Some VERY early feature suggestions

[franky68]

Hello,

 

I know and understand that Daminion is still in beta, so there are features that are going to be added anyway and cirtain features will stand behind to get Daminion ready to be released before adding anything else thats not necessary in the first step.

 

So this probably is not really the time to make feature suggestions. However while playing around with it there were several things that came to my mind. Some of them might be obvious and already planned and some others are just "nice to have".

 

I hope its ok to post this list anyway:

 

1. GUI:

a - A calender would be a great addition. Right now its possible to select by date but a calender would be more "natural"

b - When selecting e.g. multiple ratings they are combined by "AND" per default. So if I select 1 and 2 stars of course no files are shown. Combining by "OR" would be more logical

c - It should be possible to include a small thumbnail to the listview

d - It would be great to allow the user to switch the colors for the UI and have presets. Right now the bright windows are a bit distracting from the dark thumbnail window

e - The windows at the border (Tags, Properties and Try) should be collapsable and expandable (like it is in the fullscreen display)

f - Those windows should be switched by the "TAB" key so one can easy maximize the thumbnail estate

g - It would be very helpfull if it was possible to define own shortcuts for different actions so the usage could be matched

 

2. Organisation:

a - An option to set and remove cirtain metadata in a batch (eg. "Creator, Copyright, Contact")

b - It would be great if the "People" could contain additional personal data (for models like Adress, Size and other stats)

c - Allow to tie NEF and multiple JPEGS together to build stacks

 

3. Lighttable:

a - Please allow more than four images to be displayed simultanously

b - Allow easy removal from the lighttable so I can sort out the displayed images

c - It would be nice if the lighttable could optionally show blown out lights and shadows for easy rating

d - Prefetching and caching of images for speeded up display

 

4. Export:

a - Optional removal of metadata (allow the user to choose: "technical" (aperture, speed etc.), "personal" (creator, copyright etc.)

b - Let the user choose the quality for exported JEPGs

c - Allow free scaling of exported images (by definition of longest side)

d - Allow to define the maximum filesize for exported JPEGs

e - It should be possible to store any combination of above settings to named presets (eg. rules for upload to specific sites)

 

5. Additional features:

a - Backup of images and database

b - Optional creation of xml files even for files that allow metadata to be included into the file

c - Allow to move images in the filesystem from inside Daminion

d - Import of images from memory card (with variable paths for two destinations (main image and backup))

 

Kind regards

Frank

[Murat]

Perfect post! And a great list of the feature suggestions!

 

We implement features in order of user demand. And it will be helpful certainly if we'll seen user suggestion here in the forum.

 

Top candidates in your suggestion list for implementation:

 

GUI: b,d,f

 

Organisation: a, c.

2b is a nice feature and we even considered it (we name it as Tag Qualifiers) when designed the database architecture, But its the subject of discussion for Daminion 1.X functionality :)

 

Lighttable: b, d

 

Export: Preset editor is already present in our future list. You can specify what metadata to include to the exported images, format, size, and watermark options.

 

Additional features: c, d

5a - I'll wrote a post to our blog soon describing why using an external backup software (there are plenty of perfect free backup software programs) is better than any internal backup implementations. I mean Daminion Standalone version (not the Daminion Server)

 

Questions:

5b - do you mean exporting the tags to an xml files:

- on an external folder (specified by user)

- or creating xml files (like xml sidecar files) on the same location with original files?

[franky68]

Perfect post! And a great list of the feature suggestions!

 

Thanks, I wonder why I wrote it since it all seems to be on your list anyway ;) Youre really impressive!

 

There are only very few of my suggestions that obviously aint considered at the current point already. This really sounds promising :)

 

So I really dont want to nag but seriously improving the lighttable to allow more than four images and maybe even show highlights/shadows would be extremely helpfull. In particular when shooting continious 4 images are only worth half a second and you easily get bursts with 8 or 10 images in a row which have to be sorted out...

 

 

Questions:

5b - do you mean exporting the tags to an xml files:

- on an external folder (specified by user)

- or creating xml files (like xml sidecar files) on the same location with original files?

 

I meant creating xml files like a sidecar file on the same location with the orignal file. Either instead or additional to storing the metadata into the file itself. First this would pacify the paranoic users who do not want to modify files and second even if the data is stored into the file itself this helps with backups.

 

 

Btw. I just came across a few more wishes/ideas - you probably already considered as well ;)

 

They are somewhat related to organisation/keywording:

a - There could be a section where the user can load set of predefined keywords. So he can have sets for eg. nature, sports, family etc. and load them when tagging a session to keyword the images with a single click

b - Already used keywords/categories could populate a flyout-window in the editor so they can be reassigned easily without having to drag the images or risking typos by manually typing them

c - Please allow the search for month-names (without year) and hours so I can search for images taken in fall or winter and/or in the evenings or mornings. In those cases I often dont care which year they have been shoot.

 

Kind regards

Frank

[Murat]

Thanks, I wonder why I wrote it since it all seems to be on your list anyway ;) Youre really impressive!

 

Because it helps us to estimate a demand for features :)

 

They are somewhat related to organisation/keywording:

a - There could be a section where the user can load set of predefined keywords. So he can have sets for eg. nature, sports, family etc. and load them when tagging a session to keyword the images with a single click

 

I guess you mean something like LR's Metadata Presets?

 

 

b - Already used keywords/categories could populate a flyout-window in the editor so they can be reassigned easily without having to drag the images or risking typos by manually typing them

 

I just thought about a similar feature to enhance the "Intelli Sense" context menu in the Properties Panel:

Lets assume that I've assigned the keywords "Keyword1, Keywords2, Keyword3" to a picture. Then I selected a next picture and focus Keywords tag by mouse in the Properties panel. The "Intelli Sense" menu should appears with the latest assigned keyword sets:

"Keyword1, Keywords2, Keyword3"

"Keyword3, Keywords2"

"Keyword1, Keywords12"

[franky68]

Because it helps us to estimate a demand for features :)

 

I am glad to be of use - even if its just for statistical purposes ;)

 

I guess you mean something like LR's Metadata Presets?

 

I am not very familar with LR. I checked it mainly as RAW converter but decided to stick with CNX/VNX so I never got deep into the organizer. However "Metadata Presets" does sound like what I suggested in 2a.

 

What I envision here is a palette of keywords. This palette can hold predefined sets of keywords. So eg. if I load the preset "Family" there are buttons for each of my family members. Or I can have another set I can load into this palette which I name animals and put all sorts of animalnames into it. Now if I catalog images I shoot on a family reunion I load the "family" set and can quickly assign.

 

Ideally this palette would have two more tabs:

1. "Recently used" that holds all keywords that I have assigned in this session (probably what youre refering to in the next quote). It would be great if this would keep statistics about the number of assignments in that session. So if the palette is filled up and a keyword need to be dropped to make room for another the least used keyword will be freed up.

 

2. "Suggested": Often images share combinations of keywords. E.g. if I have an image of my wife chances are, that my daughter is on it as well. Another typical case would be "Tree" and "Nature", "Macro" and "Spider" and so on. Now if I tag an image with "Wife" the tab should suggest "Daughter". This of course is a bit harder to do as the application would need to collect statistical data about keyword combinations.

 

I just thought about a similar feature to enhance the "Intelli Sense" context menu in the Properties Panel:

Lets assume that I've assigned the keywords "Keyword1, Keywords2, Keyword3" to a picture. Then I selected a next picture and focus Keywords tag by mouse in the Properties panel. The "Intelli Sense" menu should appears with the latest assigned keyword sets:

"Keyword1, Keywords2, Keyword3"

"Keyword3, Keywords2"

"Keyword1, Keywords12"

 

I am not sure if I quite understand but this sounds to me like something from above?

 

Right now I only find two ways to set keywords in Daminion. Either I can drag the image onto the keyword onto the tag in the "Catalog tag" window or I can manually enter it in the keyword field from the properties window.

 

Entering it manually can cause lots of problems (misspelling, hierachical order etc.) and dragging needs a lot of mouse movement. I need to expand trees, scroll to locate they keyword and finally select the image(s) and drag them over.

 

If the keyword field would have a little context menu which flies out and shows all toplevel keywords this would be much faster. Now if I mouse over one of those toplevel keywords it expands and shows me all of its children and so on. Now if I click on any entry (toplevel, child or grandshild etc.) it will automatically be filled into the keyword field.

 

...and to make the list of keyword methods final... - maybe there could be an "assignment mode" in which the keywords/categories/events and so on in the "catalog tag" window have a checkbox so I can assign them by checking this checkbox.

 

Kind regards

Frank

[franky68]

Ok, since you just asked for suggestions in that other thread here are a few more ;)

 

1. GUI

h - Another screen estate suggestion. Please allow the user to change the fontsize. Depending on the monitor im working with the font is rather big and therefor shows little information.

 

3. Lighttable and fullpageview

e - It would be helpfull if the display for exif-data could be user configurated and maybe even have more lines (a semi transparent box). I dont particulary care for dimensions or filesize but would like the focal length to be shown.

f - Histogram. Kinda like showing highlights and shaddows to quickly check exposure.

 

6. Catalog tag panel

a - Optionally include children (matching + counting). Eg. when I have a Keyword "Family" which has children with all my family members the number for "Family" should show the sum of "Wife", "Daugther" and so on. And when I select "Family" those should be ticked too.

b - Allow places to have gps coordinates + radius as an additional property. This could later be used to automatically sort images with gps location into the location.

c - Recalculate count based on current selection. Eg. when I select "1 Star" the numbers for other tags should update to reflect how many of them match the already active selection.

d - When I click on a heading (e.g. "Keyword" or a parent keyword) it would be nice if the context-menu would show options to expand or collaps every child-entry

 

 

7. Thumbnailview

a - Right now I can edit the captions but every entry I pick is displayed in a seperate line which takes a LOT of scren estate. It would be good to combine several entries into one line

b - Optionally hide media format. I shoot RAW only - many others do the same or shoot only JPEG. So the media format caption takes a lot of unecessary screen estate too. It would be great if I (optionally) could show the filename instead.

c - Allow grouping of images by cirtain criteria in addition to sorting (e.g. focal length, day etc.)

 

8. Print

a - Right now I can only print one image per page. With a more flexible print-dialog it would be possible to print contactsheets of my current selection. Ideally with the filename.

 

9. Properties

I am missing a couple of rather important informations

a - FocusMode (AF-S, AF-C)

b - Metering (ExposureProgram, ExposureBiasValue, MeteringMode, ExposureMode, Meteringcompensation)

c - WhiteBalance

d - Flash compensation

 

Probably you already have most of this in mind anyway - but I already started this so I am going on ;)

[franky68]

...its me again - youre gonna hate me ;)

 

I have a few more fields for the properties which could be usefull:

 

9e - contact data for the author (Street, ZIP, City, Country, email, Phone, Fax)

9f - A "accepted/rejected" Flag (like in Lightroom). This wouldnt necessary have to be synced with the file itself but it would help with sorting out images when the stars are used for other purposes and be quicker and more distinct than other fields)

 

And a couple of other more general ideas:

 

1i. Please add a progressbar somewhere when Daminion is processing a row of images for writing metadata so we can see if theres something going on and/or we need to wait to have the changes reflected in other applications.

 

10. I would love if Id be able to quickly share views (selections) with others on the network. E.g. show the good results (star > 1) from the last shooting to my wife. I could do this with creating a "saved search" and point her to this. But it really would be awesome if I could shoot her a hyperlink which launches Daminion and starts up with either the selection (or saved search) if the selection would create a too long expression.

 

This also had the advantage that I could create shortcuts (icons) on the desktop for different selections and give me the option to have different workspaces that can be loaded right from the start (e.g. for workgroups where everyone only should work with his own images).

 

Maybe other images (outside this selection) could be hidden optionally so they dont even get to see them?

 

2d. In 2c. I suggested the option to tie JPEG and RAW images together if they are identical. It would be great if it was also possible to create groups of images that are related but not identical.

 

E.g. I do a modelshooting with the same model/outfit/pose. Now I group those images together and (until I expand the group) only one image is shown. This would cut down the number of images that normally are displayed and help me to quickly locate the image I want. Now if its a group I can still expand that group and pick the particular image I want.

 

It would be great if the user could choose which image makes the title and is displayed as placeholder for the group.

 

5a. Backup. I do remember seeing a post but I cant find it again. Anyway I understand that there are good reasons to keep the backup to a dedicated application. But on the other hand there are also good reasons to have it inside the DAM:

 

I. A backup (apart from the very first) is only necessary when the file is modified. So very often there is no need to have a nightly backup when the images were not touched anyway. Instead this could only be done after an edit session.

 

II. Normal backups dont know anything about the images. A DAM application does. This would allow me to exclude rejected images (9f) or only backup images with more than one star.

 

Maybe (I and II) even would be helpful in addition to a regular backup?

 

III. I am not sure if this is possible but what I am dreaming about is a smart backup. Imagion I have a backup of an image. Now the original gets broken for whatever reason without me noticing. In the next night the broken image is backed up again and replaces the intact backup so my backup is totally lost. This can even happen if I have a rotating backup.

 

If an application would be able to verify the integrity of the image before backing it up it could i. give me a warning and ii. prevent the old backup from beeing overwritten.

 

As said, I dont know if there is an easy way to verify the integrity of images - if they have a checksum and if they do if its reliable enough. Or maybe there is any other way. But if this could be done this would be a killer feature to me and probably many others.

 

(EDIT): I just googled a little bit on this one and found a dedicated application to verify images. Obviously I wont post other applications here so please feel free to contact me. But they say you can check JPEG/TIFF with the regular libraries and many other formats (such as RAW) are simply piped through Adobe DNG converter and the results are fetched. This might not be speedy but hey, it needs only be done with modified files and can run unattached.

 

5e. User defined mapping rules for XML import. Many other DAM applications can store/export/backup their data to sidecar XML files. Many of them have propritaery fields for their entries. Eg. ACDSee (dont ask) stores to <acdsee:categories>. Now when migrating from those applications it would be very helpfull if I could choose if those tags will be imported and if so to which Daminion field they will be mapped.

[Murat]

Frank, it's generous that you spent so many time and attention to product evaluation and sharing your feedback. Daminion team really appreciates it!

 

Some point are included in our feature list, some are not. The top priority is for features that related to multi-user Daminion version.

 

Below are my comments to some of your suggestions:

 

d - It would be great to allow the user to switch the colors for the UI and have presets. Right now the bright windows are a bit distracting from the dark thumbnail window

 

UI of the first Daminion public release was implemented in dark colors:

 

But due to some .NET platform limitations some of the UI controls have little ability to be customized, so we decided to stay with the "silver+gray" scheme (similar to Apple Aperture :) If we'll have free time in the future we'll probably rewrite the Catalog Tags control from scratch to implement a Dark UI.

 

e - The windows at the border (Tags, Properties and Try) should be collapsible and expandable (like it is in the full screen display)

f - Those windows should be switched by the "TAB" key so one can easy maximize the thumbnail estate

 

As you probably know PicaJet's workspace can be maximized/minimized by TAB key. Perhaps we'll implement this feature in Daminion also.

 

I'd also mention some superb features that required resources and time and could be implemented later. For ex: Stacks, Data about tags (like Address of the People), and a few other ones.

 

h - Another screen estate suggestion. Please allow the user to change the fontsize. Depending on the monitor im working with the font is rather big and therefore shows little information.

 

UI is optimized for large fonts and the only way to change the font size is via Display Settings. For inst. the display text size on my screen is setup to 125%.

 

 

- Right now I can edit the captions but every entry I pick is displayed in a separate line which takes a LOT of screen estate. It would be good to combine several entries into one line

 

There will be available two complex captions: Exposure and Image Dimension:

 

 

 

9f - A "accepted/rejected" Flag (like in Lightroom). This wouldn’t necessary have to be synced with the file itself but it would help with sorting out images when the stars are used for other purposes and be quicker and more distinct than other fields)

 

I see two ways to incorporate this feature without adding an extra term:

1. Expand Rating values by "Rejected". So the possible values for rating will be

Rejected, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

2. Collection is a special tag that is stored in the catalog and is not mapped to the metadata. Sometimes it is very convenient to quickly sort images. Color Label is a nice tag but it maps to XMP. We thought about adding visual marks and hotkeys to Collections. And one of the collection tags might be named as "Rejected".

 

 

Please add a progressbar somewhere when Daminion is processing a row of images for writing metadata so we can see if theres something going on and/or we need to wait to have the changes reflected in other applications.

 

This is the most requested feature by me to the Daminion team. Hey guys, can you hear me? :D

 

I guess beside the progress bar we need a Pause button that can freeze the metadata syncing process.

 

5a. Backup. I do remember seeing a post but I cant find it again. Anyway I understand that there are good reasons to keep the backup to a dedicated application. But on the other hand there are also good reasons to have it inside the DAM:

 

I hope to finish it on this weekend.

[kingsfan]

I will pile on here by requested a true Lighttable feature. I want to be able to scan through my collection and rate them quickly without the need for looking at them 4 at a time.

 

As for backup, I am not sure how the MySQL implemenation can allow backup within DAM with tables open, but maybe there is a way. I prefer to have Daminion closed and use my tradional backup software to do what it is best at.

[franky68]

As for backup, I am not sure how the MySQL implemenation can allow backup within DAM with tables open, but maybe there is a way. I prefer to have Daminion closed and use my tradional backup software to do what it is best at.

 

Does Daminion use MySQL - afaid it uses SQLite or PostgreSQL but any database shold be able to create a dump when connected. This would be the prefered way for a backup anyway since its (more or less) interchangable and editable. However it shouldnt be a problem to disconnect the DB for the moment of backup and connect it again when its finished.

 

Regarding the "traditional backup software" - I'd be very pleased if you could point me to one that backups files instead of images can verify the integrety of pictures before backing them up. As mentioned you usually have only a limited number of backups and they are rotating. So once your original picture gets fubar and you don't notice it you will end up with all your intact backups beeing overwritten with the defect image and there is no way to restore it. When writing to files there always is the risk of damaging them and if the problem is on file-level it can go unnoticed for a very long time - until you try to open the file again.

 

As said, I am not aware of any traditional backup software that can handle this but I might be wrong.

 

The additional features that I could think off (like double backing up images with n stars or versioned backups) would be nice to have too.

 

Kind regards

Frank

[franky68]

Hello Murat,

 

Frank, it's generous that you spent so many time and attention to product evaluation and sharing your feedback. Daminion team really appreciates it!

 

I am glad you say that - I already was afraid you'd start to hate me for continously posting requests. Please really see it as my random thoughts. Of course you probably dont like all of them and some of them definately go over the top for an 1.0 version and might not come before x.0. However if there are a few ideas you like its already worth posting them. And Im only selfish after all, the better Daminion will become the better we can work with it ;)

 

UI of the first Daminion public release was implemented in dark colors:

 

Yes, that looks much better. The bright menubar is not nice but not as distracting as the bright windows currently are. So I am really looking forward to when you "have a little free time in the future" ;)

 

As you probably know PicaJet's workspace can be maximized/minimized by TAB key. Perhaps we'll implement this feature in Daminion also.

 

The TAB key also does this in Photoshop - thats actually where Ive stolen that idea.

 

UI is optimized for large fonts and the only way to change the font size is via Display Settings. For inst. the display text size on my screen is setup to 125%.

 

This would also change other fonts. On my 15" Laptop with 1400x1050 the Daminion fonts are quite tall and use a lot of space while all other applications are just fine. I really wouldnt want *them* any smaller. On my 26" Desktop the fonts are ok however.

 

I see two ways to incorporate this feature without adding an extra term:

1. Expand Rating values by "Rejected". So the possible values for rating will be

Rejected, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

 

This could be problematic because there is no "accepted"... When I review my images for the first time I usually on select them between "good" and "bad". So "bad" would be "rejected", "0" would mean not yet rated and "1" equals "accepted". But how could I distinguish between images rated with one star and images that are "good" but not yet rated?

 

2. Collection is a special tag that is stored in the catalog and is not mapped to the metadata. Sometimes it is very convenient to quickly sort images. Color Label is a nice tag but it maps to XMP. We thought about adding visual marks and hotkeys to Collections. And one of the collection tags might be named as "Rejected".

 

This might be better but currently an image can only be in one Collection at a time (it might be a good idea to change that anyway) so this would give almost the same problems as 1. does. I really thing (if possible) having a dedicated "accepted/rejected" flag would be the best way to handle this.

 

Talking about collections: Why can images only be in one of them anyway and why cant a collection have child collections?

 

This is the most requested feature by me to the Daminion team. Hey guys, can you hear me? :D

 

How do they say? - "If you want it done, do it yourself" ;)

 

Kind regards

Frank

[kingsfan]

I am probably wrong on the type of SQL DB being used, but the concept of backing up a DB with open tables is available only in enterprise class backup software. Anyhow, backing up the catalog is not as important as ensuring the integrity of the images themselves.

 

If the concern is file integrity, command line tools such as Robocopy can do CRC checksum copies of the originals. I usually store my RAW images in a secure backup location and use only copies of it in my DAM and RAW processing tools. Yes, this does increase my storage costs, but it is a balance between cost and peace of mind, and I prefer peace of mind :-).

[franky68]

Hi kingsfan,

 

I am not sure if this is the right time and thread to discuss backup in depth...

 

I am probably wrong on the type of SQL DB being used, but the concept of backing up a DB with open tables is available only in enterprise class backup software. Anyhow, backing up the catalog is not as important as ensuring the integrity of the images themselves.

 

SQLite and PostgreSQL both can create dumps and even if the functionality is not implemented its about 10 lines of codes per table to implement it in application level.

 

If the concern is file integrity, command line tools such as Robocopy can do CRC checksum copies of the originals. I usually store my RAW images in a secure backup location and use only copies of it in my DAM and RAW processing tools. Yes, this does increase my storage costs, but it is a balance between cost and peace of mind, and I prefer peace of mind :-).

 

The problem is that CRC checksums are not good enough. An application that writes the files can break the image and still write the matching checksum for the mess it has written. In theory you can even modify bits in a way that the old checksum still matches (agreed its not very likely but its possible).

 

I create copies of the imported files right when I download them from the camera myself. In addition there is the regular backup of the imported files.

 

The problem with the backup (in particular the first) is that you don't check it for a *very* long time. So if your harddisk, CD, DVD, tape or whatever you backup it to has physical problems the first time youll notice it will be when you acutally *need* the backup and find out that its broken too.

 

The only reliable way to ensure your image files are still intact is to actually open them. This of course is not practical to do manually and thats where you need an application to do this. I already found (open source) routines to do this with JPEG and PNG and know there are some for TIFF. RAW files obviously seem harder to check and the only way I found so far is by utilizing Adobe DNG converter. However all those routines do not simply match checksums but actually verify that the image is readable.

[franky68]

Ok, to finish the back-up discussion: I just wrote my own application ;^)

 

Broken JPG, TIF and RAW detection works like a charm :)

 

And the other thread (Nikon NEF Format) just reminded me of something:

 

From what I understand Daminion syncs its data immediately when there are modifications. Now when categorizing images the usual workflow is to select a bunch of images and assign a keyword. Now select another bunch (which can include files from step 1) and assign the next keyword.

 

This way every file gets assignments several times. Now when Daminion syncs the data every time this means a lot of write-access (potential risk) and delay while writing the data.

 

Would it be a good idea to optionally disable immediate sync and have a function to manually start the sync for all modified images - and having the sync-process start when the application is closed? This way each file would only be touched once.

[Murat]

Yes. I mentioned about this feature above when writing about

"the most requested feature by me to the Daminion team" :)

[franky68]

I thought a bit about the lighttable...

 

Of course an infinite number of images would (at some point) come down to the thumbnailview so there has to be a limit somewhere.

 

I personally think the best solution would be a configurable number of images that are displayed (probably 4-8).

 

Imagion images 1-10 are selected and 1-4 are currently displayed.

 

Now if the user has more images selected than can be displayed he can browse through the selection with the cursor keys. So LEFT would show 2-5.

 

And if one of the displayed images get rejected it vanishes from the display table. The remaining images scroll up and the last slot gets used by the next (previously undisplayed) image. E.g. I reject #2 now the table would show #1, #3, #4 and #5.

 

This would give the flexibility to work with huge series of images (like in an action shoot) without cluttering the lighttable too much. However I still think having the option to display more than just 4 images is essential when using a large monitor. So configuring them would suit most people even if they have smaller monitors or not so good eyes ;)

[franky68]

One more thought (after double checking the competition): Some other DAM applications handle the lighttable in a way that it can show up to n images (depending on the application/version) and have a (hideable) film strip underneath the lighttable to select/switch displayed image. This is in addition to changing them with the cursor keys.