Description: Album Shaper is a graphical application used to create, maintain, and share photo albums using open formats like HTML, XSLT, and JPG. Two-layer albums can be created in a drag-n-drop interface which allows quick and easy arrangement and catagorization of photos. Batch rotations make getting your photos ready a quick and easy task. You can also crop, enhance, and manipulate your photos using a powerful but intuitive editing interface. Photos, collections, and albums themselves can be labeled as needed and modified at a later time by saving and loading from a simple XML format. Albums are exported as HTML which can then be posted directly on the web or viewed straight from your hard drive.
While mainly a bugfix release, Album Shaper 2.1 adds complete French and German translations, a new Radiant theme, and a new Mosaic image manipulation. The compilation and installation process for Linux/FreeBSD users has also seen significant improvements.Last changelog:
New Features / Feature Enhancements:
* New mosaic manipulation! * Aspect ratio selection usability improvements (smarter placement with regard to rotating selections, positioning, and support for tall photos) * Improved B/W and Sepia effects (weights now based on modern display phosphor characteristics) * Added French translation * German translation brought up to date
Minor Improvements:
* Rewrote AlbumShaper.pro project file to support changing install location on Unix systems * Changed "Disable checking for..." checkbox to "Check for photo modifications..." under settings * Cut down window and dialog title text by removing "Album Shaper: " prefix * Fixed alert dialogs to handle long message translations * Various spelling mistakes and other minor visible text improvements * Fixed fonts in status area and various dialogs * Cosmetic fixes regarding buttons and layout in Save as dialog * Added missing red color to some button references in help system
Bug Fixes:
* Fixed a bug where dropping objects from the desktop / file browsers on album / collection image caused Album Shaper to crash * Fixed a bug where Album Shaper would crash when trying to edit 8 bit grayscale and color images * Fixed a bug where after removing photos in a collection the edit tab and various buttons below were still enabled * Fixed a threading bug in the file preview feature that could cause the program to hang * Fixed the rare 0kb bug! (reverting a photo sometimes caused the photo to be corrupted) * Disabled user input while loading albums * Fixed a bug where loading recent albums using the keyboard shortcuts could cause Album Shaper to crash * Fixed a bugs where using save-as to copy an album from one location to another did not copy over the original form of an image * Fixed minor bug in Slick theme where carriage returns in photo descriptions caused problems in slide show mode * Fixed a bug in the Metallic theme where collections that had no cover images could not be reached using the navigation bar * Fixed various compiler warnings under Linux / FreeBSD
It's a fairly nice application - BUT - It needs improvement.
The HTML output is not W3C compliant. You would think that the people who program the code for these apps would know compliant HTML and CSS.
It required a bit of hand coding the Album Shaper output for my website to be W3C and CSS compliant.
First off I want to say congrats on the app, very nice...but I do have one request. How about a default album? For instance, I created "My Album", and everytime I open Sharper Album, it opens my album, not a new one. And granted I realize it's very simple to "Open Recent", but it would save a little time.
I've taken the word processor approach, which I think is best for now since many people create many albums. In the future this may change, and if so you'll be a happy man. Until then, save your wrist some work and just hit Ctrl+1 to load most recent album when you start up. Ctrl+2, 3, and so on should also work. ;-)
Instead of creating albums from scratch, could you add an option to create an album from a directory.
Juste like digikam does. It's pretty convenient way to quickly switch to you app if needed.
Indeed, most of people testing your app have already a collection of photo albums often organized as directories and subdirectories. Having the above functionality would greatly help.
Several users have asked for this functionality, and I looked into it for 2.1. Unfortunately, supporting importing both files and directories within the same add dialog (which would be optimal IMHO) is hokey using the Qt file dialogs. I'd also prefer to provide native KDE file dialogs (also requested) for KDE'ers, especially since KDE provides nice way to extend such dialogs for adding stuff like improved file previes, etc. I've marked this request as a much have under the future tasks list that all can now follow by visiting:
http://albumshaper.sourceforge.net/futurePlans.shtml
If I've forgotten a feature request anyone has sent me in the past it is not intentional. Send me a message and I'll be sure to update this list.
Please add support for KDE integration (even if it remains an option so non KDE users can still use it without loading extraneous libs).
I'm realy missing KDE File dialog box with bookmarks previews and left shortcuts icons.
Support for digikamimage-plugins and kipi-plugins would be cool too.
Best regards.
Seems greate App, but please, remove the /usr/local hardcoded location.
This place is dedicated to my compilation and install trash. If it works, then I package the thing for a /usr relative location and I remove /usr/local directory.
If you want to install Album Shaper to a location other than /usr/local/[bin:share] then just edit the AlbumShaper.pro file and replace all references to these paths, rerun qmake, then do a Make install. I'll see if I can refactor the .pro file a bit so you can specify this in one place up top. I always found /usr/local/ to be the standard place to put user centric software I'm an old Slackware user. Where do most people install stuff these days?
I also had to update the following files: AlbumShaper.pro AlbumShaper.xcode/project.pbxproj src/main.cpp
I've created a spec file for MDK, but I don't know how to attach it. It aims to be Mandrake RPM architecture compliant. (though not perfect IMHO)
Best regards.
I just realized this problem (you have to modify the main.cpp file) myself. Thanks for pointing this out. I'm refactoring the AlbumShaper.pro and main.cpp files a bit right now and will post again here when a fix is in CVS so you can more easily change the install locations. The pro file will be a lot simpler now too. You should not need to update the .xcode files though. If you want to compile Album Shaper using xcode run the "createXCodeProject" script. Somehow I doubt many people will be compiling Album Shaper from source for their OSX systems since I provide a binary for them already...
Just checked the necessary changes into CVS. You can now easily change both where the binary and where the resources are installed, and now the defaults are /usr/bin and /usr/share. Other minor errors like qmake trying to strip the install script are also fixed.
I wish DigiKam was more like this application. The usability of Album Shaper is top notch. Especially the 'Edit' part is brilliant. So simple.
One bug: When I want to choose a directory to save the album to, it won't let me select a directory. Maybe you mixed up a directory chooser with the 'save-as' dialog.
Suggestion: It took me quite a while to discover how to set an image for the album. It might be better if you always display the album image and allow the user to change it by clicking on it. The default album picture could be an empty picture with the words 'Click to change' on it.
One more suggestion: Add "what's this" balloons to each GUI element that pop up on mouse hovering, explaining how to use each GUI element.
Idea: How about an image printing application that works quite like Album Shaper (Maybe you can re-use code), but creates photo collage PDF files for printing? That's really something I'm still dreaming about.
I'm glad you like Album Shaper, especially the editing work that makes up the majority of what is new in this release. Usability is a big deal to me, so the fact that you think AS is "top notch" in this regard means a lot to me.
Your confusion with the save-dialog is not unheard of. I'm toying with the idea of rolling my own filedialogs. I'm seriously thinking of moving from a album based approach to a central photo library in the future which would mean save/load dialogs would be a think of the past.
Regarding setting album/collection photos, I've tried my best thus far to make it intuitive, but I guess I can still improve more. Drag-n-drop is a big win, and replacing one image with a new one helps. Having a default image that does not get used confuses people so I don't do that anymore. Have you found the right-click context menu that can also be used to set these images?
I'm not sure what you mean exactly about the "what's this" functionality. I have tooltips all over right now. Perhaps you turned them off in the settings?
I can't agree with you more about printing though. Not only will be this useful, but I'm looking forward to hacking it up since there is a small problem of how to optimize fitting photos onto pages to facilitate using the most paper, making cutting the out easier, and also making it easy for the user to pick how big each photo would be (why print 4x6's, than 5x7's, why not print all of them at the same time and have Album Shaper help you figure out how to lay them out on the paper). While it's not printing functiality yet, I've put in a DPI warning system when cropping to aspect ratios and you can now export photos so you can print them with other software on your machine. In time... ;)
I suggest you write the Metalic theme's author and ask him!
Christian Sandberg
cs (at) d-play (dot) com
I'm busy working on the final touches of the next release, but if you are really interested try checking out the Slick theme source and try patching the Metalic theme to provide slideshows too. You can learn more about making your own theme here:
http://albumshaper.sourceforge.net/documentation_writingThemes.shtml
Hi.
First of all, I agree that this is a great piece of program.
I'm glad you like my theme, I will update it a bit and try to add slideshow possibilities to it in Album Shaper 2.
I also have plans on a new theme, but I don't know when that would be.
/ Christian Sandberg
This is a decent project: Simple, easy to use and well implemented. As a Qt developer, I am impressed with what you have achieved with the toolkit. The 'zooming' feature where you can add a photo description is great!
Here's my opinion, for what it's worth, in how you can improve the UI:
1. Have an option to load the last opened album on startup.
2. Provide an MRU in the file menu of recently opened albums.
3. Insteaded of asking the user if they want to quit without saving, give them the option to save the file immediately.
All the best!
I like your ideas. I've been reading the recently published Qt book and the recent files (or in this case albums) feature under the file menu is something that struck me as kinda cool. Thanks for your input. :)
-Will
Ratings & Comments
37 Comments
It's a fairly nice application - BUT - It needs improvement. The HTML output is not W3C compliant. You would think that the people who program the code for these apps would know compliant HTML and CSS. It required a bit of hand coding the Album Shaper output for my website to be W3C and CSS compliant.
It's not wcag compliant
I made several changes to the code and it is now W3C and WCAG compliant. http://www.davidreeves.com/images/Gallery/index.html
First off I want to say congrats on the app, very nice...but I do have one request. How about a default album? For instance, I created "My Album", and everytime I open Sharper Album, it opens my album, not a new one. And granted I realize it's very simple to "Open Recent", but it would save a little time.
I've taken the word processor approach, which I think is best for now since many people create many albums. In the future this may change, and if so you'll be a happy man. Until then, save your wrist some work and just hit Ctrl+1 to load most recent album when you start up. Ctrl+2, 3, and so on should also work. ;-)
Instead of creating albums from scratch, could you add an option to create an album from a directory. Juste like digikam does. It's pretty convenient way to quickly switch to you app if needed. Indeed, most of people testing your app have already a collection of photo albums often organized as directories and subdirectories. Having the above functionality would greatly help.
I second that. I've suggested the same thing to author some weeks ago.
Several users have asked for this functionality, and I looked into it for 2.1. Unfortunately, supporting importing both files and directories within the same add dialog (which would be optimal IMHO) is hokey using the Qt file dialogs. I'd also prefer to provide native KDE file dialogs (also requested) for KDE'ers, especially since KDE provides nice way to extend such dialogs for adding stuff like improved file previes, etc. I've marked this request as a much have under the future tasks list that all can now follow by visiting: http://albumshaper.sourceforge.net/futurePlans.shtml If I've forgotten a feature request anyone has sent me in the past it is not intentional. Send me a message and I'll be sure to update this list.
Oh, btw, great app!!! (both thumbs up)
I got an "Xlib: unexpected async reply" because of thread problems. Qt is:
[japc@morgoth:/tmp/albumshaper_2.0_src/bin]$ ldd AlbumShaper.bin | grep qt
libqt-mt.so.3 => /usr/lib/qt-3.3/lib/libqt-mt.so.3 (0x4118e000)
Comenting the generatorThread creation (on src/gui/dialogs/addPhotosDialog.cpp) solved the problem.
This problem is now fixed in CVS. Thank you for reporting it.
Please add support for KDE integration (even if it remains an option so non KDE users can still use it without loading extraneous libs). I'm realy missing KDE File dialog box with bookmarks previews and left shortcuts icons. Support for digikamimage-plugins and kipi-plugins would be cool too. Best regards.
Seems greate App, but please, remove the /usr/local hardcoded location. This place is dedicated to my compilation and install trash. If it works, then I package the thing for a /usr relative location and I remove /usr/local directory.
If you want to install Album Shaper to a location other than /usr/local/[bin:share] then just edit the AlbumShaper.pro file and replace all references to these paths, rerun qmake, then do a Make install. I'll see if I can refactor the .pro file a bit so you can specify this in one place up top. I always found /usr/local/ to be the standard place to put user centric software I'm an old Slackware user. Where do most people install stuff these days?
I also had to update the following files: AlbumShaper.pro AlbumShaper.xcode/project.pbxproj src/main.cpp I've created a spec file for MDK, but I don't know how to attach it. It aims to be Mandrake RPM architecture compliant. (though not perfect IMHO) Best regards.
I just realized this problem (you have to modify the main.cpp file) myself. Thanks for pointing this out. I'm refactoring the AlbumShaper.pro and main.cpp files a bit right now and will post again here when a fix is in CVS so you can more easily change the install locations. The pro file will be a lot simpler now too. You should not need to update the .xcode files though. If you want to compile Album Shaper using xcode run the "createXCodeProject" script. Somehow I doubt many people will be compiling Album Shaper from source for their OSX systems since I provide a binary for them already...
Just checked the necessary changes into CVS. You can now easily change both where the binary and where the resources are installed, and now the defaults are /usr/bin and /usr/share. Other minor errors like qmake trying to strip the install script are also fixed.
I wish DigiKam was more like this application. The usability of Album Shaper is top notch. Especially the 'Edit' part is brilliant. So simple. One bug: When I want to choose a directory to save the album to, it won't let me select a directory. Maybe you mixed up a directory chooser with the 'save-as' dialog. Suggestion: It took me quite a while to discover how to set an image for the album. It might be better if you always display the album image and allow the user to change it by clicking on it. The default album picture could be an empty picture with the words 'Click to change' on it. One more suggestion: Add "what's this" balloons to each GUI element that pop up on mouse hovering, explaining how to use each GUI element. Idea: How about an image printing application that works quite like Album Shaper (Maybe you can re-use code), but creates photo collage PDF files for printing? That's really something I'm still dreaming about.
I'm glad you like Album Shaper, especially the editing work that makes up the majority of what is new in this release. Usability is a big deal to me, so the fact that you think AS is "top notch" in this regard means a lot to me. Your confusion with the save-dialog is not unheard of. I'm toying with the idea of rolling my own filedialogs. I'm seriously thinking of moving from a album based approach to a central photo library in the future which would mean save/load dialogs would be a think of the past. Regarding setting album/collection photos, I've tried my best thus far to make it intuitive, but I guess I can still improve more. Drag-n-drop is a big win, and replacing one image with a new one helps. Having a default image that does not get used confuses people so I don't do that anymore. Have you found the right-click context menu that can also be used to set these images? I'm not sure what you mean exactly about the "what's this" functionality. I have tooltips all over right now. Perhaps you turned them off in the settings? I can't agree with you more about printing though. Not only will be this useful, but I'm looking forward to hacking it up since there is a small problem of how to optimize fitting photos onto pages to facilitate using the most paper, making cutting the out easier, and also making it easy for the user to pick how big each photo would be (why print 4x6's, than 5x7's, why not print all of them at the same time and have Album Shaper help you figure out how to lay them out on the paper). While it's not printing functiality yet, I've put in a DPI warning system when cropping to aspect ratios and you can now export photos so you can print them with other software on your machine. In time... ;)
Its a great program - can you please (please please oh please) add a slideshow to the metallic theme ? I know I am getting greedy - but :-)
I suggest you write the Metalic theme's author and ask him! Christian Sandberg cs (at) d-play (dot) com I'm busy working on the final touches of the next release, but if you are really interested try checking out the Slick theme source and try patching the Metalic theme to provide slideshows too. You can learn more about making your own theme here: http://albumshaper.sourceforge.net/documentation_writingThemes.shtml
Hi. First of all, I agree that this is a great piece of program. I'm glad you like my theme, I will update it a bit and try to add slideshow possibilities to it in Album Shaper 2. I also have plans on a new theme, but I don't know when that would be. / Christian Sandberg
Thankyou sir for a wonderful program - looking forward to your updates ;) Regards Shelton Australia
This is a decent project: Simple, easy to use and well implemented. As a Qt developer, I am impressed with what you have achieved with the toolkit. The 'zooming' feature where you can add a photo description is great! Here's my opinion, for what it's worth, in how you can improve the UI: 1. Have an option to load the last opened album on startup. 2. Provide an MRU in the file menu of recently opened albums. 3. Insteaded of asking the user if they want to quit without saving, give them the option to save the file immediately. All the best!
I like your ideas. I've been reading the recently published Qt book and the recent files (or in this case albums) feature under the file menu is something that struck me as kinda cool. Thanks for your input. :) -Will