GNOME.org
 

Re: When a photographer uses eog -- some observations

Hello everybody
As there was zero response to my email some days ago, which I spent some time putting together, I just want to ask why: Should I better file bugs/feature requests or not put all in one email or you did not like the style or only developer-discussions on this list or ...?
I did not expect somebody to discuss each and every point, but I thought to get some reaction. As I am interested to help making eog better, if only from a user perspective, it would help to know why my email was obviously in vain. 

Thanks for a line or two,
Marcus




DigiSus wrote:

Dear developers
From a recent photo weekend workshop I needed to browse, select, delete and sort >2000 photos. I thought it might be interesting to developers to learn about my experiences when doing this with eog 2.22.2 (ubuntu Hardy Heron).
First of all, it is possible to handle large amounts of photos with eog. :-)
But some tasks could be more efficient and some tasks are not (yet) possible. My observations are strictly from an end-user point of view as I am a hardcore user and not a developer. Sorry, the email got so long and thanks for bearing with me. :-)
1) The ever-recurring task is to look at each photo (in fullscreen, sometimes 1:1 view) in a folder and decide about deleting it or moving it to another folder. Currently, eog provides only the deleting option with an irritating confirmation question: - A preference tick box to suppress the confirmation question after deletion would save a click with each deletion. That is many clicks. ;-) - Two ideas for implementing a sorting possibility: Either (a) let photos be marked (with 'M') and when user leaves F11 mode, s/he can move all marked photos to a specified folder. Or, (b) allow drag&drop from the collection pane to move a photo into another folder. (Now, I delete the photos and get them out of the trash can afterwards and put them into separate folder. It is an ugly workaround to be able to stay in F11 mode all the time and save 3x as many clicks...)
2) Going to next/prev image. I read that the mouse wheel for going next/prev was removed, but I do not know why and whether it is possible to get it back. It would be very helpful.
Another elegant and visually appealing way could be: When the mouse touches the right or left border of the screen (in F11 mode), the next/prev photo is shown.
3) In F11 mode, I can zoom in/out of a photo or see it in 1:1 or windows-fit size. Unfortunately, this setting is not remembered when I go the next/prev photo. So, I have to zoom again... Maybe, make it a preference tickbox to remember zoom setting or not.
4) The image collection pane and EXIF information are essential features for this work and I am glad eog provides them. But the properties/EXIF window takes too muich screen space which I need for the image. And it is overloaded/confusing. Could something similar to the Ctrl-i feature from gthumbs be implemented that shows the image/EXIF information in a small box -while- in F11 mode? I put the properties button in the icon bar but it does not show during F11. This way, I see no way to see EXIF data during F11 mode...?
5) As to the EXIF information itself: There is no need to write down all the words "aperture value", "exposure time", etc. because the values (f/3.2 or 1/125) speak for themselves.
Here is a use case proposal to think about: When the user presses "i" in F11 mode, a small semi-transparent box with two lines of text should appear (and stay with subsequent photos) showing image information. In preferences, the user can select how much information should be shown: 1 or 2 lines. Pressing "i" again switches off the info box. 

Example:

(1st line)
P416724.jpg - (13/437) - 2736x3648 pixels - 3.2MB
(2nd line, optional)
f/5.6 - 1/250s - 85mm - ISO 100 - 05.07.2008 17:13
BTW: The value currently given as "Focal length" is not what photographers expect to see. They need the value in [mm] given under Details|Camera|FocalLenghtIn35mmFilm.
6) Judging photos has a lot to do with aestethics. It would be helpful if eog would support that by being in the background as much as possible. Good start: In F11 mode, the background around the photo is black. But the image collection bar is system grey as is the top icon bar. - Could the pane have black background as well around the thumbnails, so that only the thumbnails are visible? 
- Could a small/middle/big sizing of thumbnails made in the preferences?
7) Often, adjacent photos need to be compared. Could a 2-up or even 4-up view in F11 mode be implemented that show 2 simultanesouly next to each other or even 4 in the four quadrants of the screen? (Next/prev would then mean moving 2 or 4 photos at once.)
8) Having a GUI preference to choose where the collection pane should be shown (bottom top left right) would be helpful. For example, sometimes the pane makes sense to be at the bottom, but sometimes more efficient use of the screen space for the photo makes sense and then the pane should be vertical on one side.
9) The last two are not crucial but may win over many people who work visually:
9a) Could we have a smoother scrolling in the image collection pane? Perhaps it could be done with the mouse hovering over the pane? Moving far to the right scrolls fast forward, more to the middle scrolls slower. (think iPod scrolling...)
9b) slideshow. To have it look professional (e.g., when showing photos to a larger audience with music in the background, etc.) it would be nice to have fading between the photos, in 3 variants: Fade via black, fade via white, fade directly into next photo.
Alright, I thank you for reading all this and I hope this feedback is useful to you. I would be glad to help with further input/feedback/spec if needed or if you have questions to what I wrote... 

Thanks & best regards,
Marcus
_______________________________________________
Eog-list mailing list
Eog-list gnome org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/eog-list
[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Thread Index] [Date Index] [Author Index]