[Shotwell] Some observations and criticisms

[Adam Dingle]

Nate,

thanks for all your feedback and suggestions about Shotwell.

 > I will start with the praise first...

Thanks.  We like praise!  We've worked hard on making Shotwell fast and 
sleek so I'm glad that you appreciate those qualities.

 > I would expect the program to respect my previous maximized state.

A very reasonable request.  I've filed a ticket for this 
(http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/1083 ).  This should be relatively easy, 
so I'm hopeful we'll be able to implement this in 0.4, coming later this 
month.

 > The UI has the events feature for finding photos by date. Good feature
 > but it throws all photos on that date together. I feel this could be
 > improved if one could use events for a specific folder or camera roll.

Note that Shotwell creates new events each time you import.  So if you 
first import only the photos from one roll, then import from the second 
roll in a separate operation, you'll end up with two separate events.

The upcoming Shotwell 0.4 allows you to split or merge events, which 
will also help you end up with the event structure you want.

We haven't given much consideration to distinguishing separate 
folders/rolls found on a single camera.  We might think about that more.

 > Picasa creates a
 > very human folder structure that is easy to navigate.  I think that most
 > people can remember the names but not specific dates.  Shotwell as of
 > version 0.3.2 creates a very obtuse folder structure of exact dates.
 > Another reason for Picasa's success with it's folder structure is cross
 > platform compatibility with other operating systems and photo programs.

These are reasonable points.  Yes, compatibility other other 
systems/programs is important.  We've also talked to other users who 
would like Shotwell to store folders in different ways.  The existing 
Shotwell folder structure will remain the same in 0.4, but we'll think 
about ways to make it more flexible/general in releases after that.

 > As of 0.3.2, Shotwell attempts at import from disk is stupid.  It
 > attempts to import Gthumb .xml and .comments files.  Why?  Just winds up
 > giving overly complicated errors messages to users for no good reason.

True.  I've created a ticket (http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/1084 ).  
Might not make 0.4, though.

 > I wonder if the full size previews are causing disk imports to take
 > longer than is necessary.  It seemed to take forever to import from
 > disk.  Gthumb import just feels faster.

Yes, thumbnail generation is the bottleneck when importing from disk.  
Not sure why GTthumb is faster; we should do a head-to-head comparison 
at some point.

 > Would be nice if one could also navigate in the left side pane the same
 > way Gthumb and Picasa do it.

This will also be the same in Shotwell 0.4, but is likely to be 
improved/enhanced in 0.5 or afterward.  I agree it would be nice to be 
able to click on the left pane to automatically scroll to the 
corresponding position in the Photos view on the right.

 > I assume you are generating your own thumbnails for cross platform
 > reasons.  If not, then why don't you take advantage of the operating
 > systems native thumbnailing?

A good suggestion.  We should look more deeply into GNOME thumbnailing 
and see if it would make sense to integrate with it rather than creating 
our own thumbnails.  I've created a ticket 
(http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/1086 ).

 > Slide show uses a black background. I would like to see this changed to
 > dark Grey and Ideally be user configurable.

This won't change in 0.4.  But hopefully all Shotwell colors will be 
configurable in 0.5 or afterwards, possibly via GNOME themes (see 
http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/318 ).

 > Overall I am very impressed and I am very excited.
 > Who knows maybe this is the free software program that winds up 
beating Picasa.

Thanks!  Our long-term goal is to grow Shotwell to be as full-featured 
as commercial programs like Picasa and iPhoto while keeping it fast and 
usable.  We're not there yet.  :)

adam

Nate Homier wrote:
> Hi Shotwell developers!  I like the Shotwell program very much!  I will
> start with the praise first.
>
> The Shotwell program maintains the thumbnails very well, even with
> extremely fast scrolling speed.  Compare this with my current photo
> program, Gthumb which does a very poor job at maintaining thumbnails at
> high speed scrolling.  Excellent as lack of thumbnails during scrolling
> makes navigation hard.
>
> The dark Grey background very nicely enhances the photos, good choice.
> I like the minimal UI as well.  It seems clean and sleek in the UI
> compared to what I feel is a messy UI for F-Spot.  Finally a free
> software program has a shadow fill.  Picasa has had shadow fill for a
> long time and now Shotwell has it.  Shadow fill really makes those dark
> photos a lot better.  The editing options for the photos seems to have
> hit the sweet spot, not too Gimpish and not too Eye of Gnome.  Start up
> and shutdown seems very fast.  Overall, a very excellent job Shotwell
> developers!
>
> And now my criticisms. :(
>
> When I start the program, it comes up in a window that is not maximized.
> As a result the window only occupies a portion of the screen.  It is
> quite usable in this state and I don't really have a quibble with this
> behavior as default on first run.  What I do have a problem with is when
> I maximize the program and then shutdown the program it still starts up
> in a non maximized window.  I would expect the program to respect my
> previous maximized state.  I really don't like it when programs think
> they know better than me at what I like.  If it's any consolation,
> Gthumb has this same behavior.
>
> The UI has the events feature for finding photos by date.  Good feature
> but it throws all photos on that date together.  I feel this could be
> improved if one could use events for a specific folder or camera roll.
> Lets say you have 2 rolls, one for Disneyland CA. and one for Disneyland
> Paris.  Now lets say those trips were at the same time with 2 families
> and now the photos are on 1 computer.  Events now throws those 2
> separate trips all in together.  What I need is a way to use events for
> a specific roll.
>
> Have you ever used Google's Picasa?  If you have you will see how it
> imports from cameras and other media.  Lets look at how it creates the
> directory structure.  It pops up a dialog box asking you to create an
> album name along with a description and various misc. stuff.  When you
> go into the Windows "My Pictures" or "Pictures" you will see a folder
> with the name you entered into that Picasa dialog box.  Lets say you
> enter Disneyland CA, when you look in "My Pictures" you will see a
> folder called "Disneyland CA".  Each import into Picasa creates a
> separate folder in "My Pictures".  Heres my point.  Picasa creates a
> very human folder structure that is easy to navigate.  I think that most
> people can remember the names but not specific dates.  Shotwell as of
> version 0.3.2 creates a very obtuse folder structure of exact dates.
> For conventional digging around in folders using Windows explorer or
> Gnome's Nautilus, it is very hard to remember when you did something on
> a specific date.  Exploring a Picasa created folder structure is very
> easy.
>
> Another reason for Picasa's success with it's folder structure is cross
> platform compatibility with other operating systems and photo programs.
> I know that Gthumb and Picasa will always be compatible with each other
> because their folder creation is the same.  I can load a Picasa
> directory on NTFS and know Gthumb picks it up right away.  I don't have
> to use Picasa to browse Picasa created directories.  I can load a Gthumb
> directory in windows and know I don't have to use Gthumb.  See where I'm
> going?  If I mount a Shotwell created directory in Windows via Samba I
> can not use Picasa for photo management and using Windows Explorer will
> be very difficult.  Once I start using Shotwell, I must ALWAYS use
> Shotwell.  Shotwell's cross platform compatibility stinks.  If it is any
> consolation for you, F-Spot has this same stinky folder layout.
>
> As of 0.3.2, Shotwell attempts at import from disk is stupid.  It
> attempts to import Gthumb .xml and .comments files.  Why?  Just winds up
> giving overly complicated errors messages to users for no good reason.
>
> I wonder if the full size previews are causing disk imports to take
> longer than is necessary.  It seemed to take forever to import from
> disk.  Gthumb import just feels faster.  Would import go any faster in
> reality if smaller previews were used?
>
> Would be nice if one could also navigate in the left side pane the same
> way Gthumb and Picasa do it.  If Shotwell were to gain an option in the
> left pane to navigate like Gthumbs folder navigation, it would also be
> nice if clicking on specific folders also automatically scrolled the
> right side album view to the correct pictures, just like Picasa.
>
> I assume you are generating your own thumbnails for cross platform
> reasons.  If not, then why don't you take advantage of the operating
> systems native thumbnailing?  In Gnome, in my test a single roll is
> already consuming 5MB of space and I have dozens of other rolls as well.
> I would prefer that you take advantage of Gnomes .thumbnails feature.  I
> believe that Gthumb does it this way.  And on KDE you should use
> whatever they use and Windows, Mac OS you should use their native
> facilities as well.
>
> Slide show uses a black background.  I would like to see this changed to
> dark Grey and Ideally be user configurable.
>
> I think this is enough for now.  I am using the Ubuntu PPAs and I am
> currently at version 0.3.2.  Overall I am very impressed and I am very
> excited.  Gthumb does not really cut it for me, but it's better than
> F-Spot.  I wish all the Shotwell developers the best and I will continue
> to check each new version.  Who knows maybe this is the free software
> program that winds up beating Picasa.
>
> Nate Homier.
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