DonationCoder.com Forum
Main Area and Open Discussion => General Software Discussion => Topic started by: Renegade on January 23, 2011, 10:21 PM
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My wife came to me and wanted to resize a photo. Well, we've been through this before... She's got software to do it, but it's not easy enough. I showed her again, but she doesn't like IrfanView because it's simply too complicated. So...
The all new Renegade Photo Resizer! (http://www.supersimple.me/) ed. Super Simple Photo Resizer (http://www.supersimple.me/)
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
Is it easy enough to use? I'm looking to make it stupidly simple. So simple that a politician could use it~!
I had options and stuff in there... but I figured that it was just crap that isn't needed. Who cares about JPG ratios? 80% is good enough. Exact sizes? BAH! Slider. Close enough. How many people actually know that you must have your photo dimensions as multiples of 16 in order to minimize quality loss? Not many... I take care of the little stuff and leave only the MAJOR decisions to the user.
It requires .NET v4 though. There's no installer. Just the EXE.
(It's not final quality yet -- a few tiny things to tweak.)
UPDATE 2011-03-25:
I've posted follow up in this thread (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=26178.0).
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nice, it works here. but then you wanted feedback.. :) so here goes:
1. since the app deals with photos, how about the preserving the timestamp to be the same as original.
2. i feel lazy and want to use the scroll wheel on the slider to resize the images
just some thoughts.
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maybe a "crop" feature. or is that going too far?
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nice, it works here. but then you wanted feedback.. :) so here goes:
1. since the app deals with photos, how about the preserving the timestamp to be the same as original.
2. i feel lazy and want to use the scroll wheel on the slider to resize the images
just some thoughts.
-lanux128
Good ideas.
1 - I'll be doing some additional work on tags and that later.
2 - Got some done there -- need to smooth it out a bit though.
maybe a "crop" feature. or is that going too far?
-nudone
I think that's a bit far at the moment. I'd rather stick to super-simple for the moment. Later I might look into doing a cropping utility, but right now -- simple, simple, simple.
My current aim is to build up a small suite of super-simple programs that are SOOOOO simple that you really need to be basically brain dead to not be able to use them easily.
e.g. No menus. No toolbars. An "X" button in the title bar should be enough. (Duplicate Photo Finder does this.)
You know that techno-tard that pesters you for help all the time? Yeah. That one. That's who I'm aiming for. :D
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sounds like a good idea for a complete range of programs/tools.
you'll need an equally super simple/obvious website to store them at. make it a point that anything requiring "instruction" or "explanation" is too much. every tool is 100% intuitive and takes about 5 seconds to realise what it does.
your website could be the place to go for every google simple how-to search. (and then google would buy you out - or just imitate your idea.)
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My current aim is to build up a small suite of super-simple programs that are SOOOOO simple that you really need to be basically brain dead to not be able to use them easily.
You know that techno-tard that pesters you for help all the time? Yeah. That one. That's who I'm aiming for. :D
-Renegade
Whoa. Having read your initial post, I concluded that Mrs. Renegade was the inspiration for this upcoming set of tools. Shouldn't you be looking for a relationship councel first? The wife might be offended.
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sounds like a good idea for a complete range of programs/tools.
-nudone
That's the idea.
Speaking of which... Got an idea for a domain name... Hold on...
Grrrr... Internet crawling... Like always...
you'll need an equally super simple/obvious website to store them at. make it a point that anything requiring "instruction" or "explanation" is too much. every tool is 100% intuitive and takes about 5 seconds to realise what it does.
your website could be the place to go for every google simple how-to search. (and then google would buy you out - or just imitate your idea.)
-nudone
I'd love to build a set then have it bought out.
Whoa. Having read your initial post, I concluded that Mrs. Renegade was the inspiration for this upcoming set of tools. Shouldn't you be looking for a relationship councel first? The wife might be offended.
-PhilB66
HAHAHAHAHAHA~!
No. Not at all. I wanted to do it before then. She was simply the catalyst to get me to do it. She already saw this thread -- I showed her. :D
I have a lot more planned as well. Just... Gotta do them one at a time. She needed it then, so there we go.
She's actually very smart -- doing her PhD now -- she just doesn't want to bother with software -- she wants to solve problems -- which is something techies tend to forget -- people have pain, and software doesn't solve that pain -- solutions solve pain -- software can implement the solution though. She's not alone. There are a lot of people that just want to "get things done" without any complexity to create additional barriers.
Got the domain~! :D
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She's actually very smart -- doing her PhD now -- she just doesn't want to bother with software -- she wants to solve problems -- which is something techies tend to forget -- people have pain, and software doesn't solve that pain -- solutions solve pain -- software can implement the solution though. She's not alone. There are a lot of people that just want to "get things done" without any complexity to create additional barriers. -Renegade
Perfectly said :Thmbsup:
The KISS method for people who need it or just when they need it.
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I use Resize (http://pbone.it-mate.co.uk/resize.htm) by Peter Bone, small and doesn't need .NET.
[Edit 2011-01-24, 22:13] Forgot to add, it's freeware. [/Edit]
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My favorite program for this kind of stuff was always Jasc ImageCommander v2.0 (from 1996). I still use it here at the office because my Win7 is 32-bit. But ImageCommander is 16-bit, so I can't use it on the x64 box at home.
I frequently fall into the don't make me think, just make the %*&# picture bigger category ... so this could be quite handy.
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My wife came to me and wanted to resize a photo. Well, we've been through this before... She's got software to do it, but it's not easy enough. I showed her again, but she doesn't like IrfanView because it's simply too complicated. So...
The all new Renegade Photo Resizer! (http://renegademinds.com/Portals/0/PhotoResizer/PhotoResizer.exe)
(see attachment in previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=25391.msg233431#msg233431))
Is it easy enough to use? I'm looking to make it stupidly simple. So simple that a politician could use it~!
I had options and stuff in there... but I figured that it was just crap that isn't needed. Who cares about JPG ratios? 80% is good enough. Exact sizes? BAH! Slider. Close enough. How many people actually know that you must have your photo dimensions as multiples of 16 in order to minimize quality loss? Not many... I take care of the little stuff and leave only the MAJOR decisions to the user.
It requires .NET v4 though. There's no installer. Just the EXE.
(It's not final quality yet -- a few tiny things to tweak.)
-Renegade
Looks just the job for people who need a 'click-do-this' approach with trusted software.
A super-simple CD/DVD burner might be nice to go with this (more simple than those currently available). I can get people in 'don't understand' boat to use a CD whereas they're often phased by the idea of external storage.
:up: :up:
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I frequently fall into the don't make me think, just make the %*&# picture bigger category ... so this could be quite handy.
-Stoic Joker
Sorry... It's only for photo reductions. You can't enlarge photos with it.
Again, that was one of those decisions I took away from the user. Since all enlargements cause a reduction in quality, I didn't see any point in it.
Also, the photos you get from digital cameras now are so big, that the only thing you can do with them is to reduce them.
i.e. People want to reduce photos to make them smaller to upload or email (most often).
Looks just the job for people who need a 'click-do-this' approach with trusted software.
A super-simple CD/DVD burner might be nice to go with this (more simple than those currently available). I can get people in 'don't understand' boat to use a CD whereas they're often phased by the idea of external storage.
:up: :up:
-cranioscopical
I've been wanting to do that one for years now... Every so often I look into it, but end up busy with other things. I think I should put that higher up on the priority list once I get a couple more photo utilities done. (First focus = camera.)
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People want to reduce photos to make them smaller to upload or email (most often).
-Renegade
A one-click system to reduce any size original to a specified size for e-mail/forum posting?
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People want to reduce photos to make them smaller to upload or email (most often).
-Renegade
A one-click system to reduce any size original to a specified size for e-mail/forum posting?
-rjbull
Exactly.
However, this requires 1 drag & drop, 1 slide, and 1 click. So a bit more than 1 click, but not much. :)
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this requires 1 drag & drop, 1 slide, and 1 click. So a bit more than 1 click-Renegade
I omitted the drag & drop ;) I think I meant, more or less, the equivalent of leaving the slider at the same point next time you enter the program, so that all your output images will be the same size. Hmmm... mind going fuzzy... time I got some sleep...
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Nice one, quick and easy, but batch conversion?
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Nice one, quick and easy, but batch conversion?
-ha14
I've actually got a batch converter done already, but it's not ready for the general public. A few issues there... It's in a bulk uploader for Flickr that I wrote. (Resize - upload - repeat)
One of the issues is directly related to the same issues in this thread (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=25345.0).
It's funny that you mention that though, as an overwhelming amount of the software I write is all mass production/bulk processing software. None of that ever gets released though (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=25181.0).
I suppose it would be ok to throw a toggle switch in there... Single <> Batch
But, I have a little job to upload with my Flickr uploader right now... back in a bit... (Motorhead fans -- you're gonna LOVE this~!) :D
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This one looks simple. No install, just the ,exe.
http://www.nirmaltv.com/2011/01/25/batch-image-resizer-converter-cropper-and-watermarker-image-tools/
http://union-d.ru/dev/node/6
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Congratulations on your new application, Renegade ;-)
While in theory I agree with many of your point of views, I simply cannot understand the reason for this one:
... JPG ratios? 80% is good enough. -Renegade
In my opinion, 80% is never good enough. Especially the iris in the eye will need more, I think. Well, in fact the "80%" is the very reason I haven't tested your program. But of course, the program was not made for me but for your wife ;-)
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by the way, all your wife needs to remember is, to press Ctrl+R > Alt+1 (for 1024x768 pixels), (or Alt+9 for 1920x1080 pixels),> OK > save.
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Congratulations on your new application, Renegade ;-)
While in theory I agree with many of your point of views, I simply cannot understand the reason for this one:
... JPG ratios? 80% is good enough. -Renegade
In my opinion, 80% is never good enough. Especially the iris in the eye will need more, I think. Well, in fact the "80%" is the very reason I haven't tested your program. But of course, the program was not made for me but for your wife ;-)
-Curt
Years and years of experience. :)
80% for JPGs is almost indistinguishable from 100%, and the file size savings are massive in comparison.
Remember, this is designed for people to produce an "end product" picture that's going to be used somewhere for viewing, not for processing again.
But, the proof is in the pudding. Here are 2 pictures, creatively named A and B. (Down below - scroll then scroll.)
Look at each one quickly to see if you can tell the difference, then take a closer look and see if you can tell the difference. Make sure to view them at the same position on your screen as viewing angles can shift perception.
Scroll more...
Scroll more...
Scroll more...
Scroll more...
A
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B
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Have a look, then tell me which one is 80% and which is 100%. The 80% file is 285 KB while the 100% file is 890 KB.
Make sure to not look at the file size if you download them as that defeats the purpose.
*If* you can tell the difference, note just how difficult it is to do so.
285 vs. 890. :) That's why I chose 80.
(edit -- change images to full to avoid load time bias)
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I think this type of image works fine for the compression you've set. I can see very tiny artifacts introduced into the face and shirt on image A - but that's because I know what to look for when doing these types of comparison.
But, the point is, without being able to do such a comparison I would be perfectly happy with image A - the difference is insignificant anyway.
I think for the general purpose the program will be used for it's worth that amount of compression. If people were trying to reduce images that contained more solid blocks of colour and hard edges then 80% is a bit too much, more like 90 or even 95 would be about right - but, again, that's not really the intended audience and use.
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I think this type of image works fine for the compression you've set. I can see very tiny artifacts introduced into the face and shirt on image A - but that's because I know what to look for when doing these types of comparison.
But, the point is, without being able to do such a comparison I would be perfectly happy with image A - the difference is insignificant anyway.
I think for the general purpose the program will be used for it's worth that amount of compression. If people were trying to reduce images that contained more solid blocks of colour and hard edges then 80% is a bit too much, more like 90 or even 95 would be about right - but, again, that's not really the intended audience and use.
-nudone
And the resident expert steps in~! :D
Being an expert as you are, I'm quite sure that you're more easily going to see those quality reductions than your average Joe.
And yes -- for certain types of images, 80 is going to be low. But, for your normal photograph taken on a digital camera by Joe Average, you're not really going to get those kinds of hard lines and solids. Which is why I went with 80. It preserves enough quality, and gets the file size down to a quickly emailed or quickly uploaded size.
It's one of those things that I just figured isn't worth bothering with because it's only going to confuse people. How many people actually understand much about compression, let alone lossey compression which is far more complicated.
To put something like that in, I think a simple rating of high, medium, and low quality would be more than enough. High at 90%, medium at 80%, and low at 60%.
nudone -- what %'s would you use?
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I don't think it's a bad thing just to stick at 80% and leave it at that.
If you think it's worth making it more complicated, the range you've said sounds fine. Is there any chance of making it give you a "live" preview of the quality before the image is saved?
If I was going to add anything to the compression values I might add 95%. I just find that when I'm saving out various images for web use, I'll start with a .png (perfect quality) then compare it with several jpeg compressions. I might get away with using as much as 50% compression on the (very) rare occasion, very often I'll find 90% is too much and resort to 95% simply because it will give a result that is almost indistinguishable from the original .png but without the file size. Nothing surprising there, of course, that's just my view on 95% - you get a near perfect image BUT you have reduced the file "weight" a bit - which can't be bad.
Having said all that, you are reducing the dimensions of the image too so my 95% example may be of little relevance.
Providing drag and drop functions may be more handy really (if it doesn't do that already).
edit: just tested it - it does do drag and drop. excellent.
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edit: just tested it - it does do drag and drop. excellent.
-nudone
:D Hahahah~! That's the ONLY way to load an image with it. I figured clicking & browsing is simply too slow & difficult. And, it needs another button that clutters up the UI.
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Honestly there are far too many yahoos out there who would just use max quality because they think it's always better, and there are too many over-large images around as it is. So I'm in favor of the fixed 80% quality.
What resampling algorithm are you using? I haven't tested your app, and the results you've posted above look fine, so I'm sure you're using something decent. But algorithm used in a downsample can have as much effect on the look of the output as the JPG compression ratio. Usually Lanczos is the safest bet, but Bicubic (sharper) or even Bilinear give acceptable results.
- Oshyan
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Honestly there are far too many yahoos out there who would just use max quality because they think it's always better, and there are too many over-large images around as it is. So I'm in favor of the fixed 80% quality.
What resampling algorithm are you using? I haven't tested your app, and the results you've posted above look fine, so I'm sure you're using something decent. But algorithm used in a downsample can have as much effect on the look of the output as the JPG compression ratio. Usually Lanczos is the safest bet, but Bicubic (sharper) or even Bilinear give acceptable results.
- Oshyan
-JavaJones
Bicubic. :)
Specifically, InterpolationMode.HighQualityBicubic.
There's not much sense in using anything else right now. I wanted to just get it done, and didn't want to fart around too much with looking into high quality algorithms. I often get distracted by going overboard on some things and using far too much tech for the task. I'm the nitwit that when looking at storing a list of names, will say to myself, "But what if I want to store a list of names for everyone on the planet? Well, a flat file won't do, because that's too hard to search. I should use this database engine because I can search much more efficiently through there! Now... Where am I going to get a complete list of everyone's names..." So, I'm trying to avoid that as it slows me down too much. i.e. Sometimes things need to be good, and sometimes they just need to be "good enough".
I think the results are good for what it is.
At some point I'll be looking into some other better solutions, but for now, I just want to get things done. :)
BTW - Still working on it -- getting some stuff cleaned up, refactored, and getting the scrolling stuff in there.
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Very nice, simple, easy-to-use.... I'll buy it!!
Thanks!
Jim
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i.e. People want to reduce photos to make them smaller to upload or email (most often).-Renegade
I stuck Shrink Pic (http://www.onthegosoft.com/shrink_pic.htm) on the wife's computer, set dimensions that were a good compromise of file size/readibility and then promptly forget about it. It takes care of all emailed pictures, (and now uploaded ones too, I see).
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i.e. People want to reduce photos to make them smaller to upload or email (most often).-Renegade
I stuck Shrink Pic (http://www.onthegosoft.com/shrink_pic.htm) on the wife's computer, set dimensions that were a good compromise of file size/readibility and then promptly forget about it. It takes care of all emailed pictures, (and now uploaded ones too, I see).
(see attachment in previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=25391.msg233937#msg233937))
-4wd
I know I could go out and find something... But...
I'd tried to get her to use IrfanView:
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But nope. Too complicated.
Hermite? Bell? Mitchell? Is this a baseball team lineup?
Sharpen? I don't see any knives in the picture...
DPI? Damn Photo Isnotworking...
Still plugging away here though -- working on scrolling to resize and speeding it up a bit.
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i.e. People want to reduce photos to make them smaller to upload or email (most often).-Renegade
I stuck Shrink Pic (http://www.onthegosoft.com/shrink_pic.htm) on the wife's computer, set dimensions that were a good compromise of file size/readibility and then promptly forget about it. It takes care of all emailed pictures, (and now uploaded ones too, I see).
(see attachment in previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=25391.msg233937#msg233937))
-4wd
I know I could go out and find something... But... -Renegade
I know, I was just giving a 'no input required after installation' alternative for the specific example you mentioned.
For those people where even a slider is too confusing :P
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I know, I was just giving a 'no input required after installation' alternative for the specific example you mentioned.
For those people where even a slider is too confusing :P
-4wd
Ah. Got it. :)
UPDATE: I've just finished the mouse wheel scrolling and a few other things in there. Download here (http://www.supersimple.me/). ed. Update is here (http://www.supersimple.me/).
Changes/tweaks:
* Mouse wheel works to resize (by 10%).
* Preview is much faster now (lower quality preview, but still high-quality saved image)
* +/- images work to resize (by 32px per click)
* No forcing image sizes in multiples of 16
* Minimum image size is 64px wide (It's not an icon resizer)
* Initial preview set to 25%'s closest multiple of 16
* Min size 32px wide, Max size 100%
TODO:
* Save image size for next image (remember)
Am I forgetting anything?
UPDATE 2011-03-25:
Follow up is in this thread (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=26178.0).
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regarding IrfanView
by the way, all your wife needs to remember is, to press Ctrl+R > Alt+1 (for 1024x768 pixels), (or Alt+9 for 1920x1080 pixels),> OK > save.
-Curt
and tell her to not look at the screen but at the keyboard ;-)
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regarding IrfanView
by the way, all your wife needs to remember is, to press Ctrl+R > Alt+1 (for 1024x768 pixels), (or Alt+9 for 1920x1080 pixels),> OK > save.
-Curt
and tell here to not look at the screen but at the keyboard ;-)
-Curt
I was wondering what you were talking about there. I thought you meant in Windows Explorer... Which didn't work. :)
Got the memory done after one of my famous taco dinners~! :P
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I'm the nitwit that when looking at storing a list of names, will say to myself, "But what if I want to store a list of names for everyone on the planet? [...] Now... Where am I going to get a complete list of everyone's names..."-Renegade
Facebook? ;)
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Well, got a few improvements in there and a new installer:
Photo Resizer (http://www.supersimple.me/) ed. Update here (http://www.supersimple.me/).
You can drag & drop a photo onto the desktop icon to open & resize a photo now.
It only saves JPGs, but you can also use SVG, GIF, PNG and BMPs with it.
I also put in some options there (press F4):
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Those address a few things that people asked about.
Also, the quick save now uses tokens to identify the file with width and height. It's customizable in the preferences.
And 3 ways to open files:
* Drag & drop
* File open dialog (click to open)
* Drag & drop onto desktop icon (i.e. a command line argument)
Anyways, this is the final:
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And a BIG THANKS to Ath for helping me out with the Inno Setup installer and getting an automatic download for the .NET 4 Client Profile for anyone that doesn't already have it installed.
Still working on the website and junk though... Unfortunately I've been very distracted with client work -- that nasty stuff that puts food on the table... Sigh...
UPDATE 2011-03-25:
Follow up is in this thread (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=26178.0).
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Renegade, I was in similar situation years ago, but went even more extreme with the ease of use and ended up with this free resizing tool: http://www.rw-designer.com/picture-resize
I added a lot of features over the years, but the basic functionality remained the same. Drag and drop photo or folder on it and it creates resized copies. No GUI, no sliders, no buttons. It can be configured by changing its name... Newbies just drag and drop, power users can do a lot more.
BTW cubic resampling is no good when shrinking images. It is for magnification of images.
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cool. i look forward to seeing the other super simple programs in the range. :Thmbsup:
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Another option: For XP I always used the Microsoft Power Toy (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx) Photo Resizer. Right-click on file and resize. Can't get much simpler. And someone has re-invented Photo Resizer (http://imageresizer.codeplex.com/) for Win7. Seems to work fine.
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Nice little app. Couple of suggestions:
- How about adding an option to save suitable for a webpage just a single tick box will do (ie. set the right DPI without asking about details).
- As well as showing the size of the output how about including the file size output - if you are resizing to email a photo the file size is useful to know.
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Nice little app. Couple of suggestions:
- How about adding an option to save suitable for a webpage just a single tick box will do (ie. set the right DPI without asking about details).
- As well as showing the size of the output how about including the file size output - if you are resizing to email a photo the file size is useful to know.
-Carol Haynes
Good grief... Carol - you have an unnatural talent for making me work~! :D
I've added in the file size preview. It's exactly accurate though I've opted to display on KB because that's the easiest thing for people to understand. I don't know many people that can instantly divide 7 digit number by 1024. :D
That was easy.
The hard part... Sigh... DPI -- I did extensive testing and checking on this, including code rewrites and reverts. During that, I believe that I've discovered a bug in Adobe Photoshop. :P
It turns out that I had it right all along. In Photoshop's image resizer, they report the EXIF data, which I neglected to change and forgot about while doing this all, which is why it took me so long. The resized images are at 96 though the EXIF data reports otherwise for images with original resolutions that are different.
In any event, I'm going to have to finish the EXIF/tag stuff later. Got client work to do today.
Here's the updated installer with the size preview:
Photo Resizer (http://www.supersimple.me/) ed. Update here (http://www.supersimple.me/).
Here's a screenshot of the UI as it has changed a bit:
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Sigh... Back to work...
UPDATE 2011-03-25:
Follow up in this thread (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=26178.0).
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Oh - a quick note --- the size update has a very brief delay for performance reasons. (Needs a bit more tuning, but it's ok for now.)
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Good grief... Carol - you have an unnatural talent for making me work~! :D
Sigh... Back to work...
-Renegade
LOL - sorry but you know it will be worth it ;)
Now all you need is an 'apply this to a whole folder of photos' button ;)
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Hi Renegade,
No criticism intended here, it's a great app.
Given your initial posting, though, are you in danger of losing the original 'dead simple' concept?
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Good grief... Carol - you have an unnatural talent for making me work~! :D
Sigh... Back to work...
-Renegade
LOL - sorry but you know it will be worth it ;)
Now all you need is an 'apply this to a whole folder of photos' button ;)
-Carol Haynes
The size preview is a good addition. It was one of those things I had in mind but figured that I'd let it slide until later unless someone mentioned it.
As for bulk processing... That's out. See below. :)
Hi Renegade,
No criticism intended here, it's a great app.
Given your initial posting, though, are you in danger of losing the original 'dead simple' concept?
-cranioscopical
I don't think so. The addition of the size preview is a passive thing for the user, so it doesn't burden things much there. It does increase the size of the UI though, but not too much. Everything is still clear and uncluttered.
Bulk processing is simply too much. I'd rather do a dedicated bulk utility for that. I've got all the code for it already done, so that's not a problem. The problem is that it would clutter things up far too much.
That being said, I do plan to write some more bulk processing software for photos.
There won't be much danger of too much feature creep in there as I'll be sticking to "photos" and not "images". i.e. Images from cameras, and not from authoring/editing tools.
Right now I think that the program is about right. There's some fine tuning I still want to do, but it's only performance stuff to squeeze out a bit more (and the EXIF tag thing).
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Renegade, I was in similar situation years ago, but went even more extreme with the ease of use and ended up with this free resizing tool: http://www.rw-designer.com/picture-resize
I added a lot of features over the years, but the basic functionality remained the same. Drag and drop photo or folder on it and it creates resized copies. No GUI, no sliders, no buttons. It can be configured by changing its name... Newbies just drag and drop, power users can do a lot more.
BTW cubic resampling is no good when shrinking images. It is for magnification of images.
-vlastimil
There are better algorithms, but I just wanted to get it done -- it's the best quality available in the shortest time. The results are more than good enough for casual users. It's not targeted at prosumers or professionals. Heck, I still use Photoshop for resizing some things as Photo Resizer doesn't do everything that I need.
That's a very interesting approach to have the name of the application determine the options. I've never seen that before. I've of course seen differently named versions of applications, but not like that. A very interesting innovation!
One of the "inspirations/motivations" for it is someone I know and who shall remain unnamed -- Asking him to rename a file is a major task. Watching him browse to a different location on his computer is enough to make you want to rip your eye-balls out and scream. While seeing Cthulhu may give you a few insanity points, he'll max you out real quit as you find yourself screaming wildly and attempting to bash your brains out in a padded cell. :D
I've not given him a link for it yet, but he'll be the acid test to see if I've managed to get the UI right. :D
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Ok, a few updates...
Over in this thread (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=25541.0), I saw deano looking for context menus, and thought it would work well as it doesn't have any impact on the main UI. So, there's a shortcut in the Windows Explorer context menu now for JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP and SVG files. i.e. Right-click on one of those image types. I used the least possible impact on the system so as not to take any resources for that. No COM stuff or loading DLLs or any of that nonsense.
Also, someone had mentioned presets, but I just can't see adding in anything to the visible UI as it would clutter things up and get confusing. There's already a lot there for some people. Soooo...
-, +, F2, F3 now size the image to presets by width (height is relative):
- 120
- 160
- 240
- 320
- 400
- 512
- 600
- 640
- 800
- 1024
- 1152
- 1280
- 1360
- 1440
- 1600
- 1680
- 1920
- 2048
- 2560
- 3200
- 100%
Preset were all chosen according to popular monitor and camera resolutions.
They cycle as well. So once you hit the minimum or maximum, it flips back to the maximum or minimum, respectively.
Arrow keys and PageUp/Down keys still work as before. 16px increments for arrow keys and 64 pixel increments for PageUp/Down.
Basically, just "silent" type modifications. No noise in the UI, but a few things to make it easier to use.
Very shortly I will get on top of that nice new shiny Help & Manual license and do a help file even. :) Mostly big screenshots and "how to" task-based stuff for people. (I was soooo hoping to win that, and soooo glad when I did~! :D )
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One of the "inspirations/motivations" for it is someone I know and who shall remain unnamed -- Asking him to rename a file is a major task. Watching him browse to a different location on his computer is enough to make you want to rip your eye-balls out and scream. While seeing Cthulhu may give you a few insanity points, he'll max you out real quit as you find yourself screaming wildly and attempting to bash your brains out in a padded cell. :D
I've not given him a link for it yet, but he'll be the acid test to see if I've managed to get the UI right. :D
-Renegade
Having such person is a big +. It is too bad that each person can only by used once for such tests.
Anyway, what I wanted to emphasize in my previous post is that you should pick an area and make your picture resizer be totally awesome in that single area. The area may be for example ease of use, resizing speed, image quality, user interface sexiness, understandable documentation, portability, seamless integration with another software, or something completely different. I followed that path years ago and it worked. There is a good number of free picture resizers out there competing for attention (some of them even online services), and being best in something is a must.
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One of the "inspirations/motivations" for it is someone I know and who shall remain unnamed -- Asking him to rename a file is a major task. Watching him browse to a different location on his computer is enough to make you want to rip your eye-balls out and scream. While seeing Cthulhu may give you a few insanity points, he'll max you out real quit as you find yourself screaming wildly and attempting to bash your brains out in a padded cell. :D
I've not given him a link for it yet, but he'll be the acid test to see if I've managed to get the UI right. :D
-Renegade
Having such person is a big +. It is too bad that each person can only by used once for such tests.
Anyway, what I wanted to emphasize in my previous post is that you should pick an area and make your picture resizer be totally awesome in that single area. The area may be for example ease of use, resizing speed, image quality, user interface sexiness, understandable documentation, portability, seamless integration with another software, or something completely different. I followed that path years ago and it worked. There is a good number of free picture resizers out there competing for attention (some of them even online services), and being best in something is a must.
-vlastimil
Good advice!
I recently re-examined my approach to software and thought that going the simple route is what people really need most of the time. So that's where I'm going to be focusing. Drop dead simple. Super Simple. :)
At the moment I'm working on the web site for it. I'll be adding more there, but for the moment, it will just be this program.
I think I'm also going to try to do an online version as well. We'll see. I'm planning on using Silverlight because it's simply the best technology out there for clientside power. It also looks like it has over 62% market pentration now:
http://www.statowl.com/custom_ria_market_penetration.php
And an interesting blog post on Silverlight:
http://www.uxpassion.com/2009/06/cool-facts-about-silverlight-penetration-market-share/
As for the number of resizers, yeah... Tons of them. I'm not going to try to have the "best" one -- only the most usable and easiest one.
Well, back to the website work. It's getting there slowly... The biggest issue isn't "getting the site done", but rather getting the site and software done in a way that will put food on the table. There's a very big difference there. :)