Comparing the Compare

[m.Th.]

Hi,

Me again.

If we'll compare the Compare module with other programs will find it very similar with ACDSee's one.
...also we see some ideas from FastStone Viewer, isn't it? Or, perhaps, FastStone copied also from ACDSee...

Firstly, there are some minor mistakes carried on:

ACDSee's compare engine, was designed when the screens were 4:3 aspect ratios. Now they are 16:9 (16:10 are more rare). Having the toolbars on the top and the thumbnails at the bottom we waste very much screen real estate, knowing that anyway the photos, which usually are 3:2 (or more rarely 4:3) in landscape or (worse) portrait orientation doesn't fit well in 2x2 boxes tiled in a 16:9 rectangle.

Hence, a first, easy improvement is to allow the user to align the photo toolbars to the left and the thumbnails to the right (or left) not only on the bottom like it is now.

Implementation proposal:

• On the toolbar with the "Grid, Info, Histogram" checkboxes add a new checkbox with 'Toolbars to the left'
• On the same toolbar change the "Thumbnails" checkbox to a Drop Down List with the caption "Thumbnails appearance:" and the values Bottom,Right,Hide.

Secondly, there are some major differences:

The main difference is the usability of the Lighttable (ahem, ...Compare window) which now is very low.

At the end of the day, why do we use the Compare window? Only to delete some files? No, we use it for much more things. Or we would anyway...

In most image managers (ACDSee, Lightroom, AfterShotPro, IDImager, FastStone Viewer) the currently selected image in the Lighttable became the currently selected image in the program and all the actions (shortcuts) applies to it: Ctrl+5 gives it 5 stars, Alt+C copies the photo somewhere etc. etc. etc. Besides that, most of these programs have extensible right-click menus from which one can set different metadata (ratings, colors, keywords) or do different actions (Copy / Move / Del).

Implementation considerations:

The best would be if you can put it on the 2ndary monitor like in Lightroom or in the Preview window like in AfterShotPro (ASP) or in Bridge (even if the Bridge implementation is a little bit simplistic). In this way, you can see also in the browser that your actions are aplied on the current thumbnail in the Browser pane. ASP has a switch which enables/disables the Compare (which they call "Multiple Image Mode") since the middle (Preview) area is used for that (ASP doesn't have support for 2 or more windows). In fact there are two panes (normal and multiple image) in the same window - one is shown whereas the other is hidden.

Also, as is now is rather insufficient (let's rate it 2 stars out of 5 ), the best would be to make the selected image from the Compare module the current image from the program (or something similar). The purpose is to have all actions work with this image. Even FSViewer has it.

[m.Th.]

...oh, and not to forget: Every time when an Image in the Compare panel is closed, the engine should update the layout. Now the behavior is a little bit erratical, especially when we open 4 images and start to close one by one. The rearrangement occurs only some times (depending on the order on which one closes the images) and only at two images.

Remember, now usually the people have 16:9 monitors and 2x1, 3x1 and 2x2 layouts makes a lot of sense. I have 16:10 monitors (ie. the worse case) and, at least for me, I find quite usefull the 3x1 format. (Just checked in FSViewer). Also, if you want to be a real geek, in the case of 3 images you can look at the image orientations and if at least 2 of them are landscape then keep the actual layout (3 images in a 2x2 grid), oterwise go for 3x1 layout.

Since XnView doesn't have a generic Compare engine like in Lightroom, ASP or IDImager, one can program only the above discrete layouts and do a resize for the remaining images after closing one.

HTH

PS: I'd really really really like a Lighttable (aka. Compare...) on the 2nd monitor fullscreen in order to easily catalog/rate/color a series of photos...