LightZone wishlist

[Niku Toivola]

First of all, allow me to say thanks for the great software! LightZone
for Linux has practically revolutionized my photo workflow. I really
hope the Linux version will be maintained and developed also in the
future and I would gladly pay for it if that would guarantee continued
Linux support.

I do have a few niggles, though, that I would like to present here in
the hope that they could be resolved in upcoming versions. It would be
nice to hear what others and especially Anton think of these points
(presented roughly in the order of importance from where I stand):

1. Batch export: it should be possible to specify the dimensions of
the exported pictures. It would probably be best to specify a
"bounding box" that the pictures will be scaled into (ie. by
specifying 1024x768 all pictures will be scaled so that they fit
inside a box 1024 pixels wide and 768 pixels tall, preserving the
aspect ratio of course).

2. Browser: colored flags in addition to rating and the ability to
filter the browser view by flags/rating/file type. This way you could
e.g. flag all pictures chosen for a web gallery in red, then filter
the view so that only the red flagged LZN files are shown, and easily
select them all for a batch export.

3. Startup: allow specifying the file to be opened on the command
line. This used to work in 2.1 but no longer does in 2.4, effectively
making it impossible to use LightZone as an external editor from
within a separate viewer.

4. Browser: the selection should move to the next picture after
deleting the selected picture. Now it "disappears" and you have to
click on a picture before you can again move around using the cursor
keys.

5. Browser: it would be nice to have basic file management
functionality (creation/deletion of folders, moving of files).

6. Editor: the crop tool "dimming" should be configurable. With
certain types of images (very light colors) it's extremely hard to see
the crop sometimes.

7. Editor: every now and then it would be handy to be able to see both
the zonefinder and the histogram at the same time (the histogram is
good for setting RAW exposure among other things, while the zonefinder
is a must for using the zonemapper).

And finally: unfortunately LightZone feels quite sluggish in many
situations -- it would be great if the performance could be improved
somewhat. (For reference, my desktop is a 2.8 GHz P4 and the laptop a
1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo and neither is particularly fast when running
LightZone, although the desktop is significantly slower.)

//Niku

PS. Any plans to bring 3.0 to Linux anytime soon? :)

--
Niku Toivola <niku.toivola@...>
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[Jacek Gozdz]

> 1. Batch export: it should be possible to specify the dimensions of
> the exported pictures. It would probably be best to specify a
> "bounding box" that the pictures will be scaled into (ie. by
> specifying 1024x768 all pictures will be scaled so that they fit
> inside a box 1024 pixels wide and 768 pixels tall, preserving the
> aspect ratio of course).

I think it is done in 3.0

> 5. Browser: it would be nice to have basic file management
> functionality (creation/deletion of folders, moving of files).

Making copy by drag&drop is done in 3.0

So two of them are fortunately out :)


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[bablokb]

Hi Niku,

I have suggested some of your points already on the mailing-list. I also
especially miss passing files and/or folders on the command-line. But there
is a hack with the LightZone-configuration files. Try this:

mv $HOME/.java/.userPrefs/com/lightcrafts/app/prefs.xml $HOME/prefs.xml.bak
sed -e '/RecentFile0/s/value="\(.*\)"/value="foo"/' \
$HOME/.java/.userPrefs/com/lightcrafts/app/prefs.xml.bak > \
$HOME/.java/.userPrefs/com/lightcrafts/app/prefs.xml

This changes your last recent file, and after starting LightZone, you can go
on editing the file you want. Not perfect, but currently the best you can do.
N.B. changing "RecentFolder0" and starting up LightZone in browser-layout
will parse the correct directory. When I find the time, I'll hack up a
start-script which does all this automatically (maybe also rotating the
RecentFile?-entries).

@anton: would it be helpful to adress wishes in the appropriate
LightZone-forum? Passing files and/or directories to LightZone should also be
of use for Windows/Mac-users. It would allow to e.g. drop a file onto a
LightZone program-icon.

Bernhard


> 3. Startup: allow specifying the file to be opened on the command
> line. This used to work in 2.1 but no longer does in 2.4, effectively
> making it impossible to use LightZone as an external editor from
> within a separate viewer.
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[Niku Toivola]

Hi Bernhard,

cool, thanks for the hack idea, I'll have to give that a try! Strange,
though -- passing a file on the command line used to work in 2.1 so it
looks like a regression in 2.4.

//Niku

On 5/28/07, Bernhard Bablok <bablokb@...> wrote:
> I have suggested some of your points already on the mailing-list. I also
> especially miss passing files and/or folders on the command-line. But there
> is a hack with the LightZone-configuration files. Try this:

--
Niku Toivola <niku.toivola@...>
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