I was looking for software to help me with a documentation project. It's basically a question of having structured meta data for images and to provide multiple routes to the same images. I was thinking of using XnView for this project. The database with the hierarchical categories would almost solve my requirements. (Therefore my other comments on categories.)
Think of a photo set of which every photo has some categories assigned to it. Say photo 1 shows friend Alex located at Brussels Zoo in summer of 1987. So the database meta data of this photo would put it into categories
- People -> Friends -> Alex
Locations -> Belgium -> Brussels -> Zoo
Date -> 1987 -> Summer
Now I need to publish the images as maybe a web site, a DVD, or a folder structure. I need to provide a route to photo 1 through either of the three tree branches. The user should be able to go via Date -> 1987, to go via Friends -> Alex, or to go via Belgium -> Brussels to reach the image. And I'm not thinking about keywords, just about hierarchies.
A first step would be to use the Create Website from XnView Classic. As it is currently implemented in Classic, it would be able to create a web site of just Alex' photos or of all photos of summer 1987. It misses the hierarchy, though.
Thus here's my first wish: (Well, actually it's the second as the first one is to include web site creation from Classic into MP.)
Add an option to Create Web Site to not only create an image menu but also to create a series of chapter or categories menus on top of this. Thus I want the Web Site creator to create a file structure such as
index.html (links to Category_People.html, Category_Locations.html, and Category_Dates.html)
Category_People.html (links to Category_People_Friends.html, Category_People_Family.html and so on)
Category_People_Friends.html (links to Category_People_Friends_Alex.html, Category_People_Friends_Bert.html and so on)
Category_People_Friends_Alex.html (finally links to Photo_1.html/jpg, Photo_99.html/jpg and so on)
The UI changes would be trivial. The Create Web Site dialog only needs one additional selection: "Linear Display" (as of today) and "Hierarchical Display" (as above). And maybe the Add Text (Insert>>) menu would need to add the {Categories} display. A category's thumbnail would be created just like the folder thumbnail in XnView's browser. (BTW: with too many images on a web site, a "Linear Display (with pages)" should be an option. Needs a "Thumbnails per page" input field.)
Next wish:
A second use for the categories hierarchy would be not to create a web site, but a folder structure. Thus instead of creating html web pages, the same logic would be applied to create a folder structure containing links to the images. Example:
The Category_People_Friends folder would contain a folder Category_People_Friends_Alex which in turn would contain a symbolic link Photo_1.lnk pointing to /originals/Photo_1.jpg.
And add one more wish:
Burn all photos to a DVD and from the categories hierarchy build menus and sub-menus to access a slideshow of the photos contained in a sub-category.
And while we're at it:
How's about an addition to XnView's slide show functionality by including the same type of menu structure?
Regards
Dietmar
PS: Pierre, since I will need to do some programming for this project anyway, I could also help with converting the Web Page Creator from Classic to MP if you want. Send me a PM if interested.