Core functionality, formats, and usability

thibaud · Post by **thibaud** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:18 am

acdsee

helmut · Post by **helmut** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:23 pm

thibaud wrote:acdsee

Not a bad product.

pic_viewer · Post by **pic_viewer** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 2:26 am

thibaud wrote:acdsee

Ok, but when it does all what you want why you want to get away from it?

thibaud · Post by **thibaud** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:37 am

Ok, but when it does all what you want why you want to get away from it?

it doesn't. ACDSee lacks support for quite a few important formats.
and, worse their support is 100% unresponsive.

to be honest I'd be more than happy to pay (even a lot)
to get a efficient viewer with an extensive format support.

Believe me or not I've tried quite a few, and none does the job.

Post by **xnview** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 11:47 am

Yes, the development of XnView MP takes a lot of time but be able to build a version (like XnView 1.93) for MacOS & Linux is very important for me (perhaps i'm wrong)!
And i think that XnView MP can be more efficient than current win version in the future (for example, build of thumbnails is quicker than 1.93)...
I try to do my best to have a version that can be enhanced easily with same functions as win version, and same speed.

Karl02 · Post by **Karl02** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 3:13 pm

In my opinion a painfully missing core functionality is the manual sorting of the thumbnails in the browser window, see moving files within folder.

Post by **xnview** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 4:33 pm

Karl02 wrote:In my opinion a painfully missing core functionality is the manual sorting of the thumbnails in the browser window, see moving files within folder.

XnView MP will have this feature.

Karl02 · Post by **Karl02** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 9:25 pm

Great! I like the MP concept. I think this will be a unique feature, so the time in developing this version will be a good investment.

JohnFredC · Post by **JohnFredC** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 2:41 am

xnview wrote:XnView MP will have this feature.

Much to my pleased surprise, it already does... the positions just don't persist yet!

Post by **xnview** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 8:15 am

JohnFredC wrote:
xnview wrote:XnView MP will have this feature.
Much to my pleased surprise, it already does... the positions just don't persist yet!

Yes currently i don't how to store it. Bridge and some others programs save a text file in the folder

Karl02 · Post by **Karl02** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 2:47 pm

FastStone Image Viewer uses a hidden text file named "fssort.ini" in the sorted folder. This file contains just a list of the file names in the custom order. I think that this approach could easily be added to XnView.

Perhaps there could be options for saving the custom sort file and for specifying a name.

Later an option could be added to save the custom sort order in the database.

oops66 · Post by **oops66** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:06 pm

I do not know if the best way is to save a text file into the sorted folder or to the centralized data base xnview.db (like the thumbnails and the categories) ?
Maybe the best way is both (as 2 options):
1-) Priority for centralized DB if local DB (or text file) does not exist.
2-) Priority for local DB - always
???

JohnFredC · Post by **JohnFredC** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:02 pm

This is just a component of a much larger issue about saving XnView specific data.

What sorts of things should be saved and where...

If (a big "if") an extensible data structure could be adopted, then an "omnibus" XnView datafile could serve both the purpose of a thumbs cache AND a repository for other data, including thumbs, categories, thumbnail display position in each folder, options settings specific to individual folders or images, etc.

As posted elsewhere, I'd give the user a choice where to store such data on a folder-by-folder basis (that is, in a central repository or in an individual folder db), but that is putting the cart before the horse.

After the week-end I may start a thread about this. After all, this topic has come up frequently over the years and, not having been resolved, stands in the way of further XnView innovation.

Olivier_G · Post by **Olivier_G** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:56 pm

Gut feeling about this:
- standard data reusable by other programs => decentralize (or even metadata)
- proprietary data not reusable => just keep centralized

But more thinking in the upcoming thread is much needed

helmut · Post by **helmut** » Sat Jul 19, 2008 7:17 am

Smart handling of metadata is a more and more important issue. Before starting a new thread please have a look at topic IPTC/XMP for hierarchical categories + internal DB.