English > Feature Suggestions
Resizing images
rick.ca:
I agree in principle it's pointless to add image viewing/management/editing features when everyone has access to much more powerful software designed for that purpose. I've suggested before it would be nice if PVD would interface better with such software. Viewing could be implemented by having a double-click open an image in a specified program. A little more tricky is how to handle an image opened for editing. When an image is opened, it would first have to be saved somewhere in the file system. I suppose PVD could monitor that file (while the record it came from remains selected), and save it back to the database if and when it detects any change.
It seems to me this would suit most user circumstances. A double-click would (optionally) open any image in the specified program. If the image were edited—whether by the same program used for viewing or a different one—when saved, PVD would detect the change and save it to the database. If the automatic saving behaviour is problematic, it wouldn't be so bad to manually Load image from file, but I suppose a new button just for re-saving that specific image would be easy to implement.
buah:
I think I read it somewhere, and I remember it because I got the very same idea/need at that moment. Copy-Paste images from clipboard and Drag&Drop images would be great time savers?
rick.ca:
Yes, I've long wished for the ability to paste an image from the clipboard to any image place-holder in the program. That would be very versatile and a big time-saver. I actually wondered if this would also be an effective way to re-save an existing image sent to an external editor. But I thought it might be dangerous to assume what is copied to the clipboard is what the user wants to save. For example, if say I download an enormous poster, and use my external editor to resize it to screen size. After I do so, it will appear reduced in the editor, but it will not actually be resized until I save it. So I'd have to be careful to save before attempting to cut & paste it back to PVD. I can live with that, but are all editors the same in this regard? Maybe I worry too much. If cut & paste is an effective method for everyone for re-saving edited images, then maybe that's the way to go...
Add the option to send any image to a specified program (by double-click and/or button or context menu). Whether an image is "returning" from such a program after editing, or is a new image acquired from elsewhere (e.g., copied from a web page), it can be saved to PVD by pasting it from the clipboard. If it works, this would be a simple universal solution.
mgpw4me@yahoo.com:
The copy / paste function in PaintShopPro does not require the image to be saved, so after a resize, all that's needed is a second copy...I guess that makes it a copy / copy / paste.... :D
It seems the basic functionality for 'nice access' to external programs is already available, albeit not intuitive nor without manual setup. For example, I've found that any significant number of 'full-size' screenshots (say 10+) slows the page display down significantly. My solution is to use the URL field with "file:///c:\\myscreenshots\mymovie\" where the 'mymovie' is a directory that contains all the screenshots (or people images, as the case may be). When I click on the url, file explorer fires up with the specific directory named.
I suspect that a jpg image in the url field would cause the registered viewer / editor to open the image (untested). If so, the basic mechanism is already there, and all that's needed is a bit of refinement to make it usable. If not, the option exists to use the path and name of the program in the url field and have the image / directory passed as an argument.
As far as that goes, many image editors have a command-line parameter set that could be invoked which could provide things like batch updates (resize, add a frame, sharpen, auto-enhance), which could be an interesting way to provide features that need be configured only once and would be specific to a user...esp. if the files are stored outside the database where access is easy. PVD from my testing will simply load the image, without regards to any changes (other than file path and name).
ImageMagik (sic?) provides a command line interface to an extensive set of imaging processes that could be invoked by a batch file in the url to do very fancy things.
rick.ca:
--- Quote ---It seems the basic functionality for 'nice access' to external programs is already available
--- End quote ---
Yes, I'm aware of the technique—my most recent epiphany being "file:" URL's can be used in Web searches to launch anything, passing whatever is in the search box as a parameter (if necessary). The problem is, this doesn't help when the images are stored in the database. So the program needs to take care of the task of saving the image to the file system, and then calling the external program. If the image is already saved externally, obviously the pathname would simply be passed to the external program.
--- Quote ---As far as that goes, many image editors have a command-line parameter set that could be invoked...
--- End quote ---
Good point. And another reason for making this configurable, rather than just leaving it up to the Windows associations to handle. The option settings for this should provide a variable for the pathname of the image so it can be specified in the manner (along with other parameters) the external application requires. For images saved in the database, the location the image is saved to should be configurable as well. In some cases, that might help ensure the external application saves the changes to the same location (i.e., by specifying that applications default save directory).
Another question: Should this work in any sort of batch mode? For example, should we be able to edit all posters for one movie, or the default poster for a group of selected movies? No. This is far beyond the scope of what is intended. Those wanting to do a lot of work with images should save images externally—so this sort of thing can be done externally. For images saved in the database, the requirement to edit an image will normally be an infrequent thing, and therefore doing one at a time is sufficient.
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