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Image Viewer 1.0

A picture is worth a thousand words.  But what do you do when you have more than a thousand pictures? I suggest you download the demo package to see how your clients won't have to be tech-savvy to review digital images. Then download the studio package to learn how inexpensive and easy it is to provide your clients with digital image review. Do it to move your business to the top of the food chain...

Click here to download the cross-platform demo

of Image Viewer 1.1 as the client sees it (6.0mb)

Click here to download the cross-platform studio package

of Image Viewer 1.1 with installation docs (7.0mb)

and all the document sources so you can tailor them.

Both of these packages have demo licenses

which will EXPIRE 02/28/07.

PURCHASE Licenses HERE

Note: this is a cross-platform package containing

3 programs (one for each platform -- the data files are readable by all 3 programs).

This means you can produce your images on a Macintosh or

a Windows platform or a Linux platform and then put them into a folder

and deliver them to a client who is running on any of those 3 platforms.

And the client can use this software to view and make selections and comments using

their own computer. The client can then push a button which causes the

program to transmit a small file to you over the internet and it

arrives as an attachment to a mail message in your inbox.

Your copy of the program reads this small file

and you can see what the client selected and you can read any comments

the client made.

And this software will use this info to manipulate

only the client-selected files, and/or files corresponding to the

client-selected files (e.g. digital negatives).

This is the future of digital proofing.

For the 3 programs delivered with this system, the system requirements in alphabetical order are:

Linux: runs on x86-based machines and requires GTK+ 2.0 or above.

For information on GTK, see http://www.gtk.org.

Macintosh OS X: Mac OS X 10.1 or greater

Windows: Windows 98, 98ME, NT, 2000, and XP.

Link to Outstanding Issues and their simple workaounds

Version History:

1.1 20061025

134) fixed a cross platform file pointer problem one user had.

1.0.70 building (not released yet)

133) removed "App.HandleAppleEvent" message which appeared when someone clicked on the icon in the dock while the app was running.

1.0.68 20060122

132) fixed an amazing cosmetic bug -- pressing FIRST on viewer 2 just after emptying the stack to which it is assigned, caused viewer 1 to display 0/nnn on its navigation display. It's fixed now.

131) added a commit to the copy command so in the event something hangs up only the last transaction (if that) will be lost. This will slow performance and possibly should be made a preference (number of tranactions before a commit) so the user can specify the loss in speed.

130) cosmetic fix: deleting the last stack simply does it without adding the spurious message "oops I couldn't find that stack". and when when there are no stacks (either at create time, or after deleting) the rename stack and delete stack menus are not enabled.

129) cosmetic fix to navigation numbers on image viewer 2. Now good to display 99999/99999 or more....

128) When last image is deleted from a stack, the viewer now displays "stack is empty". Now deleting the last image will not kill the program (a bug which has been hiding since, and was introduced in, version 0.0.76). More stability. And regression testing will now accompany each release so two steps forward won't be accompanied by 1 step backwards.

1.0.66 20060118

127) Rename Stack is now fixed.

1.0.65 20060117

126) Restart Right Where You Left It is now working for the three screen ImageViewer1, ImageViewre2, and WindowEmail.

125) removed unused menu items under menu labeled FILE.

1.0.64 20060116

125) button labeled CLOSE on features menu of Admin window now works.

124) boring technical, cosmetic or performance adjustment.

123) Admin Screen added so now access and features are under the control of the photographer. Now the clients cannot modify the stuff the photographer has placed on the intro page. Also the photographer can disable Emailing of images. Here's note about the new feature until the documentation catches up: The password to the admin screen is included in the license wallet so it can never be lost and doesn't need to be written down anywhere. The license wallet is not distributed to the photographer's clients so they won't have access to the admin screen.

122) boring technical, cosmetic or performance adjustment.

1.0.63 intermediate build (never released)

121) boring technical, cosmetic or performance adjustment.

1.0.62 intermediate build (never released)

120) added the ability to email an image currently being viewed by viewer #1. It features the ability to build randomly accessible address books and will probably (in the future) feature the ability to inhale address books from your favorite mail programs. This provokes the admin panel which is now in development so you can restrict this feature if you do not want your clients emailing the images.

1.0.59 intermediate build (never released)

119) boring technical, cosmetic or performance adjustment.

1.0.55 intermediate build (never released)

118) Pressing the button labeled "Agree" on the License Agreement screen, disables it and the other 3 buttons on the screen until the transmission is resolved. This should elilminate one avenue for hanky-panky on this screen.

117) What You Left Is What You Return To (WYLIWYRU). Now, when you quit the program with Viewer #2 open, when you restart the program, it automatically opens Viewer #2. Also, both viewers are in the same position and size as when you quit -- just like you'd expect them to be. This is not only added convenience for your clients but also for you. Your clients will now be able to pick up right where they left off with a work environment that looks just like they left it. And you will be able to set up the screens just they way you want them before you burn the CD or zip them accross town. And when your clients open the viewer for the first time they see it just the way you left it -- so be careful how you leave it!

1.0.48 20051216 09:15

116) Removed the .DS_STORE files from all the folders in the demo and studio download. Much cleaner and clearer now. Many thanks to Red Room Development for their wonderful product DS_Store Cleaner. For the times you decide to take advantage of the speed of .ZIPing your files to your clients instead of using a CD, and you use a Macintosh to stage the files (like I do sometimes) you will want to strip out the .DS_STORE files before you create the zip file. In that case I highly recommend DS_Store Cleaner. They offer this product for free, and I'm going to donate some money to them right now, because I firmly believe I should repay the developer of any product that saves me time and money. I'm talkin' too much again.

115) Now, when user is asked where the image files have been moved, and the user selects a folder, Image Viewer updates the path information for that stack appropriately. This is Issue #23 and I'm glad it's fixed because it's the last outstanding bug.

114) Creating and loading a stack with images is now easier because the dialog which allows selection of the folder with the images is already primed to point right where it ought to. The user is prompted to simply "select" it.

113) User can now browse for the License Wallet. No need any more to move it to a prescribed folder. This facilitates keeping it out of the way so it doesn't get burned to the CD you give to your clients.

112) fix the mispelling of "destination" on 4 of the error messages which pop up when you try copying or moving images in non-shotgun mode with both viewers assigned to the same stack.

111) remove the leading digit (stack number) from the all popupmenus which display the stack name. This should eliminate the confusion people experienced seeing "2 Pass 1" in what seemed to be a stack name. Now it will read simply "Pass 1".

1.0.45 20051213 18:00

110) Added group boxes for the radio buttons and tossed the rectangles that were around them so this code is now possible to maintain.

109) boring technical, cosmetic or performance adjustment.

108) Added "results" label to the results pane on the Move Actual Files screen.

107) Added a Pay For License button and re-arranged the buttons on the License Request screen.

106) Modified the message displayed on success of transmission of a License Request to say the Pay For License button was available on this screen in addition to the one that's always been mentioned.

105) Removed the button labeled "?" on the Installed Licenses screen and replaced it with a button labeled "Done".

104) Moved the Close button on the Preference screens to the far left which is more uniform with the rest of the program.

103) Enabled the modification of the Event field for a timed license (which the demo has). Now folks who try the free demo can have a little more freedom to experiment with the splash screen attributes.

102) Added the Professional License with unlimited events and relabeled the Event license to the more descriptive "Single-Event License".

101) Adjusted the license agreement to reflect the addition of the Professional License.

100) The menubar is now attached to the top of both viewers in Windows.

99) Increased the font size to 18 on the filenames and navigation indicators (0/0000) on each of the viewers. Thanks to Eliot Khuner at Eliot Khuner Photography for this suggestion.

98) Added the assigned stack name to the title of the viewer (e.g. "Image Viewer #1 (3 album) "). Thanks to Eliot Khuner at Eliot Khuner Photography for this suggestion.

97) Save and Print on the License Agreement screen are now working.

1.0.38 20051206 20:50

96) added Copy to the Move Actual Files screen so now the program does ALL of the heavy lifting and the photgrapher doesn't need to copy back anything the program moved out of the actual proof folder.

95) changed the default file extension to ".JPG" for the move corresponding option of Move Actual Files screen.

94) Fixed the disappearing comment (Issue #15) which occured when folks did a copy after cross-viewer commenting.

93) Added "shotgun" COPY to viewer #1. Now it's possible to copy an image to multiple stacks with one key-stroke. Thanks again to Dawn Cameron at DC Consultants in Sunnyvale, CA for suggesting this time-saver.

1.0.32 20051128 02:15

92) Added an application icon to give us some respectability. Now I'm going to have to start tuning the icon....

1.0.31 20051127 15:30

91) Adjusted the printing of comments to be more uniform on all three platforms and eliminated the font problem on the Windows platform when printing more than one page of comments.

1.0.30 20051126 21:50

90) Added ability to list and print all comments without needing to poke your way through the images one at at ime looking for comments. Thanks to Dawn Cameron at DC Consultants in Sunnyvale, CA for suggesting this and providing a wonderful test database from her photo shoot.

89) NEXT (1, 10, 100), PREV (1, 10, 100), FIRST, LAST, COPY, DELETE, MOVE are all operating at flank speed allowing proofing and selection at more than 3 frames per second even on slow machines -- that should do for a while!

1.0.28 20051123

88) Removed "Empty a Stack" from the menu. I was planning to develop it, but his can be achieved simply by deleting a stack and then creating an empty one.

87) Fixed bug introduced by live resize. If a viewer was unassigned and you tried to resize it the display of "viewer unassigned" was impossible to dismiss.

1.0.27 20051122 23:02

86) Tune the on-line registration communication.

85) Adjusted the syntax of the license agreement.

84) Modified Comment pane in viewer 2 to expand when the screen is expanded.

83) Fixed issue #28. Now, when you press the button to MOVE the actual files (Tools/Move Actual Files), it tells you how many files you actually moved. Now, if you press it a second time, it's should indicate a lot less files than the first time because it will have already moved them. Also, it now reports on every file moved, stuck, or missing.

82) Fixed issue #16 which means now you can diddle around with the assignment popup all you want and if you select an empty stack and then select something else, you won't have problems selecting that stack again when it isn't empty. Getting better.

81) moved the label "Comment:" on top of the comment display in viewer #1 so it no longer defies the law of gravity. Added a colon (:) to the label "Comment" in viewer 2. Cosmetic stuff.

1.0.23 20051114 01:56

80) Fixed a keyboard command problem. It seems pressing the keyboard commands to do a NEXT and a PREV were moving the image forward by 2 and backward by 2 respectively on the Windows platform. It works fine with this release and now only moves one image at a time when it's supposed to.

1.0.22 20051113 21:08

79) Installed a full set of images in the studio download because some folks aren'd downloading the demo and so they don't get the kind of first exposure the client gets.

78) Adjusted some of the documentation to reflect fully-functioning transmission over the internet instead of by email and tuned the client tutorial by adding a screen shot and putting a clearer paridigm presentation.

77) NEXT and PREV for both viewers 1 and 2 are running at full speed now. I was able to view almost 5 images per second on my macintosh, and it seemed almost as fast on my laptop. The images were about 250kb jpegs displayed full screen. This program will now handle 4mb jpegs without getting winded.

76) adjusted the image displays so they don't crop the images anymore. Now they display 100% of the pixels with a comforting 1 pixel white border around them so you know you ain't missin' nuthin'.

75) fixed issue #32. Now, when you press the button labeled "Open License Wallet", if there is no License Wallet in the folder labeled "Data", the License Wallet screen will not be displayed.

74) live resizing of the image when the viewer is resized. This ushers in a new era. Now, instead of resizing and then hitting NEXT to see how the image looks, it resizes as you drag the screen. Removed the comment about this "ought to happen" from the documentation. It's a breath of fresh air.

73) all 'View as Intro' buttons now work so it's real easy now to preview the way licenses will look on the intro screen

72) wait cursor (hourglass for windows, wristwatch for mac) is now there between dismissal of introduction scren and the automatic first display so a client won't think something died if there's a small delay while your disk powers up.

71) renamed parameter from "appshort" to "appshortversion" in the server support section of the send selection function.

70) added instructions for workaround emailing of License Request in case the transport server is down. These workaround instructions are now available in both places where the info will be necessary to keep your work flowing no matter what.

1.0.17 20051110

69) Optimized the Windows platform so the NEXT function is instantaneous. This means you can view images at about 2 per second even on the slowest machine. I know because I own the slowest machine. This is a prelude to optimization on all the other functions (just a proof of concept for the first release. The rest should be fixed within a few days.)

1.0.15 20051028

68) Fixed the problem (issue #30) where some ISPs refused to allow transmission of the selections (see Tools menu, item Send Selections). Now pressing the SEND button should work on every known ISP on the planet, even if you don't have a mail client, and even if you don't have mail!

what follows is mostly cosmetic tweeks for this release

67) Added "New Stack Name:" to the Rename Stack Name screen. Now the entry field on that screen will be obvious to more than just the author.

66) Added the menu item Create A Stack From Comments to allow the photographer to quickly get a look at the comments without having to hunt for them. Right now, only the screen is there with the count of comments. It needs more work to become functional. This promises to be a biggy when combined with the up-and-coming light table. A future feature is the ability to print all the comments for quick reference.

65) Emphasize the Prev and Next buttons on each of the viewers. My thanks to Rob Kent at AikidoKids.com for stimulating me in this direction.

64) Re-populate the stacks and close appropriate windows after deleting a stack. Still doesn't treat a viewer that went "unassigned" as a result of this very elegantly -- elegant would be to clear the display and maybe even display "Unassigned".

63) Make the Delete button (on Delete a Stack screen) the default so carriage return can activate it.

62) Put "Rename A Stack" at top of the screen instead of "Untitled". Make the Rename button the default so carriage return can activate it.

1.0.14 20051024

61) added requester's email address to the license request email announcement received at the end where we generate licenses to better direct workflow.

60) added Rename A Stack. Now there should be no problems when a better name is "discovered". I can see "Mom's favorites" becoming "The whole family really better like these"

1.0.12 20051022

59) Sending a license request should now work with all internet service providers. You shouldn't have to use the workaround of emailing it any more. If you still notice a problem, please let me know.

58) The Preferences screen is now 600 pixels in height and should fit on the smallest laptop screen in case you are caught away from your studio monitors.

57) The License Agreement is now part of the License Installation process.

1.0.09 20051016

56) more informative message if user selects a stack to drive the move actual files process and that stack is empty.

55) creating new stacks (whether empty or thru a load) results in the Move Actual Files and the Delete Stacks windows being closed if they are open. This solves the population of stack names problem until something more elegant can be discovered.

54) fixed "Doug's bug" (found 20051014 by Doug Irvin at Mardajon Photography in San Jose, CA). You can now use aporstrophe in the stack name.

53) now the backspace and the delete key work to delete images from stacks (relief for users of Windows machines).

52) added "Delete Stack..." so the photographer can clean up the stack list before delivery to the clients. Requested by Raouhl Somers at Photography Raoul Somers.

51) changed the size of some screens which were too long to fit on 600x800 pixel display.

1.0.07 20051006

50) removed the wait cursor between splash page and inital open of viewer #1. Need to resolve a problem with it.

49) added Reference Manual. At this point it is almost entirely about the Move Actual Files screen. It has a clarifying picture of what's under the hood to power this screen. It's a first step (not a Neil Armstrong kind of step).

48) beefed up the Move Actual Files screen so it can now handle movement of files whose root names correspond to entries in the stack. The net result is a substantial increase in flexibility in workflow.

47) fixed preposition bug in License Request Edit screen.

46) added keyboard commands to handle PREV, NEXT, MOVE, COPY, DELETE, PREV10, NEXT10, FIRST, LAST. Experience indicates this is a godsend feature when you handle more than 1000 images. It's much nicer to hit keys than to poke the mouse that many times. And now the user has a choice. Users will now have to click in the comment area to activate it, and click outside the comment area to activate the keyboard commands. Will leave the user ability to assign the keys for a future release.

1.0.00 20050926 (at last !!)

45) put a wait cursor while creating and loading a stack

46) put a wait cursor after dismissing the intro screen (thanks to Nick Hurd for this suggestion)

47) put a small "close" button on the top left of the intro screen after seeing two separate users not be able to find the "continue" button at the bottom of the screen either because of dock issues or desktop clutter.

0.0.95 20050923

44) fixed "send data problem" on Windows machines. Cross platform is smoother now.

0.0.94 20050921

43) made date field storage more consistent to avoid clashes with the more stringent database field type enforcement on Win 32 machines.

42) found 20050920. fixed bug where if you moved the folder containing everything (like when you drag it onto your hard disk) the absolutepath of the files wasn't updated correctly. A flaw in the open routine got around this on the fly with each open, but it took County Roads of Santa Clara to find out that when it came time to use the function Move Actual Files, it fell on it's nose. Thank you. It's fixed now. Thanks for finding that so fast.

0.0.92 19Sep2005

41) under the tools menu, you can now select "send selections" and with one click, your selections and comments are automatically emailed to your photographer. This is direct, without you needing a mail client (like Entourage, or Outlook, etc.). Because Image Viewer has it's own built-in access to mail servers, if your client has web-based mail (like AOL), your client will experience the same one-click transmission of selections directly to the photographer's email box.

40) requesting a license (or multiple licenses) is now seemlessly integrated into the software.

0.0.83 04Jul2005

39) added scrollbar to viewer #1 to test client reaction

38) fixed sequencing problem when image filenames involve upper and lower case

37) fixed spacing in the header of the email generated from the intro page

0.0.81 27Jun2005

36) fixed bug where a newly created stack has 0/nnnn for it nav display when it is first assigned

35) intro page has live links to photographer's url and photographer's email address (configurable by the photographer)

34) live hyperlink to the developer's website is now in the about window

33) Application.short version name is now in the about window

32) comments are now visible and editable in both viewers

0.0.76 21Jun2005

31) images are now scaled to fit the viewer offering quite a benefit to those with large monitors as well as those with small. And it allows the phtographer to create larger proofs for those who can take advantage of them. And, the photographer can make even smaller proofs, relying on the scaling to handle the sizing. Clients are now in control of the size of the image and not just the size of the viewer. Yeah, I'm happy about this!

0.0.73 19Jun2005

30) Included documentation sources with the studio package so users could tailor the docs. This is in preparation for the inclusion of the studio logo on the bezels of the viewers so Image Viewer can carry the studio's brand.

29) Integrated comments into the viewing pane so they are more intuitive and accessible. Next, Prev, Next 10, Next 100, Prev -10, Prev -100, First, Last, Move, Copy, and Delete, all produce a save of the contents of the comments window. I intend to enhance shortly with a report to show all comments, and the ability to select all images with comments (the idea being if someone comments on 4 images out of 2000, I would like quick and easy access to the comments. Also, I'm interested in the deleted image with a comment on it (sometimes).

28) Image Viewer 2 is now also resizeable.

0.0.70 18Jun2005

27) upgraded compiler and will halt enhancements for Linux version for a little while until compiler bug is fixed by the manufacturer of the compiler.

26) Moderate fix to Comment window's ability to remember where user placed it. It still misbehaves a bit on Windows machines.

25) dropped support for OS 9 (classic) because of display problems. Will bring it back if users express a need.

0.0.68 17Jun2005

24) Now when license expires, the user is presented with the license window so she can enter a new license.

23) Fixed incompatibility between platforms with comment window behavior.

0.0.66 16Jun2005

22) Added Comments to the main viewer. A dream realized. Does it get any better than this?

21) Fixed bug where without a license program said it would quit and just kept saying it. It doesn't end elegantly now, but at least it doesn't loop any more.

0.0.64 11Jun2005

20) Fixed bug where licenses with single-digit purchase dates were incompatible across platforms.

19) First Mac Classic version.

0.0.63 05Jun2005

18) First Linux version.

17) Split documentation into Installation Doc and the much simpler "Client Doc"

16) Adjusted database read/write attributes on launch to avoid the situation where Windows 2000 automatically made files dragged from a CD to be "read only and Image Viewer died on launch.

15) Added "default" buttons to all screens for which they are appropriate

0.0.58 12May2005

14) First implementation of Event Licenses.

13) Adjusted underlying files (technical fix).

0.0.52 10May2005

12) Copy and Move now won't place duplicates in the stacks.

11) Position displays have become more stable.

0.0.50 04May2005

10) added "about" screen and copyright notice

9) viewer 2 is fully functional with respect to the buttons "first, next, prev, last, next 10, next 100, prev 10, prev 100, move, copy, delete. They even test pretty good.

8) the postion displays are working very well now. They still exhibit occassional "burps" but the underlying data is correct.

0.0.45 02May2005

7) more support for the introduction screen and the preferences window

0.0.44 01May 2005

6) removed "you need to create a stack" messages

5) removed some "missing path" msgs

4) removed popup menus for future implemenation of multiple viewers and multiple viewer shotgun copy

3) added introduction screen and the beginnings of a supporting preferences window

0.0.42

2) Added Auto Next/Prev after copy

1) Added Auto First when assigning a viewer to a stack (should probably be Auto Current, wait for feedback)