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Last post Author Topic: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser  (Read 27728 times)

mouser

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NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« on: December 27, 2015, 02:37 AM »
WEB PAGE: https://www.donation...iaBrowser/index.html
OFFICIAL FORUM SECTION: https://www.donation...ndex.php?topic=49204

This will be a small utility for browsing directories containing images.

I decided to make a standalone utility that could be used as a helper for other tools, like my other NANY (Automatic Screenshotter).

It will start out with a fairly simple feature set but there is plenty of room for improvement.

Key feature:
  • Lots of viewing modes to find the one that works best for you.
  • Option to show recursive contents of folder tree (with search filtering and sorting)

Note that there are excellent powerful free image viewers/browsers (irfanview, xnview, etc.), and it would be foolish to try to compete with these.  My aim here is to make a more streamlined, focus helper utility.

Screenshot - 12_28_2015 , 6_07_17 PM.pngNANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser

Screenshot - 12_28_2015 , 6_08_12 PM.pngNANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser

Screenshot - 12_28_2015 , 9_44_59 PM.pngNANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Last Edit: December 11, 2019, 08:08 AM by mouser »

mouser

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #1 on: December 29, 2015, 08:19 PM »
Early pre-release download (only suitable for advanced testers; others should wait for real release);


mouser

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #2 on: December 31, 2015, 01:49 PM »
Updated (update check, if enabled, should alert you).

The last version I uploaded was in debug mode, so it would have run slower and created a debugout.txt file (sorry!); you can delete the debugout.txt file.

IainB

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #3 on: January 02, 2016, 10:04 AM »
I downloaded and installed this to the FARR Plugins directory, and me and my 5½ y/o son were trying this out today. It's quite a nice media browser (is it intended only for photos?).   :up:
Ergonomically it's a bit frustrating as it takes a while to load a large directory of images - as does xplorer², which also incorporates a multimedia (image, video and sound, and text and multi-document file types) browser.
I'd be interested to see where the MMB (Mouser's Media Browser) is headed though.
What do you see as the planned functionality for MMB?
Dare I ask?: Had you considered incorporating it into CHS somehow? CHS already incorporates a .PNG file viewer.
Maybe CHS could do with the facelift!?    :D

For comparison, there is an excellent image/video database and viewer built-in to Google's $FREE Picasa3, and it treats images/videos as external objects and their metadata (e.g., EXIF data) as data. It is very quick to search/find and load a photo/video file, because it dynamically indexes them and their metadata into a database, but that means that it won't necessarily "see" or be able to display thumbnails of the newest media images until it has got around to updating its index with them (which it does reasonably quickly after startup). Once started, it seems to sit watching the OS for any new image/video file activity and can be set to dynamically report on same as it indexes them. It seems quite fast/efficient.

EDIT 2016-01-03 0547hrs: Oops. Nearly forgot to also mention:
Universal Viewer v5.7.3.0 (nov 2012) ($FREEware) is an advanced file viewer for wide range of formats. (Two application versions are available: Free and Pro.)
Supported file formats are:
  • Images: all major graphics formats: JPG BMP ICO GIF PNG WMF TIFF PSD..., over 40 formats. Also RAW images from 400+ cameras are supported.
  • Multimedia: all major media formats: AVI MPG WMV MP3 MP4 FLV MKV..., over 170 formats.
  • Word: file types of MS Office Word: DOC DOCX.
  • Excel: file types of MS Office Excel: XLS XLSX.
  • PDF: Adobe PDF format, plus DJVU XPS CBR CBZ.
  • RTF: Rich Text format.
  • Internet: all file types supported by MS Internet Explorer: HTML XML MHT...
  • Text: text view for unknown file types. Files of unlimited size can be shown (even 4Gb+ sizes are allowed). All major text encodings supported. Unicode/UTF-8 views are present.
  • Plugins: all file types supported by Total Commander Lister plugins.

______________________

I was using an obsolete older version (v5.7.2.0) and just updated it after visiting the website.   :-[
« Last Edit: January 02, 2016, 11:27 AM by IainB »

mouser

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #4 on: January 02, 2016, 06:05 PM »
Dare I ask?: Had you considered incorporating it into CHS somehow? CHS already incorporates a .PNG file viewer.
yes this is one reason i wrote this tool -- so i can bundle MMB as a tool to other programs like CHS, to let people browse their clipped images easily.

as you say there are some good (free) image browsing tools already, some of which use a database of thumbnails so that they can be very efficient once indexed.

i do have a few things i want to add to MMB:
  • Including video thumbnais
  • Adding a details-view mode that will let you see list of files without thumbnails, which should be faster.
  • Adding a virtual date hierarchy folder view, which will be very neat way to browse images by date.

IainB

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #5 on: January 03, 2016, 03:21 PM »
^ Well, that all makes a lot of sense to me.
I did wonder whether you might intend bundling MMB as a standard tool to other programs like CHS.
Should be a handy viewer.

AbteriX

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2016, 10:09 AM »
Feature wish: slideshow with adjustable speed on the fly, like DVD-movie viewer


[Start slideshow]

| Speed of show next image:
| Slow (30 second) -----------(o)----------------------------- Fast (1 second) |

| Fast Backward [ 50] files || Fast Forward [ 10] files |


  8)

MikleB

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #7 on: April 04, 2016, 02:27 PM »
G'Day mouser,

 Unfortunately this is not a happy posting... Where is "Mouser's Media Browser's" own discussion thread? Slap wrist! And after you've spent that time updating the forum's format to boot, which is a very nice improvement I must add. I like!

 Now the really bad part.

 For  about 7 months out of the last 8 I have been without a computer, and since I have had one back again, I have been catching up with some spring (Well, summer...) cleaning and haven't had much time to investigate this program until a few minutes ago. Too busy reading a few threads... NANY releases, updated software, etc.

 Then I thought that - This might come in handy as a dedicated image browser, and although it has been installed for about a month I hadn't spent any time checking it out. Now's a good a time as any so I fired her up.

 Way to really 'Keep on top of other windows.' Absolutely nothing will come into the foreground... I had this maximized full screen and thought that I would like to see the 'About' screen and see if it had a place to enter a registration key  ;) .

 The result was - 'Hidden'. OK, try Restoring... No go. Minimizing... Also nothing. Try from the taskbar. Still nothing. In fact the pop up menus (Also those of other programs.) were all obscured!

 Try accessing the settings and turning of the 'On Top' option. Still no luck. I thought that maybe it's not liking some other programs I have running alongside it. Being maximized, it would not drag out of the way so that I could close those other programs. Their pop up menus were also obscured. Alright I'll try Process Explorer (My Task Manager replacement - By SysInternals.) and try killing the process. That would also not come to the front, nor would it's menus. In fact, none of the eight or nine instances that I ended up evoking of it would come to the front.

 Reboot! Didn't want too but there was no other way.

 Turn "Mouser's Media Browser's" on again and have a look at that dialog box. Scale it down though... Just in case... Silly me, I left it in the middle of the screen didn't I  :-[ .  I'll know better next time. It still wouldn't drag out of the way to be able to see or close the dialog box. I left it a bit too large on the screen and could not even see any part of the dialog. Process Explorer will nail it this time. One instance let me scroll to the entry for "Mouser's Media Browser's" and 'Kill Process' but of course the confirmation box was also in the middle of the screen... so it would not be killed.

 Reboot AGAIN. Lesson learned... use only small windows when trying out any new software's options and turn off the 'On Top' option ... especially when opening dialogs that might become obscured and freeze the program.

 Other than that, with a few tweaks here and there this will be another fine DonationCoder program that I would find very useful. I have seen enough to know that it has serious potential for a dedicated image browser but I do have a  suggestion of two. Those, I will get into a bit at some point when there is a section dedicated to -=  "Mouser's Media Browser's"  =-  Yay!

 I wish I could have posted this in it's own forum area as this thread seems to be an introductory area like all your programs have, but seeing that there was no reserved area and these points needed to be made (I have presented all the pertinent details regarding my experience, that cover all the areas of the program's behavior that need looking into, such as every option that could have been used to fix it's behavior that failed and things that should not have occurred {Popups hidden and thus, nonfunctional. I suspect that the multi-evocations of Process Explorer was just me getting a little edgy as I truly didn't want to reboot but it WAS starting to look like I would have to.} Oh, I wasn't running anything esoteric. The first time: Internet Explorer 8 (2 DonationCoder Tabs), Notepad, Total Commander all one instance. And the second time just "Mouser's Media Browser's", 1st program after a reboot. My OS is Windows XP SP3.) I trust these issues will be easily fixed.

 After all that, thank you immensely for my non-expiring registration key. I very much appreciate it as I am still unemployed and all my DonationCoder programs are registered, and they like that too! (They told me so!  :Thmbsup: )

[PS: I know it _Is Difficult_, but I really wish ALL programs, not just... well, none that I know of, would cease their 'Keep on top of other windows' behavior when you start up Task Manager (Or it's replacement program.). I mean; If you are bringing out the big guns, then they should cower and tremble in fear and trepidation lest you beat them mightily within an inch of their proverbials.  Ok, I've calmed down a bit now that I've had my say. This has happened to me before, though a long long time ago and I had forgotten how annoying it is or what I should have done in the first place. No damage done though.]


 Cheers,

MikleB

NB: I should add that there were 3,742 images in a folder that I was wondering about sorting out loaded when the program froze, but I had been scrolling through a few and it loaded fairly fast and there were no problems in that regard, they weren't large files either all only about 140x120 pixels.


-= An Extra Note (Added after rereading this post on the 22nd April 2016) =-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 When the happenings that I described above occurred, I did check the notification tray icon to see if it would either provide some function to fix the frozen state or restore functionality to the main window but it had it's pop up menu obscured, and though I could see a sliver of the bottom entry in it and that the selection of items was occurring, I could not get any of them to actually function (I was hoping that I could use this means to exit, I knew it was the bottom entry.).
Remember, wherever you go... There you are!
-= Sometimes my location is: "YESTERDAY!" =-
« Last Edit: April 22, 2016, 12:43 PM by MikleB »

MikleB

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #8 on: April 22, 2016, 12:25 PM »
G'day again mouser,

 I'm still looking for that dedicated area for "Mouser's Media Browser" threads.

 Bug reports and suggestions are two separate topics and I have things that I wish to say in both areas and would really like to keep them separate (As a person who likes to browse this forum for good reads {I've found many.}, it's nice to be able to read in the area that interests one when I find myself here... I like to sometimes only look at suggestions for features, and some times I wonder what has gone wrong with a piece of software {Often just user inexperience, or trying to get the software to do something beyond it's design, but both are informative if nothing else.}, and personally I do appreciate that software, especially untested by users will contain bugs/anomalies that just weren't expected by the developer.). I'm sure other readers of this forum appreciate these distinctions in thread contents when they are having a browse here.).

 I came here today and reread my previous post on "Mouser's Media Browser" and have more results from testing a little further into it's behavior regarding how it hides everything (Not exactly true, but what I posted before is precisely what happened on that occasion.)

 I was going to offer a feature suggestion (My primary reason for coming to this thread in the first place.), but on that reread I decided to see if I was mistaken in some manner about the behavior that I previously posted about, and on further testing, I must say that there are some peculiarities as to how this program operates in the stay on top mode.

 I have it running as I type this, in 'On Top' mode (Not full screen, though!   ;)  ) and I do have the 'Options Dialog' open and neither the main window nor the options dialog are in sight at all... ¿ (Using Firefox v45.0.). It WAS on top, and when I clicked on a visible portion of Firefox, it moved behind Firefox... And does so with other programs as well, so it seems... As long as the options dialog is open. If however the 'About Dialog' is open, it does stay on top and definitely on top of the 'About Dialog' as well and in that situation there is no way to dismiss the dialog if it is totally obscured by the main window as all the buttons, menus and resizing options (Via grabbing the edges.) on the main window do not work and NO functionality is available to the main window. The 'On Top' functionality seems to have been totally passed to the 'About Dialog', although it remains hidden by the main window.

 I am not a programmer but from my understanding of calls to windows functions, this is not how they are to operate, if that is what you are using to generate the on top behavior and not your own code, in either case though, I suspect that you have omitted some error trapping code that should be placing the 'About Dialog' on top of the main window, so that it's various dismissal buttons are accessible and it can exit cleanly and return function to the main window. Ditto with the 'Options Dialog' as I only was able to exit out of that dialog because I could see part of it, click it and have it come to the front (The main window did still retain it's functionality in this circumstance though.).

 On this occasion, though I am happy to say that the pop up menus of other programs that I have running and visible in my taskbar are not obscured as they were on that previous occasion. It must have been a one off conflict of some sort. The same thing with "Mousers Media Browser's" own pop up menus from both the taskbar and the notification tray; These are all visible and fully functional. (NOTE: I had overlooked stating, in my previous post, that I did try to exit via the last menu item from the pop up menu, accessible via the notification tray's icon for "Mouser's Media Browser". I have added a rider to that effect in my previous post at the bottom of it.)

 The inconsistency of this particular behavior is the sort of thing that is most annoying to anyone trying out a new, to them, piece of software as it is hard to fathom what should and what should not be occurring and what can be done if, as that which occurred in my previous case, occurs to them and there seems to be no remedy other than a reboot. Was it a real flaw in the new program they are trialing or some conflict with other running software. Hidden windows, when they effect functionality are a _huge_ PITP [Pain-In-The-Posterior]!

 I only go on about this at length because I feel that there is something amiss here and I would really like "Mouser's Media Browser" to become a slightly more functional program (With great regard to what it is attempting to be... No need to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.), without any flaws and thus be taken up by many visitors to DonationCoder as a very useful tool and thus one that it would be a pleasure for you to provide increased functionality for, as it has a strong user base of happy individuals. To this regard, I suspect that any occurrences like I previously have talked about, needs rectification at the outset so that the code that you build upon is robust and bullet proofed to the maximum. I certainly appreciate programs that display these traits (Consistency and robustness.), way more than programs that have a myriad of features.

 I have a few suggestions like I stated earlier as to extra features and I especially anticipate the inclusion of the, as your own listed:- 'Detail's-view Mode' feature; But as an optional extra panel rather than a replacement of either the filmstrip or grid view. I already have it installed as a tool in "Screeenshot Captor", a program that I use a lot and really appreciate for it's feature list (Though I have suggestions in that area also.), and a details view is something I would also very much like to see there as well, but if it only were ever to be available via "Mouser's Media Browser" then that would perhaps suffice. I don't know how reusable code is from one program to the next but if you build it and bullet proof it here first then maybe (Hopefully.), it may see the light of day in "Screeenshot Captor" also at some point. I do also have it installed elsewhere as a secondary, ancillary browseable menu within other graphics programs and generally in other tools, also for the same provided function. I prefer to only have single instances of any program running at a time as to avoid confusion between what I may be doing in one instance as opposed to another and I frequently find that a second means of navigating my directories and files is something that I appreciate, especially if it is a lean, dedicated to one job type of affair that I may employ at those time.

 Once more a lengthy post, but hopefully one that will spur you on to great things with this particular program. It is a type of tool that I always look out for in my trawling's of the web, and more specifically, it has the rudiments of a program that I have been looking for for a very long time, (Actually it is the _exact_ program that I have been hunting for, and now that I have it, I have become aware of how much more it could be considering it's own potential capabilities to carry other programs/tools along for the ride as you already provide in many of your other programs and you have made one allowance for already within it. - More needed at this end.), so I hope you will understand my lengthy posting.

All the best and hopefully there will soon be a dedicated "Mouser's Media Browser" section within the DonationCoder forums. At that point my two posts here could be made a separate thread allowing this to be the main link and announcements page, consistant with the remainder of the site.

And actually, I haven't mentioned any of the features that I initially intended too. Next time. {I'll make a list... so I don't forget.}

Cheers,

MikleB
Remember, wherever you go... There you are!
-= Sometimes my location is: "YESTERDAY!" =-
« Last Edit: April 22, 2016, 01:45 PM by MikleB »

mouser

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #9 on: April 22, 2016, 12:27 PM »
I'm sorry I haven't replied to this excellent post yet -- I promise I will in the next few days -- I've been away from home for last week or so.

MikleB

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #10 on: April 22, 2016, 01:35 PM »
I'm sorry I haven't replied to this excellent post yet -- I promise I will in the next few days -- I've been away from home for last week or so.


 That is quite understandable, as along with everything else you have a quarter of a million registered users vying for your time and attention!¿ "Me thinks it 'mazing"... you bother to reply to any negative posts, and you get too many of those, and after 10 years of putting up with the amount of, let's say 'Trolls' that pass through here, and their uncalled for criticisms, yet you cordially reply to them... You stated once that I had patience, that is surely the pot calling the kettle black.  ;D .

 I had noticed the lack of mouser input these past two weeks or so.

 I hope your absence was for a happy reason.

 And thanks for the qualification you conferred on my post. It's just I love English, it has such capabilities to be very precise in it's conveyed meanings, and though it may take more than a word or two to say somethings, I do believe that it best to try to be clear at the risk of being lengthy, rather than be possibly perceived as blase and have my meanings inaccurately interpreted as negative, just for the sake of brevity on my part. Especially regarding another person's toils. I can picture you toiling over red hot code, and though I encountered a problem, I admire what you are producing and in no way wish my posts to be less than helpful in what you are doing on line. Plus, it avoids the process of you having to ask for clarification as to what is my meaning regarding my experience, I have seen you have to do that too often.

 Things that you need to know exactly to be able to fix the issues, do, I understand, need to spelt out on probably all occasions, especially where you have not experienced the problem yourself. Hopefully I have provided useful input into the workings of your software at my end. I greatly suspect that to have all the information in one or two posts is way better than having to search through, or refer to many different post and allows both a more succinct understanding of the issues and may provide a better framework as to how to proceed to fix the actual issue, than when it is spread all over the place.

 I know it is early days yet for "Mouser's Media Browser".

Cheers,

MikleB
Remember, wherever you go... There you are!
-= Sometimes my location is: "YESTERDAY!" =-
« Last Edit: April 22, 2016, 01:54 PM by MikleB »

mouser

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #11 on: May 12, 2016, 08:17 AM »
Ok finally let me try to reply to these posts!

First, thanks for the info about the on-top behavior hiding the about box.
All of the behavior you describe about the program being unresponsive is all due to the fact that a dialog (about box) was behind the main window which was forcing itself on top.
This is a bug that has been seen in a couple of my other programs -- i need to remember to not let it creep back in!
I occasionally see it in other people's programs as well. I will fix.
ps. a good solution in this case is just select the main window and hit escape.  The escape key will usually close the hidden dialog.

Second,
About this program needing its own section -- you are probably right.  I usually do create a section for each app of mine, but this one hasn't gotten much attention so i haven't bothered yet.  Same with my Automatic Screenshotter tool.



mouser

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #12 on: May 12, 2016, 08:20 AM »
Detail's-view Mode' feature; But as an optional extra panel rather than a replacement of either the filmstrip or grid view.

yeah i think a small detail panel, showing details about the currently selected file would be a good idea.

mouser

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #13 on: May 12, 2016, 08:28 AM »
Any more suggestions?

I think this program has a very narrow niche use -- that's because there are some very excellent completely free image browsers (xnview for example), which have tons of features and work very well.

I do feel like this program (Mouser's Media Browser) could play a role as a kind of bundled add-on for other programs (like my own Screenshot Captor and Clipboard Helps and Spell, and Automatic Screenshotter). It occurred to me that other tools might want to bundle it in to their tools as well.

There are 2 main features that I need to add to the program before i think it will show its true value:
  • The first is to make it properly multithreaded, so that there is no delay when browsing large directories -- right now the program is unresponsive while scanning very large directories.
  • The second is to add a virtual-date folder idea that i have which would make a very nice way to browse large directories of images, by providing a hierarchical timeline type view.

IainB

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #14 on: June 09, 2016, 09:54 PM »
    I had been trying to see if I could improve the viewing of image files in the CHS database, so I tried using MMB (Mouser's Media Browser) as the viewer, instead of irfanview (which was what I had been using previously).
    This was following on from:
yes this is one reason i wrote this tool -- so i can bundle MMB as a tool to other programs like CHS, to let people browse their clipped images easily.
_______________________________
I do feel like this program (Mouser's Media Browser) could play a role as a kind of bundled add-on for other programs (like my own Screenshot Captor and Clipboard Helps and Spell, and Automatic Screenshotter). It occurred to me that other tools might want to bundle it in to their tools as well.
_______________________________

10_950x345_44FFCD4B.png

If I put MousersMediaBrowser.exe into CHS as the External Image Viewer (CHS Options | Image Capture), then I get the error message above when I try to view an image in the CHS database, via the CHS GUI.
  • Q1: Is it possible to set MMB to view a single image file in the CHS database?

  • Q2: Ideally, I'd like to move from viewing that single image, to smoothly browsing all the images in the CHS database - (say) as a flat file - which may occur before or after the date of the initial one being viewed, using MMB. Is there an easy way to set this up?
    _______________________________

I think Q2 could also be relevant to where you say above:
...The second is to add a virtual-date folder idea that i have which would make a very nice way to browse large directories of images, by providing a hierarchical timeline type view.[/li][/list]
_______________________________
« Last Edit: June 09, 2016, 10:00 PM by IainB, Reason: Placed smaller image. »

mouser

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #15 on: June 10, 2016, 07:39 AM »
Thanks for the post Iain.

I will do the following in short order:
1. Add a new option to CHS to cusotmize the "Browse Image Directory" tool (I thought I had already done this but maybe not) so that you can use MousersMediaBrowser(MMB) for exploring clip image directory.
2. Make MMB work if you pass it a file name (like you did above when you got the error) and have it open the containing folder and select the image passed -- so you can use it as you attempted.

IainB

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #16 on: June 14, 2016, 07:47 PM »
@mouser: Thankyou for this!    :Thmbsup:
Apologies for my belated response, but I only just now read your post. I have been a bit distracted by domestic events lately - the short explanation of which is that I have almost come to the end of several years' litigation, having been made nearly bankrupt by a previous business partner who apparently misappropriated approx. $60,000 of loan capital and, by a process of deceit and legal subterfuge, took further of my equity, leaving me with the debt to repay and no legal recourse for enforcing full/fair restitution.
The net effect of this is that I am obliged to sell up my home to pay the debts, leaving me unable to afford to buy another. By the end of this month I will have moved my family to somewhere where we can almost afford to live. I am in the process of pulling my 2 children from the schools they are currently happily attending and relocating them in new schools in the target zone.
It's all my fault for placing implicit trust in my business partner in the first place. I hadn't realised that I might be being set up.   :-[
Though my business partner seems to have acted dishonestly and out of venality/greed, I don't think they could have done more harm to me and my family than if they had deliberately intended it. It's very strange.
Sheesh.
« Last Edit: June 14, 2016, 07:52 PM by IainB »

mouser

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #17 on: June 14, 2016, 07:48 PM »
Ugh that's terrible -- I'm so sorry to hear that.  It sounds like there is nothing to do but plow forward and do it, and things will get better after you are settled.

tomos

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #18 on: June 15, 2016, 11:39 AM »
^^ Iain, sorry to hear that news -- I wish you the best and hope things work out well for you all
Tom

IainB

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #19 on: June 16, 2016, 09:53 AM »
Thankyou for your commiserations all!

Big digression from the topic of the tread, but follows on from above:___________________________
For me it is a setback all right, but there's only one way to go and that's forwards.
It's rather sad-funny as well.
Prior to engaging me in the start of litigation, the person "X" had sent me an email that included this:
...I reviewed the study materials from the Philosophy classes, one topic talked about the basis of our thoughts and decisions. I then examined my conscious.  This much I know - all my elements: Manas, buddhi, chitta and ahamkara are influenced by sattwa energy. Not by Rajas nor Tamas...
_____________________________

This was a rather laughable and enlightening remark insofar as it spoke volumes about the person who wrote those words, since it illustrated that:
  • (a) they apparently had not understood their philosophy classes and thus had an almost complete lack of understanding of what it was that they were talking about, and
  • (b) how they were in an illusory ego-driven state called ahamkara - a state where they were unable to see the unpleasant reality of what they had been doing to others, and what they had become and were becoming.

The ego fiercely protects one from perceiving the truth that one is "bad" or "wrong", since it is difficult to live with oneself when once one sees the awful and unpleasant reality of what one is, has done, and does. Most criminals in jail are in ahamkara - they have to be, so as to avoid living with the truth about themselves. It's probably a survival mechanism.

I showed the email to a very dear friend (Ivan) who was dying of cancer - and who has since died. Ivan was a long-time student of Sant Mat and had studied for years under a teacher in India. I had introduced Ivan to X.
During his study and meditation, Ivan had years ago put himself through the furnace and confronted the very unpleasant reality of what he had been in the earlier stages of his life, and he was repentant.
When he saw X's email, he became very concerned indeed for X's karmic health. As he put it:
X's simplistic description demonstrates that they evidently do not understand the Vedic philosophy nor the implications of what they have written. One cannot know - by definition - what state one is in, but only strive to perpetually improve. So to claim that one is in this or that state is absurd and a self-delusion. Because one might prefer to believe that one is in an elevated state of consciousness (as X apparently does) does not make it so. Quite the opposite - though it might be what one insists or strongly "believes" is true of oneself, it is not real/true. It is one being trapped in ahamkara - a complete illusion about one's self-identity coupled with (in X's case) the concept of satva.
____________________________

If you click on the link to ahamkara, you will see it defined and described, and there is an example given of Rudolph Hess' ahamkara and his making what must have been a monumental effort to dig himself out of it shortly before he was executed for war crimes and crimes against humanity - at which point he became repentant and asked for God's forgiveness for the dreadful things he now saw that he had done. He had been unable/unwilling to see them before - and that was ahamkara.

My dear friend X seems to have been (and still is) in that state also, and I appreciated that I was thus unable to reach them, so I never replied to the absurd email and simply waited for the legal threats to arrive (which they did, in time). Ahamkara is an illusion that one's own ego/mind constructs and then fiercely defends. The key to escape from the illusion of ahamkara similarly rests within oneself, and the motivation and action to escape it has to come from within.
Ivan's serious concern was that X might go to the grave still unrepentant and stuck in that very bad karmic state - a sort of huge negative karmic debt/burden carried forwards to the next reincarnation. A Christian would probably see it as dying unrepentant of the sin on one's conscience.

X can be said to have had their head messed up at an early age by some pitiable childhood experiences - especially a rejection by, and lack of love from their parents and relatives. However, at some stage one has to understand and face up to the fact that what happens to one and what one does in adult life is largely within an internal locus of control - not an external locus of control. That is, it is not all the result of the doings of other people or circumstances.
Similarly I recognise my contribution to this as being my gullibility in blindly placing great trust in someone whom, in retrospect it seems could categorically not be trusted and who was pathologically unable to honestly manage money or take responsibility for their dishonest acts and for the consequences of those acts.
More fool me, I guess.    :-[

luvnbeast

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #20 on: September 25, 2016, 09:48 AM »
I just tried this wonderful piece of software and the only complaint is that you cannot change the size of the thumbnails with a slider or something to make them a bit smaller. Other than that it is really nice... Any chance to request this feature? I mean to make the thumbnails smaller and the grids smaller so you could preview more thumbnails in one view?

mouser

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #21 on: September 25, 2016, 01:48 PM »
Thanks for the compliments.
You can make the thumbnails as small as you want.

Just go to File -> Options and change the "Maximum Thumbnail Width" for GRID mode and set a smaller value.  (You can reduce "Minimum" too -- maybe make it half the maximum).
You should also make sure its in "Automatically resize to fit" for Thumbnail resizing mode.

I understand that the setting is a little bit counter-intuitive, but the way the program works is that it decides how many columns and rows it should show on the grid by making the thumbnails as large as possible, up to the maximum values set here.  So if you reduce the maximum, you will get smaller thumbnails and thus more items shown in your grid.



Alternatively, you could change the mode to "Use manual size" and set your exact Manually set thumbnail width to whatever you want.

Let me know if that works for you.

luvnbeast

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #22 on: September 26, 2016, 01:38 AM »
Thanks for the help :) ... although it is kind of tricky to play guess work.. but I get it though...

smaragdus

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Re: NANY 2016 Release: Automatic Screenshotter - v1.06 - May 7, 2017
« Reply #23 on: November 19, 2018, 05:05 PM »
@mouser

I hope that this is the right thread for Mouser's Media Browser. I did a brief test of version 1.06.01 and I would like to suggest some enhancements:

  • Option to open last used folder;
  • Option to save folders as favourites;
  • Support for animated GIF and PNG (APNG) images;
  • A shortcut key to toggle 'Keep on top of other windows' on/off (perhaps 'Ctrl+T);

I have some more ideas but I suppose that they would require much work. For me an option to save folders as favourites will be very handy since it will spare me navigation to deeply buried folders.

KynloStephen66515

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Re: NANY 2016 Pledge/Alpha: Mouser's Media Browser
« Reply #24 on: November 19, 2018, 05:08 PM »
@mouser

I hope that this is the right thread for Mouser's Media Browser. I did a brief test of version 1.06.01 and I would like to suggest some enhancements:

  • Option to open last used folder;
  • Option to save folders as favourites;
  • Support for animated GIF and PNG (APNG) images;
  • A shortcut key to toggle 'Keep on top of other windows' on/off (perhaps 'Ctrl+T);

I have some more ideas but I suppose that they would require much work. For me an option to save folders as favourites will be very handy since it will spare me navigation to deeply buried folders.


Moved to correct thread.