Suggestions and features requests

[phidias81]

Hello, I'm a new user of the standalone version of Daminion. It's also my first DAM software, apart from testing several other software before choosing Daminion. I would like to suggest some improvements, after a quick usage of the software (about 24hrs after reading all the wiki manual and the tips).

 

1 - On the icons on the thumbnails, is not showing a tooltip for some of the buttons

 

2 - It would be nice to have shortcuts to collapse tabs (in properties or tags): in example right click collapse everything except the selected tab, double click open-close everything

 

3 - when comparing 2 or more photos, it's shown a magnifing lens, but the zoom is not working (EDIT: I think now I got that you have to live the zoom clicked to work)

 

4 - If I rename a folder or move a file, the catalogue is still showing the existence of the data in the database, there is no warning sign. Only by double cliking the preview it's possible to find out that the original is missing. Would be helpful to have a mark to missing original and maybe a summary table

 

5 - If I rename a folder or move a file, I have to manually re-link the catalogue and the folder, it would be very appreciated an automatic function (even if there is another work around that is to write data in the file and then rescan folders)

 

6 - If no gps coordinates are present from the camera, it would be nice to have some general automatic gps coordinates according to the country-state-place choosen (if applicable).

 

7 - When the version 1.0 will be released with payment, the free version will still contain all of the functions available in the current free version, or some of them could be limited?

 

8 - If I select in example 40 photos, I insert country (in example Italy) and save, then I select 20 photos of these to insert city Rome, but the country field is blank. If I input Rome in the city and save, then Italy disappear. At the same time if I first select 2 photo and write city: Rome. Then I select 4 photos, including this 2, and I input country: Italy, then also in these 2 photos is disappearing Rome.

 

9 - The data of Pentax Lens are not imported in the tags, even if usin "show all metadata" I can read the lens

 

10 - If I put 2 files in the tray, I can't see any data of this files in the preview (filename, etc.)

 

11 - It's quite slow to select half a star rating, the only way I find is to drag. WOuld be much faster to just click on the left or right part of the star

 

12 - I tried to write the tags either in the XMP sidecar or directly on the file (PEF). In both cases the rating (maybe also other data, but I didn't verify) is not recognized by other programs. In example is not visible in Windows Explorer, and more important to me is not visible in my Raw Developer (Raw Therapee), so that if I want to develop only the photos with rating 4 or 5, I can't do that, and I have to select everything again [EDIT: About this I found out that raw therapee is still not handling XMP)

 

13 - What is the meaning of the folder with a lighter gray colour?

 

14 - It would be nice to be able to modify shortcuts. In example I would prefer to have ratings with numbers and colour tags with ctrl+num

 

Thank you, and I will update this in case of any other idea

[phidias81]

I also got this error

 

See the end of this message for details on invoking

just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

 

************** Exception Text **************

System.ApplicationException: This operation returned because the timeout period expired. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800705B4)

at System.Threading.ReaderWriterLock.AcquireReaderLockInternal(Int32 millisecondsTimeout)

at PicaJet.Daminion.GUIComponents.PreviewMediaBox.OnPaint(PaintEventArgs e) in c:\DaminionAuto\Code\GUIComponents\Controls\PreviewMedia\PreviewMediaBox.cs:line 1579

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.PaintWithErrorHandling(PaintEventArgs e, Int16 layer, Boolean disposeEventArgs)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmPaint(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

 

 

************** Loaded Assemblies **************

mscorlib

Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0

Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5466 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400)

CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll

----------------------------------------

Daminion

Assembly Version: 0.9.8.716

Win32 Version: 0.9.8.716

CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Daminion%20Software/Daminion/Daminion.exe

[phidias81]

Another error. Maybe it's the same

 

 

See the end of this message for details on invoking

just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

 

************** Exception Text **************

System.ApplicationException: This operation returned because the timeout period expired. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800705B4)

at System.Threading.ReaderWriterLock.AcquireReaderLockInternal(Int32 millisecondsTimeout)

at PicaJet.Daminion.GUIComponents.PreviewMediaBox.OnPaint(PaintEventArgs e) in c:\DaminionAuto\Code\GUIComponents\Controls\PreviewMedia\PreviewMediaBox.cs:line 1579

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.PaintWithErrorHandling(PaintEventArgs e, Int16 layer, Boolean disposeEventArgs)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmPaint(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

 

 

************** Loaded Assemblies **************

mscorlib

Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0

Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.5466 (Win7SP1GDR.050727-5400)

CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll

----------------------------------------

Daminion

Assembly Version: 0.9.8.716

Win32 Version: 0.9.8.716

CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Daminion%20Software/Daminion/Daminion.exe

[Murat]

Phidias, thanks a lot for your feedback!

 

6 - If no gps coordinates are present from the camera, it would be nice to have some general automatic gps coordinates according to the country-state-place choosen (if applicable).

 

I guess this will be too rough estimation. The visa-verse implementation is possible: stamping images by place tags according to GPS information. There is an online database for this.

 

 

7 - When the version 1.0 will be released with payment, the free version will still contain all of the functions available in the current free version, or some of them could be limited?

 

 

The functionality of the free version will be limited by a few functions. This list is not completely composed.

 

 

8 - If I select in example 40 photos, I insert country (in example Italy) and save, then I select 20 photos of these to insert city Rome, but the country field is blank. If I input Rome in the city and save, then Italy disappear. At the same time if I first select 2 photo and write city: Rome. Then I select 4 photos, including this 2, and I input country: Italy, then also in these 2 photos is disappearing Rome.

 

The problem is because we treat the Place tag one tag although in Properties panel they it displaying as 4 separate input fields. With current Daminion version you need to input all 4 place tags at once.

 

There are might be some collisions: if you'll assign the "Rome" to a bunch of files and they will be from different countries, then after an assignment we'll have Italy\Rome, Greece\Rome, Japan\Rome places...

 

9 - The data of Pentax Lens are not imported in the tags, even if usin "show all metadata" I can read the lens

 

Could you please send me a sample image taken by a camera with a Pentax Lens to support/at/daminion/./net.

 

10 - If I put 2 files in the tray, I can't see any data of this files in the preview (filename, etc.)

 

This is a know issue. Thanks anyway.

 

11 - It's quite slow to select half a star rating, the only way I find is to drag. WOuld be much faster to just click on the left or right part of the star

 

In this case if you need to assign a hole star you can accidentally assign a value with half star. So you can assign half star rating by dragging or by keyboard:

- Double press 1 key to assign 1.5

- Double press 2 key to assign 2.5

and so on...

 

12 - I tried to write the tags either in the XMP sidecar or directly on the file (PEF). In both cases the rating (maybe also other data, but I didn't verify) is not recognized by other programs. In example is not visible in Windows Explorer, and more important to me is not visible in my Raw Developer (Raw Therapee), so that if I want to develop only the photos with rating 4 or 5, I can't do that, and I have to select everything again [EDIT: About this I found out that raw therapee is still not handling XMP)

 

Not sure but the Windows Explorer also might not understand PEF files without third-party codecs. You can try to check "Add compatibility with old programs" and "Write tags into Exif/Iptc/Xmp" options and check again. Although this might be affected to the metadata updating speed.

 

 

13 - What is the meaning of the folder with a lighter gray colour?

 

It means that this folder wasn't imported into the Daminion directly and there are no files in this folder (except it's sub-folders). For example after importing "D:\A\B" folder - the "A" folder will be displayed with gray color.

[phidias81]

Thank you for the answer. You can download a PEF file at this address: http://mbf.me/10v5YT

 

It means that this folder wasn't imported into the Daminion directly and there are no files in this folder (except it's sub-folders). For example after importing "D:\A\B" folder - the "A" folder will be displayed with gray color.

 

Ok, but I see no difference in the behaviour of a "gray" folder and a "black" folder. I can still view and edit all the files. Is there something I should do to get rid of the gray?

 

 

1) Another question is about the function of ctrl, pressed when Catalog tags is visible. By pressing it, the "numbers" are changing. I got it's something connected with AND OR, but still not clear.

 

2) If I have selected 5 photos that already have some keywords , and I want to add the keyword "Castle", if there is one of the 5 photos that already have the keyword castle, I cannot add this keyword, so to add it to the remaining 4 I have to do a different slection (If I'm lucky enough to find out that the keyword wasn't written)

 

3) A nice feature would be also the ability to open more tabs

 

4) It would be also nice to have some quick filters. In example if I'm browsing a folder and I want to see only pictures with 5 stars, I have to do an advanced search, when I could just select some icons in the bar.

[Murat]

Ok, but I see no difference in the behaviour of a "gray" folder and a "black" folder. I can still view and edit all the files. Is there something I should do to get rid of the gray?

 

It's because by default Daminion shows files of a selected tag including it's sub-tags. You will receive an empty result if you hold the Shift key and check a folder with grayed font color.

 

1) Another question is about the function of ctrl, pressed when Catalog tags is visible. By pressing it, the "numbers" are changing. I got it's something connected with AND OR, but still not clear.

 

If you press the Ctrl key and move the mouse over the tags tree you will seen that all tag numbers will be changed (as you noticed). These numbers show how many files you will see after clicking on a certain tag. And this value various depending from OR/AND selection.

 

This is a time-saver feature that allows you to see tags that have no intersection with your current selection. For example on the screenshot below I've checked a Canon 5D Mark II camera and now after pressing the Ctrl I see what lenses had been used along with this camera:

 

 

 

2) If I have selected 5 photos that already have some keywords , and I want to add the keyword "Castle", if there is one of the 5 photos that already have the keyword castle, I cannot add this keyword, so to add it to the remaining 4 I have to do a different slection (If I'm lucky enough to find out that the keyword wasn't written)

 

Right click on the "Castle" tag and select "Assign "Castle" to selected tags" option from the context menu.

 

 

3) A nice feature would be also the ability to open more tabs

 

What do you mean by Tabs?

 

4) It would be also nice to have some quick filters. In example if I'm browsing a folder and I want to see only pictures with 5 stars, I have to do an advanced search, when I could just select some icons in the bar.

 

You can check the 5-star rating on the tags tree by holding the Ctrl key.

[phidias81]

It's because by default Daminion shows files of a selected tag including it's sub-tags. You will receive an empty result if you hold the Shift key and check a folder with grayed font color.

 

 

 

If you press the Ctrl key and move the mouse over the tags tree you will seen that all tag numbers will be changed (as you noticed). These numbers show how many files you will see after clicking on a certain tag. And this value various depending from OR/AND selection.

 

This is a time-saver feature that allows you to see tags that have no intersection with your current selection. For example on the screenshot below I've checked a Canon 5D Mark II camera and now after pressing the Ctrl I see what lenses had been used along with this camera:

 

 

 

 

 

Right click on the "Castle" tag and select "Assign "Castle" to selected tags" option from the context menu.

 

 

 

 

What do you mean by Tabs?

 

 

 

You can check the 5-star rating on the tags tree by holding the Ctrl key.

 

1) the ctrl feature is very useful, it's what I was meaning with quick filters. It's missing any documentation about it in the wiki as far as I can remember

 

2) what's the function of shift+click?

 

3) About the "castle" tags (assigning same tag to more files), I think that this is a wrong behaviour, because if in example I have 5 files with 20 tags each one, all different, when I select the 5 photos togheter, I will have 100 tags. Now if I want to assign one tag present only in 1 photo to all of the photos I will have to browse trhough 100 tags to find the correct one!

But actually the main issue is, as I already said, that there is an high risk to not writing some tags. Because if I'm writing 5 tags togheter with comma, in example blue,wood,house,bottle,street, after I'm not going to check if all of the tags were written, I think it's obvious, but actually it's not and it's very risky, because probably I don't recognize that one or more are missing.

 

4) with tabs I mean something like the attachement, where each single tab could be a different advanced search, or differenet catalog, or I don't know what

[Mammut]

Hi,

 

2) what's the function of shift+click?

 

The shift is useful when there are files at a parent and its child tag, too. If you shift click the parent, you can see only tha parent tag's files. If you simple click on it, you can see all files.

 

Regards,

mammut

 

edit: the Tabs is a good idea for later, so +1.

[Murat]

1) the ctrl feature is very useful, it's what I was meaning with quick filters. It's missing any documentation about it in the wiki as far as I can remember

 

Unfortunately wiki is "a bit" outdated due to a lack of free time...

 

 

3) About the "castle" tags (assigning same tag to more files), I think that this is a wrong behaviour, because if in example I have 5 files with 20 tags each one, all different, when I select the 5 photos togheter, I will have 100 tags. Now if I want to assign one tag present only in 1 photo to all of the photos I will have to browse trhough 100 tags to find the correct one!

But actually the main issue is, as I already said, that there is an high risk to not writing some tags. Because if I'm writing 5 tags togheter with comma, in example blue,wood,house,bottle,street, after I'm not going to check if all of the tags were written, I think it's obvious, but actually it's not and it's very risky, because probably I don't recognize that one or more are missing.

 

I understand now. We'll fix a behavior of new value adding in the Properties panel. Thanks!

 

 

4) with tabs I mean something like the attachement, where each single tab could be a different advanced search, or differenet catalog, or I don't know what

 

This is a good idea, but there might be a lot of potential collisions between two opened catalogs due to simultaneous edits. And this will requires a lot of testing and a lot of time for catching and fixing possible errors. So let's leave this option for later discussions after a few major version releases.

[Mammut]

This is a good idea, but there might be a lot of potential collisions between two opened catalogs due to simultaneous edits.

 

As I understand those tabs for only the thumbnail view (yeah, it's there on the top now, where the catalog tabs, but they could be at the bottom of the window), so it could be only two queries, not two opened catalogs.

[phidias81]

The functionality of the free version will be limited by a few functions. This list is not completely composed.

 

And about this, it would be nice if the difference between free and paid versions would be made rather on the quantity than in the features, in example max 1 catalogue, or max 100.000 photos, etc. to differenciate between a small user that cannot afford the paid version and a user that is making money out of it. Just my 2 cents, but of course this is your marketing strategy

[Murat]

And about this, it would be nice if the difference between free and paid versions would be made rather on the quantity than in the features, in example max 1 catalogue, or max 100.000 photos, etc. to differenciate between a small user that cannot afford the paid version and a user that is making money out of it. Just my 2 cents, but of course this is your marketing strategy

 

I appreciate your advice, thanks! Our primary marketing strategy is around the Daminion Server. But it will be interested to hear opinion of other users also.

[phidias81]

Another idea, I don't know if it make sense. I was thinking that a lot of people using DAM could be using also microstock. As far as I remember (talking about a couple of years ago, didn't try recently) when importing photos in microstock sites like fotolia, dreamstime, etc. they are reading the keywords. So it could be helpful a feature to write some tags (to be selected by the user) also in the keyword filed. In example if I write in Daminion metadata of a picture taken at new years eve in Rome, most probably I would put Rome into the place and NYE in the event. When importing in microstock these tags are going to miss, because the website's reading only the keywords. But using this kind of export tag, I can select to write place and event also in the keywords.

[Murat]

Another idea, I don't know if it make sense. I was thinking that a lot of people using DAM could be using also microstock.

...

 

Thanks for the suggestion!

This can be added as an option in the Export addon.

 

However there are a few specialized program to upload images to micro-stock and even track the sales. So microstock users might prefer to use these programs for keyword assignment purposes.

[phidias81]

Another one about the quick filter used with ctrl: it's possible to choose AND-OR but it's missing something like NOT or EXCEPT. It would be useful to select in example all the rated pictures (except unrated) with 1 click

[Murat]

It would be useful to select in example all the rated pictures (except unrated) with 1 click

 

You can show all the rated pictures by holding the Alt key and clicking on the Unrated tag.

[Mammut]

Another one about the quick filter used with ctrl: it's possible to choose AND-OR...

 

By the way, I think it would be good if in the Advanced Search we could use AND and OR, too, and not just one of them. At least this way we can't create too complicated filters.

 

It's okay that with the Tags tab there is only one can be usable at a time, otherwise it would be too complicated, but I think the Advanced Search is, uh, let's just say, advanced. :)

[Murat]

By the way, I think it would be good if in the Advanced Search we could use AND and OR, too, and not just one of them.

 

It was discussed here on the forum some time ago (I guess you mean using of AND/OR within the same tag?). This might be a time-consuming development task, so let's get back to this option after publishing Daminion Release version (BTW Daminion 0.9.9 version is almost ready for testing...)

[Mammut]

It was discussed here on the forum some time ago (I guess you mean using of AND/OR within the same tag?). This might be a time-consuming development task, so let's get back to this option after publishing Daminion Release version (BTW Daminion 0.9.9 version is almost ready for testing...)

 

Yeah, I remember something, but it just came to my mind now. :) Yeah, I meant within the same filter.

 

(I'm waiting for the new version. The controlled vocabulary will be in this build or just in the 1.0 version? I can't wait that feature (and the synonyms).

 

Edit: I just saw your tweet about the new build. Tag presets will be the main thing now, as I see.)

[Murat]

(I'm waiting for the new version. The controlled vocabulary will be in this build or just in the 1.0 version? I can't wait that feature (and the synonyms).

 

All features according to the roadmap.

[phidias81]

new question: (sorry for coming back so much, but I guess you are interested too, because it can help improve the product)

 

If I do a search in Catalog tag, it is not searching apparently in the country-city-place tag. Is it a bug, or is there a reason?

 

By searching with the advanded search (all-contains), if I have photos tagged bone AND church, and I search for "bone church" is not finding anything. Also if I search for bone or church is finding results (clearly not restricted as I wanted for "bone serach). If i search for "bone " (there is an unwanted space), it is finding nothing

[Uwe]

Hi phidias81,

 

you can't find "bone church" because this is not the one keyword tag that you have defined. You have two tags: one is "bone" and the other is "church". You have to define your search by the boolean operands AND/OR e.g.

The "unwanted" space at the end of "bone " belongs to the search term (you are searching for "bone " and not for "bone" and therefore you can't find "bone".

I hope that helps.

 

Regards, Uwe

[Mammut]

It was discussed earlier that maybe google-style search would be better.

Now you need too precise search terms, it's rather filtering than searching this way. :)

[phidias81]

Another idea, I don't know if it make sense. I was thinking that a lot of people using DAM could be using also microstock. As far as I remember (talking about a couple of years ago, didn't try recently) when importing photos in microstock sites like fotolia, dreamstime, etc. they are reading the keywords. So it could be helpful a feature to write some tags (to be selected by the user) also in the keyword filed. In example if I write in Daminion metadata of a picture taken at new years eve in Rome, most probably I would put Rome into the place and NYE in the event. When importing in microstock these tags are going to miss, because the website's reading only the keywords. But using this kind of export tag, I can select to write place and event also in the keywords.

 

I'm back using the new version, I see also some of my suggestions were implemented, nice to see.

 

I had a similar (but different) need today to what I wrote previously in the quoted post.

 

After keywording in Daminion, I then edit the raw files, and eventually export it to upload in my website.

Now the problem is that google is not indexing the metadata, so from my side (I don't know if it can be a general need) it would be very useful a function to copy the keywords and tags in the filename in example. Because after spending hours to add keywords in Daminion, I'm not willing to insert again manually those keywords in the filename or caption for google to read it. Searching on-line for external software solution, I found several LightRoom and Bridge plugin and scripts, but no stand alone tools.

[Murat]

...it would be very useful a function to copy the keywords and tags in the filename in example.

 

The file names will be very cumbersome in this case. Why not to add a server based script that will use some lightweight script to extract info from IPTC or even XMP of the uploaded images and display it on a more readable way along with your images, like Flickr, Fotki or other photo sharing web-sites do.

 

In this case your descriptions will be Google and human readable.