in order to get the ball rolling till isn't too late. It isn't needed for XnViewMP 1.0 to have the same features which XnView 1.0 had. You need to catch the favourable momentum created by the Adobe's misstep. Don't loose it.

What do you think? Pierre?
m. Th.

- Dark Themed XnViewMP 1.6 64bit on Win11 x64 -
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