Star*Explorer Thread

[Nikolai]

Star*Explorer (S*E, formerly Smugmug Explorer) is a very small, fast, robust and efficient Windows application designed to facilitate certain smugmug-related activities, such as unlimited persistent image upload, download, customized gallery settings, reports, etc.
It has been created and is fully supported by a person who loves digital photography, smugmug, and, most importantly, has more than 30 years of hardcore programming experience behind his belt.

Star*Explorer is a commercial application with an industry-standard 30 days trial.

More here: http://www.starexplorer.com

Below is original first post:-)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm opening this thread to indicate the status of this project, accept the feedback, etc.

SmugmugExplorer is a win32 app (preferably windows XP) which should facilitate some routine tasks, such as upload the whole bunch of files, without getting into such limitations as 100Mb per upload, etc.

It's still in alpha, but I think it's already usable.

[EDIT: Star*Explorer has been successfully released in April 2005. Please check www.starexplorer.com (http://www.starexplorer.com) for the latest version]

(for the non-tech people, here is programmers' lingo 101:

alpha - it actually can work sometimes?
beta - "beta" than nothing
pre-release - me and my beer buddies can operate it just fine, what are you complaining about?
gold - hm-m, maybe I should let my wife try it
release - IPO, here I come!:D )
I have already used it intensively to create many albums (eve bunch at a time:-) and upload thousands of images.
My colleagues at work (whom I lured into smugmug:-) are also about to start using it.
Anyway, here is the alpha (376 Kb, single exe in a zip):
http://nik.wyw.ru/download/smugmugexplorer/SmugmugExplorer.a0.zip
Just download it, unzip it and launch it.
Forgot: you'd also need two ssl dlls (371 Kb, zip file with two dlls)
http://nik.wyw.ru/download/smugmugexplorer/ssl_dlls.zip
Put them next to the executable.

You'd need to enter your account info to use it - I SWEAR I'm not sending it anywere. And it also stored in a heavily double encripted way, so unless you''re totally paranoid, your "password" password should be pretty safe with it.

If you want it to automatically connect everytime you open it, modify the launching shortcut and specify "/autoconnect=1" command line parameter.

If not - File - Connect, File - Get Albums, select the album, drag files/folders from your windows explorer and select Upload.

I will keep updating this thread as new versions and comments come.

Thank you very much, I hope you'll enjoy the ride:-)

[Nikolai]

I already modified an original post, but then I deciede to mention it here, too, so you'd know something's been changed..

Forgot: you'd also need two ssl dlls (371 Kb, zip file with two dlls)
http://nik.wyw.ru/download/smugmugexplorer/ssl_dlls.zip
Put them next to the executable.

[damonff]

Hey...

I think a lot of people here are Mac people...

~Damon

[Nikolai]

Hey...

I think a lot of people here are Mac people...

~DamonThen, I guess, they will not be interested in this little app of mine:-)
However, I did a little poll on dpreview STF - absolute majority were using XP, and one person was kind enough to provide me with an interesting stats from his (or his company's) server:

These represent 6 months of data and close to 100 000 people sample:

Windows XP 91.60%
Other Windows 7.70%
Linux 0.50%
Macintosh 0.20%
So, I guess, I'll take my chances:-)

Cheers!:1drink

[damonff]

Then, I guess, they will not be interested in this little app of mine:-)
However, I did a little poll on dpreview STF - absolute majority were using XP, and one person was kind enough to provide me with an interesting stats from his (or his company's) server:
So, I guess, I'll take my chances:-)

Cheers!:1drink
Those stats are overwhelming! I guess I'll lose out on your fab app Nikolai! Drat! If you have extra time, think of the Apple people...good luck with the changes in Smugmug. Your voice is welcome and hopefully you'll have some influence...

[Nikolai]

When I saw them, I was stunned myself. If anything, it gave me a better sense what my potential audience would be..
In the mean time, please rest assured, Apple version will come. I mean, as soon as Steve manages to persuade Borland to make iDelphi - or Microsoft to make iVisualStudio..
Thank you, stay tuned!

[onethumb]

Hey...

I think a lot of people here are Mac people...

~Damon

Alas, I'm afraid our beloved Mac is in the minority.

Generally, they're assumed to have about 5% market share. On photo sharing sites, it's probably a little higher due to the artistic nature of Mac users. On smugmug, it's even higher because our elegant style resonates with Mac users.

But I'd say the highest it could possibly be is 20% of smugmug customers. That leaves the other 80% who would love his application. :)

(For the record, I use all major platforms on a daily basis. My main PC is running Windows XP, my main laptop is running Mac OS X, and my servers and testbeds all run Red Hat Linux. I feel strongly that the best tool for the job should be used, and different OSes are better for different things.)

Don

[onethumb]

I already modified an original post, but then I deciede to mention it here, too, so you'd know something's been changed..

Forgot: you'd also need two ssl dlls (371 Kb, zip file with two dlls)
http://nik.wyw.ru/download/smugmugexplorer/ssl_dlls.zip
Put them next to the executable.

Hey Nikolai, this is great news!

If you have a page which I could link to, rather than direct downloads (which will change as the version changes), I'd love to add a link to the smugmug hacks page.

(We have a few other scripts and apps that need to be linked in, too, so I'd better hunt those authors down as well.)

Thanks,

Don

[Nikolai]

Hey Nikolai, this is great news!

If you have a page which I could link to, rather than direct downloads (which will change as the version changes), I'd love to add a link to the smugmug hacks page.

(We have a few other scripts and apps that need to be linked in, too, so I'd better hunt those authors down as well.)

Thanks,

Don
I'll gladly do that! I'll find some HTML tool and create a "standard product" page. I'll notify you as soon as I'm done!
Thank you for the excellent suggestion!

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

http://nik.wyw.ru/products/smugmug_explorer/
CHANGED to: http://www.sklobovsky.com/community/smugmug

I forged it in Word, it certainly lacks "style", but hey, it works, and I can update it :-)

Thanks again!

[Nikolai]

It was my long-past due task to upload my originals to my smugmug account. This task became especially "hot" when the site that used to host them before was recently shut down.

I started to upload them manually (via smugmug windows IE uploader), uploaded about 1,500 (old, 1mp and hence small) files from the year 2000 and get really tired.

Then I wrote this app.

And during the the last two days I uploaded *everything else* (originals, I mean, icluding November 2004:-). It only took me watching the progress from time to time and occasionally feed it with a new month worth of pictures - I stored them by year/month, so it was pretty easy action - select an album, drag one folder, hit upload . Each month was WAY beyond online uploader's current restrictions - usually more than 300 images and way more than 100Mb (all this year I was shooting 828:-).
I even created most of the albums "in ohe shot" (although createAlbum (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=4102)bug (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=4102) made me to go to the site and modify their settings manually - arrgh..)

Here are some stats from today and yesterday:

2004 12 galleries with 4988 photos. Dec 02, 2004
2003 12 galleries with 2229 photos. Dec 02, 2004
2002 12 galleries with 1962 photos. Dec 01, 2004
2001 12 galleries with 1741 photos. Dec 01, 2004
It's not much, I know, some people shoot 10K pictures a month. But still, total volume was about 12-13Gb. Now, try to upload that manually;-):deal
---
More to follow:-)
Cheers!:1drink

[rutt]

Hey...

I think a lot of people here are Mac people...

~Damon
Use my smugmug.py (http://www.chezrutt.com/rutt/smugmug/smugmug.py) script. Once you install python, it works well on OS X and is great for massive uploads. I backup more than 50GB of stuff to smugmug.

[damonff]

Use my smugmug.py (http://www.chezrutt.com/rutt/smugmug/smugmug.py) script. Once you install python, it works well on OS X and is great for massive uploads. I backup more than 50GB of stuff to smugmug.
Cool!

[gubbs]

I'm opening this thread to indicate the status of this project, accept the feedback, etc.

SmugmugExplorer is a win32 app (preferably windows XP) which should facilitate some routine tasks, such as upload the whole bunch of files, without getting into such limitations as 100Mb per upload, etc.

It's still in alpha, but I think it's already usable.
(for the non-tech people, here is programmers' lingo 101:


alpha - it actually can work sometimes?
beta - "beta" than nothing
pre-release - me and my beer buddies can operate it just fine, what are you complaining about?
gold - hm-m, maybe I should let my wife try it
release - IPO, here I come!
:D )
I have already used it intensively to create many albums (eve bunch at a time:-) and upload thousands of images.
My colleagues at work (whom I lured into smugmug:-) are also about to start using it.
Anyway, here is the alpha (376 Kb, single exe in a zip):
http://nik.wyw.ru/download/smugmugexplorer/SmugmugExplorer.a0.zip
Just download it, unzip it and launch it.
Forgot: you'd also need two ssl dlls (371 Kb, zip file with two dlls)
http://nik.wyw.ru/download/smugmugexplorer/ssl_dlls.zip
Put them next to the executable.

You'd need to enter your account info to use it - I SWEAR I'm not sending it anywere. And it also stored in a heavily double encripted way, so unless you''re totally paranoid, your "password" password should be pretty safe with it.

If you want it to automatically connect everytime you open it, modify the launching shortcut and specify "/autoconnect=1" command line parameter.

If not - File - Connect, File - Get Albums, select the album, drag files/folders from your windows explorer and select Upload.

I will keep updating this thread as new versions and comments come.

Thank you very much, I hope you'll enjoy the ride:-)

Thanks Nikolai,


I'll give it a try!!!

[Nikolai]

Thanks Nikolai,


I'll give it a try!!!
Let me know how it went!
And stay tuned - new version is coming.. I'm working on recursive upload now - you drop a folder on a "category/subcategory", it will parse the names of the folders and, if need be, create new albums for you, or will populate existing ones..
That is, of course, if Don manages to fix the createAlbum bug - otherwise new albums end up on a category level, but it would still be easier than creating a whole bunch of them manually:-)

[luke_church]

Hey Nikolai,

Nice to see your work. Looking good :)


You'd need to enter your account info to use it - I SWEAR I'm not sending it anywere. And it also stored in a heavily double encripted way, so unless you''re totally paranoid, your "password" password should be pretty safe with it.

I am totally paranoid :D (!) [A little too much software security work]. Hence I'm interested, how is it stored and why double encrypted? [Some forms of double encryption are a lot easier to break than single encryption]. Generally speaking though I use disposable passwords for the likes of Smugmug, so I'm not that worried...

Is it in the Windows Crypto cache?

Generally I'm impressed this looks good, already I would probably use this in preference to the standard uploaders.

Some suggestions:

I would like to be able to detach the log viewer so that I can have it and the album structure open at the same time.

I think that there is a typo in the log generator:

Started Logging to polymorphix.smugum.com

and

Finished Logging to polymorphix.smugum.com

I would also like a dialog telling me connection had failed.

Otherwise looking very good. Keep up the good work :)

Many thanks,

Luke

[Nikolai]

Thank you very much for your kind words, comments and suggestions.

Typos is my eternal problem. ez 2 fix, tho..:-)

Double encription:
the configuration file is encripted with a pretty long meaningless password. The executable is then packed, which makes reading the EXE and trying to locate the potential string kinda non-trivial job. All in all, for what it was, I'd feel pretty safe.

UI: while I will try to keep "explorer" paradigm intact, there will be many more changes. Upload patch (where you can actually see and magage what are about to upload). multithreading, scheduling, etc. So log/terminal view will be more readable and usable.

Thanks again!

[Nikolai]

http://nik.wyw.ru/products/smugmug_explorer/

I forged it in Word, it certainly lacks "style", but hey, it works, and I can update it :-)

Thanks again!
http://www.sklobovsky.com/community/smugmug
Also modified the original post. Hope it's not too late:-)
Thank you!

[onethumb]

Use my smugmug.py (http://www.chezrutt.com/rutt/smugmug/smugmug.py) script. Once you install python, it works well on OS X and is great for massive uploads. I backup more than 50GB of stuff to smugmug.

Rutt, do you have a webpage I can link to that will comment on and track changes to the script? I'd like to link it from smugmug's site...

Don

[Ben]

http://www.sklobovsky.com/community/smugmug
Also modified the original post. Hope it's not too late:-)
Thank you! I emailed this to you personally as well, but I thought I would post it here in public.

This is my new favorite thing ever. :clap

Fantastic job. This is really really really awesome. It has just become my default uploader. I know a lot of people are really going to be happy with this.

[Baldy]

:thumb :thumb :thumb Ben is not easily impressed and he's been bouncing off the walls here.

I watched him using it and will give it a spin myself later today. My impression is it's very powerful but takes a few minutes to figure out how to use it.

Overall, an incredibly promising start and boy are people clamoring for what it offers.

Thanks!
Baldy

[Nikolai]

I emailed this to you personally as well, but I thought I would post it here in public.

This is my new favorite thing ever. :clap

Fantastic job. This is really really really awesome. It has just become my default uploader. I know a lot of people are really going to be happy with this.I'm very glad you like it. But honestly - it's still an ugly duckling, I barely scratched the surface of what I wanted to do.. Wait till it grows to the whole swan;-) That is, of course, if Don's APIs allow me:-)

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

:thumb :thumb :thumb Ben is not easily impressed and he's been bouncing off the walls here.

I watched him using it and will give it a spin myself later today. My impression is it's very powerful but takes a few minutes to figure out how to use it.

Overall, an incredibly promising start and boy are people clamoring for what it offers.

Thanks!
Baldy
Thank you, very nice to hear this!
As to the a tad cumbersome UI - it will all come together. I was trying to cover the basics first. Lots of things are simply not surfaced. Stay tuned!
And thank you once again, your guys' feedback is very inspirational!
Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

http://www.sklobovsky.com/community/smugmug
Also modified the original post. Hope it's not too late:-)
Thank you!it looks like the link only works from certain machines. Darn freeserververs (where my account is hosted), do not seem to allow the direct links, at least from some domains. Funny, I can see it ok from work, but from home (different ISP) I get 404..:-(

PLEASE update the link on your reference page to the following:
http://sklobovsky.nstemp.com/community/smugmug/
this guy seem to work from other places, too..

Sorry for the troubles...

[PerezDesignGroup]

Nikolai, this is absolutely and totally AMAZING!:thumb:thumb:thumb:thumb

I just set up a huge 283 photo upload in the range of approx 700mb's. I'll let you know how it goes.

If all goes well, this will be a god-send for all Firefox users.

Thanks, again.

[Nikolai]

Nikolai, this is absolutely and totally AMAZING!:thumb:thumb:thumb:thumb

I just set up a huge 283 photo upload in the range of approx 700mb's. I'll let you know how it goes.

If all goes well, this will be a god-send for all Firefox users.

Thanks, again... and it will be getting better, I promise!:baldy
Cheers!:1drink

[PerezDesignGroup]

All files, except for 3 that were over 8mb's, uploaded fine. It took several hours but I successfully put 283 photos totaling 700mb+ up in one shot. The nice thing is it kept uploading even though those files were rejected. This is some very fine programming, Nikolai! Thank you. :clap

[Nikolai]

All files, except for 3 that were over 8mb's, uploaded fine. It took several hours but I successfully put 283 photos totaling 700mb+ up in one shot. The nice thing is it kept uploading even though those files were rejected. This is some very fine programming, Nikolai! Thank you. :clap
Again - new version will be better:-). Actually, it IS better, but I can't publish it yet - to many loose ends because of the new APIs wrapping..
Stay tuned!
Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

Newest vesrion (396 Kb, single exe in a zip) can be downloaded from here:
http://nik.wyw.ru/download/smugmugexplorer/SmugmugExplorer_0_0_0_14.zip

Product home page updated:
http://sklobovsky.nstemp.com/community/smugmug/

What's new:

Massive facelifting
New or severely updated Account, Options, Album and (rather useful, IMHO) About (F1) dialogs
Options now allow to control file extensions and sizes. I would not recommend to extend them, but if so is your desire - it's your bandwidth..:-)
Create Album is now compatible with the latest createAlbum API, which actually works (yay, Don!). Taking into account you can set default settings and also use the "most recently used" ones, as well as you still can create multiple albums in one shot (obviously sharing the same settings), I think it's a pretty nice tool.
Caveats:

New account settings storage (which is binary and encrypted) is incompatible with the first alpha. You would have to re-enter your settings again, sorry about that. But at least now you can also specify your subscription level:-)
Although upload and upload via post API were recently updated to incorporate ByteCount and MD5Sum parameters, they don't seem to work all the way. Actually, only upload with a single ByteCount parameter works (thanks rutt!), everything else returns a format error. I notified Don, but so far upload methods in the app only work this way:
upload - uses ByteCount, so you have some fiile checking (per rutt, this method actually works fine in his script and prevents incomplete uploads)
upload via post - does not use any new parameters, so no checking is possible, but this method is still faster..
Nearest plans:

Cache albums/categories locally so you don't have to connect each time
Upload patch (so you can see, what are you actually uploading:-)
Album editor - so you can not only create new album(s), but also modify existing one(s!!!! - guess why it's plural here;-)
Some other very cool things...
Enjoy the new version!

[onethumb]

BTW, Nikolai, I highly recommend (per a previous conversation about encryption, etc) that you don't store the users login & password to disk in any form, including 'double encryption'.

Instead, use loginWithPassword once, and store the resulting UserID/PasswordHash and then use loginWithHash for all future logins. If/when it ever fails, then fallback to a dialog box prompting for username & password again (it will only fail if the user has changed their password on smugmug as a security precaution or something).

This provides for extra security in a couple of different ways.

Don

[gus]

Someone will put all of this wonderful stuff that i have 100% absolutely no comprehension of what-so-ever into a ' clicky button ' at the end ...wont they ?

[Nikolai]

I'll make the change..:bow
For now just don't send configuration file it to aol accounts:-).

For the record: if anybody can break existing version within, say, 1 hour of work, I'll gladly pay this person $100. Cash. Offer stands valid until next Xmas or until password-less version comes out, whichever comes first, but it's good at least until next Monday noon.

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

Someone will put all of this wonderful stuff that i have 100% absolutely no comprehension of what-so-ever into a ' clicky button ' at the end ...wont they ?...how "close" you are saying this..:-)
(sh-sh-hh, hope I didn't say it out loud just now:-)

Cheers!:1drink

[luke_church]

BTW, Nikolai, I highly recommend (per a previous conversation about encryption, etc) that you don't store the users login & password to disk in any form, including 'double encryption'.

Instead, use loginWithPassword once, and store the resulting UserID/PasswordHash and then use loginWithHash for all future logins. If/when it ever fails, then fallback to a dialog box prompting for username & password again (it will only fail if the user has changed their password on smugmug as a security precaution or something).

This provides for extra security in a couple of different ways.

Don
I strongly agree.

If for no other reason that the passwords used by people on ecommerce sites are not things that should be dealt with lightly as they are often reused.

Luke

[luke_church]

I'll make the change..:bow
For now just don't send configuration file it to aol accounts:-).

For the record: if anybody can break existing version within, say, 1 hour of work, I'll gladly pay this person $100. Cash. Offer stands valid until next Xmas or until password-less version comes out, whichever comes first, but it's good at least until next Monday noon.

Cheers!:1drink
Hey Nikolai,

Always nice to hear someone putting cash against their work. :D

If it was MSIL I'd gladly take your money [Just kidding there are clever string encryption tricks even in MSIL], but I doubt that I could learn enough about Delphi compilers to stand much of a chance in only an hour ;)

All the best,

Luke

[Nikolai]

Hey Nikolai,

Always nice to hear someone putting cash against their work. :D

If it was MSIL I'd gladly take your money [Just kidding there are clever string encryption tricks even in MSIL], but I doubt that I could learn enough about Delphi compilers to stand much of a chance in only an hour ;)

All the best,

LukeAnd it's not only compiler... :-)
But, hey, it will be over, like, tonite..

---(shameless brag)---
Me and my friend wrote a nice text editor once - it was ol' gud' MS DOS 3.x days, we were learning assembler, and actually became quite good at it. So we wrote a little piece (32Kb) in pure assembler, which turned out to be quite capable text editor - lot's of block operations, syntax highlite, formatting - whole nine yards.
It's been in USSR, so we quite naturally expected that our "ed.com" would be "borrowed without our permission". So we put a little protection, kinda similar to what I did in this case, and let it go.. Years later, already in US, I became aware that
1) its "protection" became kinda famous
2) there was a SINGLE fact, when a dedicated guy, running some kind of a monster disassembler tool in a protected mode (rememeber those modes?;-) on i386 managed not to remove the protection, but to bypass it - for that one single debugging session.
Considering our price was $5, I think we did a pretty decent job..
3) at those times I was a university professor teaching, apart from other things, computer science. I held an offer for the semester paper, that if anybody hacks our protection, this person would get A+. God knows, they tried. The whole city tried (kids have parents, parents have friends, you know how it goes). Offer stood for much longer than an hour - I was offering it to each new class I tought. Nobody ever claimed it.:-)
---(/shameless brag)---

Cheers!:1drink

[GREAPER]

Someone will put all of this wonderful stuff that i have 100% absolutely no comprehension of what-so-ever into a ' clicky button ' at the end ...wont they ?


Thats kinda what I was thinkin too....

[Nikolai]

Direct download: http://nik.wyw.ru/download/smugmugexplorer/SmugmugExplorer_0_0_0_22.zip (http://nik.wyw.ru/download/smugmugexplorer/SmugmugExplorer_0_0_0_22.zip)
Home page updated (some facelifting):
http://sklobovsky.nstemp.com/community/smugmug/ (http://sklobovsky.nstemp.com/community/smugmug/)

What's new in this version:

Password is no longer stored (Luke, Don - rejoice!:-). Instead, you'd be greeted with a (nice, I hope) login dialog whenever hashed information is not usable.
Account settings - test button now works
regular upload - uses md5 now
upload via post still does not use it - waiting for the fix
Save settingas as a default set - confirmation dialog
Miscellaneous typos fixed.
Enjoy!

Found a test-related issue and reuploaded: same zipfile name, but version is 26 and zip size is 407Kb

[onethumb]

Direct download: http://nik.wyw.ru/download/smugmugexplorer/SmugmugExplorer_0_0_0_22.zip (http://nik.wyw.ru/download/smugmugexplorer/SmugmugExplorer_0_0_0_22.zip)
Home page updated (some facelifting):
http://sklobovsky.nstemp.com/community/smugmug/ (http://sklobovsky.nstemp.com/community/smugmug/)

What's new in this version:

Password is no longer stored (Luke, Don - rejoice!:-). Instead, you'd be greeted with a (nice, I hope) login dialog whenever hashed information is not usable.
Account settings - test button now works
regular upload - uses md5 now
upload via post still does not use it - waiting for the fix
Save settingas as a default set - confirmation dialog
Miscellaneous typos fixed.
Enjoy!

Nice! The md5sum on POSTed uploads should work fine now, but double-check and see.

FYI, what you're doing now (storing the hash) is exactly like storing a cookie. So you're using standard web browser security practices in your app. What's nice is that if the hash falls into the wrong hands, it won't let them get access to your account settings. (You must actually know your password and login name to get there @ smugmug). This includes changing passwords.

So your app has become more secure as a result, which is a good thing. I should probably explain this better in the API docs, since I'm sure it'll come up again.

Don

[Nikolai]

Nice! The md5sum on POSTed uploads should work fine now, but double-check and see.

Don
Just recompiled and tested - still the same error:

0:00:30: Multipart Post results
<?xml version='1.0' encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
<methodResponse>
<fault>
<value>
<struct>
<member>
<name>faultCode</name>
<value>
<int>4</int>
</value>
</member>
<member>
<name>faultString</name>
<value>
<string>Wrong format.</string>
</value>
</member>
</struct>
</value>
</fault>
</methodResponse>
0:00:30: RPC-XML: Wrong format. (4)

Shall I try later, or you need more work?:dunno

[Nikolai]

Found a test-related issue and reuploaded: same zipfile name, but version is 0.0.0.26 and zip size is 407Kb.
Sorry about this.

[Nikolai]

In case anybody's interested in a "fresh from the oven" news, thoughts, plans and ideas - welcome to http://smugmugexplorer.blogspot.com/

Cheers!:1drink

[flyingpylon]

I tried Smugmug Explorer for the first time today. It's very cool!

For some reason I don't seem to be able to upload files. The options under the Upload menu are grayed out. What might I be doing wrong?

One thing I would love to have available is the ability to export data from the application. What I need specifically is a way to get the original filename and smugmug ID for each image in a given album. I would need to export it into something like a CSV file or some other structured format that would allow me to import it into a database, etc. Is this something you have considered?

[Nikolai]

I tried Smugmug Explorer for the first time today. It's very cool!Thank you, appreciate it.

For some reason I don't seem to be able to upload files. The options under the Upload menu are grayed out. What might I be doing wrong?You need to select the album first, and then drop some files or folders. You can do drag-n-drop several times. But - for now, if you change the album, list will be cleared. Multialbum upoload is in the works.

One thing I would love to have available is the ability to export data from the application. What I need specifically is a way to get the original filename and smugmug ID for each image in a given album. I would need to export it into something like a CSV file or some other structured format that would allow me to import it into a database, etc. Is this something you have considered?No, I haven't. Still plenty of other things to consider first. Let's get back to this after the first release (see description of release terms on the home page:-)

Cheers!:1drink

[gubbs]

Thank you, appreciate it.

You need to select the album first, and then drop some files or folders. You can do drag-n-drop several times. But - for now, if you change the album, list will be cleared. Multialbum upoload is in the works.

No, I haven't. Still plenty of other things to consider first. Let's get back to this after the first release (see description of release terms on the home page:-)

Cheers!:1drink
Answers before I've even asked the question, Thanks!!

[Nikolai]

Latest version; Dec 10 2004, Version 0.1.0.28, 414 Kb, single exe in a zip.

Details and download links are at the product's home page: http://sklobovsky.nstemp.com/community/smugmug/

Enjoy!

PS
Don (or anybody with the access to the Big Red Button) - may I ask to make this thread a "sticky" one?
Or - may be even create a separate forum...

[rainforest1155]

Hi Nikolai,

thanks for your great program. I apreachiate your hard work.

Latest version; Dec 10 2004, Version 0.1.0.28, 414 Kb, single exe in a zip.

Details and download links are at the product's home page: http://sklobovsky.nstemp.com/community/smugmug/
I discovered a bug with your newest version. It both affects single and multi album upload.
When I finish a single-album upload and drag another set of pictures in, the old ones reappear in the upload list.
The same for multi-album upload, the drag&drop ist isn't cleared somehow, but all old ones are kept and the new are added. This renders the multi-album upload unsuable for me and I've to restart the program after every upload.

Don't know why it seems to work for everyone else.

Bye and keep up the great work,
Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Rest assured I will look into it asap. I also have few minor UI facelifts, so it might be useful afterall. Stay tuned, shouldn't take that long, just a few hours (need to do some family chores, too:-).

For the record: in the future if you can additionally report the issues and problems to the blog (you can always find it in the Help|About screen, current shortcut being F1:-). Those comments hit my gmail account almost instantly, so I'd be notified iimediately without checking the dgrin. Thank you!:thumb

[unsavory]

When I finish a single-album upload and drag another set of pictures in, the old ones reappear in the upload list.
The same for multi-album upload, the drag&drop ist isn't cleared somehow, but all old ones are kept and the new are added.
Same here. Even for single album uploads, I have to close the program and re-open it for every upload or the upload lists keep stacking and list keeps growing and growing.

[unsavory]

Ooops. Nevermind. Should have checked the blog first. :wxwax

[Nikolai]

New version uploaded, 0.1.0.34, 415Kb. See the home page (in my sig)

[unsavory]

New version uploaded, 0.1.0.34, 415Kb. See the home page (in my sig)
Wow, right at the 2 hour mark as promised. I'm impressed. :wink

Thanks Nikolai! I'll give it a shot.

[unsavory]

Woot! :bow :thumb

Looks like it is working now. I am setting it up to batch upload all of my photos. I'll have to manually create all the albums first :cry , but once that is done I'll let her rip and give you feedback. Might be tomorrow by the time it is done though. :D

Great work. Thanks Nikolai.

[Nikolai]

Woot! :bow :thumb

Looks like it is working now. I am setting it up to batch upload all of my photos. I'll have to manually create all the albums first :cry , but once that is done I'll let her rip and give you feedback. Might be tomorrow by the time it is done though. :D

Great work. Thanks Nikolai.
Sorry about the issue, get spolied by our QA dept at work, they usually catch this sort of things pretty fast, so I don't have to worry about too much ;-)

Auto album creation - I need this myself. I also have about 5 years worth of pictures not uploaded. That was the whole reason I started to write this app..:-). As I mentioned before, the only current problems are

Impossibility to create categories/subcategories via API (Don! HELP!:bow )
Need nice and clean UI solution for it. I want it to be "compatible" with the existing UI (which, I hope, is simple and logical enough to use it without scratching your head TOO much, hehe:-), so you'd have a complete control over the upload process (sorting wise). Have some ideas, though, will give it a try today..
Having said that - if you're not in a great hurry, I'd wait. I'm 90% positive this will be done before XMas..
Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

So old links can be broken.

I will try to keep previous version for a while after uploading a new one, but remove it as soon as I get the feeling the new one is ok (or the old one has unavoidable issues).

Just FYI..

Cheers!:1drink

[unsavory]

OK, I finally got all the Categories/Subcategories manually created.

I am currently batch uploading about 6500 pics which turns out to be about 15 gigs or so (old 2.2MP camera on the older ones. :puke1 ).

Looks like it is working!

Now if SmugMug will just get sorting beefed up, I will be one heck of a happy camper. :D :D :D

I'll let you know when it is done. But 15gig through HTTP Post can take a while. :dunno

Thanks again for the great tool.

[Nikolai]

OK, I finally got all the Categories/Subcategories manually created.

I am currently batch uploading about 6500 pics which turns out to be about 15 gigs or so (old 2.2MP camera on the older ones. :puke1 ).

Looks like it is working!

Now if SmugMug will just get sorting beefed up, I will be one heck of a happy camper. :D :D :D

I'll let you know when it is done. But 15gig through HTTP Post can take a while. :dunno

Thanks again for the great tool.
Thank you for the feedback!

Sorry I'm not ready with autocreation feature.. But I know the rash.. I uploaded all my originals (for them I was using album-per-month, so it was not that much of a work to create categories/subcategories/albums manually) as soon as I got first version working.
But NOW I'm gonna be real patient and wait until I make this part working:-)

Cheers!:1drink

[wxwax]

Good grief, you lads sure upload a lot of shots!

[Nikolai]

Good grief, you lads sure upload a lot of shots!isn't this what "unlimited" is for?;-)
Cheers!:1drink

[unsavory]

isn't this what "unlimited" is for?;-)
Cheers!:1drink
Yeah, my only fear is that it becomes no longer profitable for them to allow unlimited storage space to their users. I suppose their thinking is that the mojority of their users are not going to upload gigs and gigs of photos so it works out for them.

I hope they can continue to offer this "unlimited" service in the future.

[Nikolai]

Yeah, my only fear is that it becomes no longer profitable for them to allow unlimited storage space to their users. I suppose their thinking is that the mojority of their users are not going to upload gigs and gigs of photos so it works out for them.

I hope they can continue to offer this "unlimited" service in the future.
My understanding from various discussions was that this is really unlimited, not just because one actually can't upload 10Gb in one shot (which one can now:-):thumb

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

Finally figured out how to approach automatic album creation UI-wise. All tests are done, just need to code all this (there are few things I need to cover first). If nothing stands in a way, should be done no later than coming week, i.e. no later than Dec 17..

[wxwax]

not just because one actually can't upload 10Gb in one shot (which one can now:-):thumb

Cheers!:1drink

One can? They changed the limit?

[Nikolai]

One can? They changed the limit?But there was (never?) a limit internally. There were specific uploaders' limitations. Neither rutt's python script nor my win32 app has this limit.
So, yes, now one can:-)
Cheers!

[philspace]

Aweome app Nikolai, I'm impressed :thumb

[unsavory]

Bad news Nikolai,

SmugMug Explorer entered into some kind of infinite loop early this morning. It is choking up 100% of my CPU and the program is not responding. It looks like it got a lot, but not all of, my pictures uploaded.

Problem is, I can't tell what order it did them in. Looks like I will have to go back and look at each album to make sure which ones are complete and which ones aren't.

Let me know if there is something I can do to help you debug this, however it will probably be difficult because it is in an infinite loop as I said.

[Nikolai]

I have an idea (actually, stumbled upons smth similar myself just 10 min ago).
If you please can try this:

Close the app
Start the app, do not autoconnect (hit esc on the countdown)
Open the options (Ctrl+F11)
Go to Log page, check everything you can
On the same page - set the lines limit value to 0
Cllick OK
Connect (F9)
See if it is frozen or not
let me know asap
Thanks!

[unsavory]

Working on it...

[unsavory]

It is not frozen, no. Just sitting at the album list after connecting.

[unsavory]

Have to run to the office. I'll check in from there.

[Nikolai]

And, from what I understand, all your uploads should be fine - it was a final cleanup process that got locked up. Very unexpected behaviour of a standard win32 multiline edit box control, I must add, never had that before, and, trust me, I've been using it everywhere...
Anyway, get the new version. It has some new goodies in it. I didn't plan to publish them until the next big change, but they already were there, so I decided "what the heck"..:-)
Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

Aweome app Nikolai, I'm impressed :thumbI'm glad you find it useful!

Cheers!:1drink

[unsavory]

And, from what I understand, all your uploads should be fine - it was a final cleanup process that got locked up. Very unexpected behaviour of a standard win32 multiline edit box control, I must add, never had that before, and, trust me, I've been using it everywhere...
Anyway, get the new version. It has some new goodies in it. I didn't plan to publish them until the next big change, but they already were there, so I decided "what the heck"..:-)
Cheers!:1drink
All my uploads, yes. As in complete individual photos. The problem is that it did not complete uploading the albums fully. So I just need to find which one/ones did not get filled.

No worries, it still saved me hours and hours of doing all this manually.

And... what great support! Good "remote debugging". :D

[Nikolai]

All my uploads, yes. As in complete individual photos. The problem is that it did not complete uploading the albums fully. So I just need to find which one/ones did not get filled.You can check the log file - there are many, select the appropriate one (in Data\Logs subfolder), they are named after the beginning of the session.

No worries, it still saved me hours and hours of doing all this manually.Hope so:-)

And... what great support! Good "remote debugging". :DI've been around for a while..:-) At my current place, they used to call R&D people like 11 pm or 4 am if the customer had a serious problem. Luckily, we have a much better QA and hence,very few issues now, none of which would require such drastic measures. But I got a few years of that kind of drill...:-)
PLease let me know if there are more problems.
BTW, how many did you upload (count/size) and how much time did it take? Over what connection(dialup,dsl, modem, T1...)? Just curious about performance..

[unsavory]

BTW, how many did you upload (count/size) and how much time did it take? Over what connection(dialup,dsl, modem, T1...)? Just curious about performance..

A little under 4000 photos total on this run.

Approximately 400 to 600k each photo (All my old photos were with an old 2.2 MP camera shooting at 1024 x 768 :puke1 ).

I started the run at 2PM yesterday afternoon. It ran until 3:30AM today, for a grand total of 13.5 hours.

Edit: Sorry, forgot my connection. Was running it from home on a supposed 384K up (Yeah right, where do they get these numbers from?) DSL line. However, I'm still not sure my upgrade from 128K upstream DSL ever went through as I never really saw a speed increase. Sorry, can't really confirm at this moment.

[Nikolai]

A little under 4000 photos total on this run.

Approximately 400 to 600k each photo (All my old photos were with an old 2.2 MP camera shooting at 1024 x 768 :puke1 ).

I started the run at 2PM yesterday afternoon. It ran until 3:30AM today, for a grand total of 13.5 hours.Nice to know, appreciate the sharing.
(Guess it would take you a while doing it manually in 100Mb batches:-)

A little performance hint: when operating normally, uncheck all the logging checkboxes. They are mostly for the troubleshooting, you don't need them if everytnings's OK. Otherwise log window accumalates a lot of info, most of which you don't even need. (Note to self - change the default settings:-)

Cheers! Hope you like the new version:-):1drink

[Nikolai]

Edit: Sorry, forgot my connection. Was running it from home on a supposed 384K up (Yeah right, where do they get these numbers from?) DSL line. However, I'm still not sure my upgrade from 128K upstream DSL ever went through as I never really saw a speed increase. Sorry, can't really confirm at this moment... I would add several perfomance indicators, so you would know precisely current/avg speed, time elapsed/left, bytes/counts sent/left, etc.

[Nikolai]

Don (or anybody with the access to the Big Red Button) - may I ask to make this thread a "sticky" one?
Or - may be even create a separate forum...
I dno't know whom personally to thank, but thank you very much!:thumb
Cheers!:1drink

[unsavory]

Well I am on day 3 or 4 of almost continuous uploading using SmugMug Explorer.

This morning I woke up to find a dialog box that read something like, "Socket Write Error. Connection Reset By Peer". Thought I would report it, as this seems to be a bug.

Shouldn't it reconnect and resend rather than throw that error message?

[Nikolai]

Well I am on day 3 or 4 of almost continuous uploading using SmugMug Explorer.

This morning I woke up to find a dialog box that read something like, "Socket Write Error. Connection Reset By Peer". Thought I would report it, as this seems to be a bug.

Shouldn't it reconnect and resend rather than throw that error message?Thank you.
I occasionally see it, too. Happens sometimes, when connection is not solid. Kinda hard to catch - it's a a different thread, but I will.

It seems like SE helps you a bit, no;-)?

[unsavory]

It seems like SE helps you a bit, no;-)?

Yes, it saves me from having to write one in Java and allows me to spend my time taking photographs and learning Photoshop instead.
:D

[Nikolai]

The new version is not out yet (other things in the works), but - check this out:
now it can automatically convert your BMPs into smugmug-compliant JPEGs .
For now I hardcoded conversion parameters (90% quality, etc.), but eventually it will all make it to user defined configuration. I'm planning to support a much wider variety of files, so you don't have to do it manually.

[DavidTO]

The new version is not out yet (other things in the works), but - check this out:
now it can automatically convert your BMPs into smugmug-compliant JPEGs .
For now I hardcoded conversion parameters (90% quality, etc.), but eventually it will all make it to user defined configuration. I'm planning to support a much wider variety of files, so you don't have to do it manually.

Nikolai,

Just to let you know that I'm going to start a campaign to have you come over to the light side (Macintosh) so you can bring the best uploader to the best platform!

(Just kidding, but I'm almost jealous of all the Windows folks who are gonna have this great sounding app)

[Nikolai]

But I have zero experience with Mac. I'm a guru in windows world (I'm not not kidding - I was ranked Top 7 Delphi Developer Worldwide by Brainbench few years ago), but on Mac I'd become a total rookie.. kinda discouraging idea..
Besides, it would take a huge amount of money (hardware, software, books) and some serious amount of time learning all this stuff before I can be productive even to the 10% of my current windows-related powers:-)
You know what I'm saying? Seriously, IMHO Mr.Jobs made a HUGE mistake when he made all his stuff proprietary. Apple Script... yeah, right.:wxwax Ask any commerical programmer what he thinks of scripts (I'm not talkig perl/php and other web server-side stuff) - and make sure there are no kids around:-):D

Cheers! We should get together and have a drink sometime:-):1drink

[DavidTO]

But I have zero experience with Mac. I'm a guru in windows world (I'm not not kidding - I was ranked Top 7 Delphi Developer Worldwide by Brainbench few years ago), but on Mac I'd become a total rookie.. kinda discouraging idea..
Besides, it would take a huge amount of money (hardware, software, books) and some serious amount of time learning all this stuff before I can be productive even to the 10% of my current windows-related powers:-)
You know what I'm saying? Seriously, IMHO Mr.Jobs made a HUGE mistake when he made all his stuff proprietary. Apple Script... yeah, right.:wxwax Ask any commerical programmer what he thinks of scripts (I'm not talkig perl/php and other web server-side stuff) - and make sure there are no kids around:-):D

Cheers! We should get together and have a drink sometime:-):1drink

Yes, we should. Or maybe get out and shoot some. I could use more experience, that's for sure.

Not to beat a dead horse, but every Mac comes with developer tools...

[Nikolai]

Not to beat a dead horse, but every Mac comes with developer tools...I'm already feeling warmer & fuzzier:-)
If you don't mind my asking - can you tell me what they are?

Yes, we should. Or maybe get out and shoot some. I could use more experience, that's for sure.Swell idea, I wouldn't mind stealing somebody else's experience, too:-)
I was waiting a long time to find a "shooting partner"! Sometimes we go with my work buddy, Chris, but that were always very quick "do-it-on-the-way-to-from-lunch" thingies.
And, actually, we can do both types of shooting: shoot some pitchas first and shoot some beer/martini/"blue label" later:-):D

Cheers!:1drink

[DavidTO]

I'm already feeling warmer & fuzzier:-)
If you don't mind my asking - can you tell me what they are?

No, I'll leave that to the experts. (http://developer.apple.com/) I'd just get it all wrong.

Swell idea, I wouldn't mind stealing somebody else's experience, too:-)
I was waiting a long time to find a "shooting partner"! Sometimes we go with my work buddy, Chris, but that were always very quick "do-it-on-the-way-to-from-lunch" thingies.
And, actually, we can do both types of shooting: shoot some pitchas first and shoot some beer/martini/"blue label" later:-):D

Cheers!:1drink

Shoot me a private message and we can exchange contact info.

[Nikolai]

I finally got tired of freeservers (http://www.freeservers.com)' "free services" (it was a royal pain to deal with them), so I went ahead and purchased a real hosting account from MySiteSpace (http://www.mysitespace.com), complete with a nice domain name (which was free as a Xmas promotion:-).
Now you can find SE at www.smugmugexplorer.com (http://www.smugmugexplorer.com) :-)

I didn't have time to do a major HTML revamping, but I will - once I'm done with the new SE build.
I figured you guys would wait for the homepage facelift and get something you can actually use first, rather than vice versa!

Merry Crhistmas To All Grinners!
(regardless of OS, browser and camera brands:-)

PS
If somebody from smugmug can fix the link in the hacks section, that would be great!
It's not urgent, but I'm not able to update that old page (cannot get access to it).

[Nikolai]

I took me over 9(!) hours(!!) on Christmas Day(!!!) to find a little missing link to a "save as" functionality. Problem was cleverly hidden by readily availalbe encoders' CLSIDs, which in reality turned out to be " ju-a-a-ast a little different".
Anyway, now it will be possible to read whatever file GDI+ can read (and judging by a number of different types' thumbnails, it can read a lot) and save it - easily - as bmp, jpg, gif, tiff, or png. Of which I would actually only need jpegs:-).
It also seems relatively easy to provide "lossless jpeg transformation" (rotations and flippings). I hope I already got enough grief and this "little ez thing" wont turn into another 9 hours on a New Year's Eve:-).
Anyway - thought I'd tell you some good news about what's coming..
Cheers!:1drink

[flyingpylon]

It also seems relatively easy to provide "lossless jpeg transformation" (rotations and flippings).
I suppose I can understand adding a feature like rotation, but please don't get tempted to turn SE into yet another image editor. It should stay tightly focused on being the best upload/management tool available. Just my two cents.

[Nikolai]

I suppose I can understand adding a feature like rotation, but please don't get tempted to turn SE into yet another image editor. It should stay tightly focused on being the best upload/management tool available. Just my two cents.Thank you, I really appreciate your comment and your concern.

My primary reason for playing with GDI+ was to provide an easy way for a (smugmug) user to upload other popular formats (like widely-used tiffs:-) in addition to jpeg/gifs, while at the same time providing some visual feedback on a certain actions (like caption editing, progress, and such). Now I can do that - without purchasing a $1,600 graphics library, which would also require deploying several DLLs nobody would have any other usage for:-).

Don't you like cost-effective solutions?

Also this gives me - and you, and everybody else:-) - an opportunity to automatically shrink/compress files destined to upload. I figured that for some people (e.g. those with AOL/dialup account) this can be a real help. This way they can keep originals at the HDD and upload scaled-down 40% compressed versions, thus significantly cutting down the upload time..
Frankly, even with my recent switch to a cable modem my connection at home still sucks (upload speed about 230-250), so uploading xmas pictures (3.5Mb each) was a royal pain..

Cheers!:1drink

[flyingpylon]

I agree that if a feature could directly impact uploading or management (in a positive way) then it should be included. The problem is that you'll probably get bombarded with requests like "If you could just make it do this...". Next thing you know people are comparing your app to Photoshop and you're trying to figure out how to deal with color management... :huh

[muddyknees]

I agree that if a feature could directly impact uploading or management (in a positive way) then it should be included. The problem is that you'll probably get bombarded with requests like "If you could just make it do this...". Next thing you know people are comparing your app to Photoshop and you're trying to figure out how to deal with color management... :huh:hehIf you could just make SE be a Photoshop plugin whereby we could browse and edit photo's that are on Smugmug just like we can local files via the file browser... :wicked

[Nikolai]

I agree that if a feature could directly impact uploading or management (in a positive way) then it should be included. The problem is that you'll probably get bombarded with requests like "If you could just make it do this...". Next thing you know people are comparing your app to Photoshop and you're trying to figure out how to deal with color management... :huh
Nah, it's not happening yet, although there is a trend:-) Hopefully it won't happen...:-)

[Nikolai]

:hehIf you could just make SE be a Photoshop plugin whereby we could browse and edit photo's that are on Smugmug just like we can local files via the file browser... :wickedThanks for the good suggestion, appreciate that!
My immediate plans, however, are to make the whole thing work.
Work conveniently, reliably, fast, and, hopefully, better than everything else:-).
Once this "Phase One" is complete, then I will start go though the list and make extensions:-)
That is, of course, unless you're talking custom smugmug programmnig ;-), which is a totally separate issue:-)
In any case - I'm keeping the list of such nice ideas, so when the opportune moment comes, I'll have something already laid out and won't have to pull it out of the hat:-)

Thanks for using SE!

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

Build 0.1.0.47 can be downloaded from here:
http://www.smugmugexplorer.com/download/smugmugexplorer_010_047.zip (http://www.smugmugexplorer.com/download/smugmugexplorer_010_047.zip)

Caveat: some new functionality (autocreation and whatever comes with it) is non-finished, use at your own risk. The pre-existing stuff should work, though.

New stuff is mostly about facelift and convenience.

Pay attention to the hint area on a status bar, you may like what you see:-)

Also: there are outstanding issues (API bugs) with some characters in album title, desc and image chaption.
Bottom line: do not use &, <, ' in albums, and '," in captions.

FORGOT ONE THING: this version requires gdiplus.dll.
For XP/2003 users it's already there, for other versions:
get it from Microsoft site (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6A63AB9C-DF12-4D41-933C-BE590FEAA05A&displaylang=en).
Sorry, no Win95..

Cheers!:1drink

[philspace]

Thanks Nikolai - the api bug explains why some of my albums don't show up using smugmugexplorer - I will rename them and see what happens.

:thumb:bow

[Nikolai]

I didn't feel like doing much about what's gonna be fixed anyway, so I figured that a fair warning would suffice at this point..
Thanks for your time!:thumb
Cheers!:1drink

[philspace]

I didn't feel like doing much about what's gonna be fixed anyway, so I figured that a fair warning would suffice at this point..
Thanks for your time!:thumb
Cheers!:1drink
I got rid of the dashes and special characters on one folder, deleted the data folder and started from scratch - that didn't fix it. It must be something else and it is definately not a big deal.

Carry on and keep on doing your thing - you are on the right track - great UI :thumb

[Nikolai]

I got rid of the dashes and special characters on one folder, deleted the data folder and started from scratch - that didn't fix it. It must be something else and it is definately not a big deal.

Carry on and keep on doing your thing - you are on the right track - great UI :thumb
of the files/folders that you have problems with - that could have helped to ensure the fast resolution of this problem, if not on API side, then on mine.

Thanks again!:thumb Glad you like the changes:-)
Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

This version can automatically convert your BMPs into JPEGs (you'd need to add .bmp to your extensions list).
It's an old code from about two weeks ago.
The coming one will be able to handle everything GDI+ can and will give you a bit more options about this conversion.

HTH

CHeers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

I tried to reproduce the problem with those names.
I used one of the names that do not show up in your copy.
so I created an album, uploaded one image, reconnected - still can see it.
Here it is.
http://nik.smugmug.com/gallery/336195/1/13368166 (http://nik.smugmug.com/gallery/336195/1/13368166)
Everything seems normal...
I guess I need more facts, or something..
Cheers!:1drink

[philspace]

I tried to reproduce the problem with those names.
I used one of the names that do not show up in your copy.
so I created an album, uploaded one image, reconnected - still can see it.
Here it is.
http://nik.smugmug.com/gallery/336195/1/13368166 (http://nik.smugmug.com/gallery/336195/1/13368166)
Everything seems normal...
I guess I need more facts, or something..
Cheers!:1drink
Thanks - it's no big deal, I couldn't recreate it either. I even made a gallery with a similar name from explorer and it worked :scratch

[Nikolai]

This is an update to a previously release "unofficial beta" v.0.1.0.37.
Detail on a site and in the blog. Might be the last release for 2004.
Enjoy!
// forgot to say:
Now you can also overwite conversion target. This gives you an oppotunity to lower the quality of jpeg files, sometimes substantially squeezing the size without so much of a loss.
Resolution change is in the works - for those who unly upload low-res.. All the technicalitieas are covered, it's only a matter of UI, which could take some time - too many options to cover..

[rainforest1155]

Hi Nikolai,

thanks for your hard work. I hope you had a nice new year's celebration.
The new year always brings new problems:
I created a new subcategory for my daily photos today and therefore wanted to update the categories in SE, but it crashed and just disappeared. Therefore I turned on all logging options. No error, it just stopped writing the log, but I'll send you the whole thing per mail.
Hope you can make something out of it!

For others having problems, this is how the end of my log looks like:
01.01.2005 21:43:49: Finished Getting all sub categories for Rainforest1155 (0:00:02)
01.01.2005 21:43:49: CategoryID=0ÿSubCategoryID=31257ÿTitle=Norbert
01.01.2005 21:43:49: CategoryID=0ÿSubCategoryID=48574ÿTitle=2004 Backup
01.01.2005 21:43:49: CategoryID=27ÿSubCategoryID=21926ÿTitle=Daily Photo 2004
01.01.2005 21:43:49: CategoryID=27ÿSubCategoryID=53070ÿTitle=Daily Photo 2005
01.01.2005 21:43:49: Fin

Have a nice weekend,
Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Hi Nikolai,

thanks for your hard work. I hope you had a nice new year's celebration.
The new year always brings new problems:
I created a new subcategory for my daily photos today and therefore wanted to update the categories in SE, but it crashed and just disappeared. Therefore I turned on all logging options. No error, it just stopped writing the log, but I'll send you the whole thing per mail.
Hope you can make something out of it!

For others having problems, this is how the end of my log looks like:
01.01.2005 21:43:49: Finished Getting all sub categories for Rainforest1155 (0:00:02)
01.01.2005 21:43:49: CategoryID=0ÿSubCategoryID=31257ÿTitle=Norbert
01.01.2005 21:43:49: CategoryID=0ÿSubCategoryID=48574ÿTitle=2004 Backup
01.01.2005 21:43:49: CategoryID=27ÿSubCategoryID=21926ÿTitle=Daily Photo 2004
01.01.2005 21:43:49: CategoryID=27ÿSubCategoryID=53070ÿTitle=Daily Photo 2005
01.01.2005 21:43:49: Fin

Have a nice weekend,
SebastianThanks for the catch!
I have a few questions, if you don't mind..

Is it still happening, or was it a "one-time deal"?
What are the exact names of categories, sucategories and albums involved (reason: there are some open issues with API..) ?
Did you create new categories/subcategories while being "loggeg in" in SE, and then tried to refresh the list, or you did it before launching SE?
Just to be sure - are you using the lastest version (0.1.0.49)?
Thanks again - and I hope this would be your worst problem in 2005:-)
Cheers!:1drink

[rainforest1155]

Is it still happening, or was it a "one-time deal"?
What are the exact names of categories, sucategories and albums involved (reason: there are some open issues with API..) ?
Did you create new categories/subcategories while being "loggeg in" in SE, and then tried to refresh the list, or you did it before launching SE?
Just to be sure - are you using the lastest version (0.1.0.49)?
Thanks for your instant answear! Yeah I guess that this was my worst problem at the moment.

Yep, thought the problem would be the empty subcategories, but creating my albums manually didn't solve the crash with getting the categories. But getting the albums now also shows my new subcategories, so I can upload my pictures without problems.
The subcategories involved are in the code snippet you quoted, so there's no problems with not allowed characters, I guess.
Yeah, I guess I had SE still opened, but I've restarted SE 3 or 4 times and the crash is always the same.
Yep. I also send you the full log to the webmaster adress of your Sklobovsky-Homepage. I didn't see the SE mail adress in the logfile itself.
And for MSN, I can't get it to work anymore...I only got AIM, ICQ and YIM.
Take your time while looking into this thing, it's not urgent. At least for me.

Bye,
Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Thanks for your instant answear! Yeah I guess that this was my worst problem at the moment.

Yep, thought the problem would be the empty subcategories, but creating my albums manually didn't solve the crash with getting the categories. But getting the albums now also shows my new subcategories, so I can upload my pictures without problems.
The subcategories involved are in the code snippet you quoted, so there's no problems with not allowed characters, I guess.
Yeah, I guess I had SE still opened, but I've restarted SE 3 or 4 times and the crash is always the same.
Yep. I also send you the full log to the webmaster adress of your Sklobovsky-Homepage. I didn't see the SE mail adress in the logfile itself.
And for MSN, I can't get it to work anymore...I only got AIM, ICQ and YIM.
Take your time while looking into this thing, it's not urgent. At least for me.

Bye,
Sebastian

Still happens?
I need to know all names, not only subcats... SE didn't do it before, right? So if you can be so kind to provide the names of recently created categories/subcategories and albums... "Recently" meaning those you created after the last fully successful SE session (you can judge by the logs, their are very "time-based":-)
Latest version?
if you can please resend your email to se@photosocal.com. I didn't set up smugmugexplorer one yet, and homepage email still goes to work... I'll fix it today, but DNS changes may take up to 48 hours..
Thank you very much!
Cheers!:1drink

[rainforest1155]

Still happens?
I need to know all names, not only subcats... SE didn't do it before, right? So if you can be so kind to provide the names of recently created categories/subcategories and albums... "Recently" meaning those you created after the last fully successful SE session (you can judge by the logs, their are very "time-based":-)
Latest version?
if you can please resend your email to se@photosocal.com. I didn't set up smugmugexplorer one yet, and homepage email still goes to work... I'll fix it today, but DNS changes may take up to 48 hours..
Sorry for my unclear answears, I'll try it again.

Yes it still happens with the newest version 0.1.0.49.

Last time I used the "get categories" feature (not get albums, that works) was with version 0.1.0.28 and it still works with that version (I get an error message box: "List index out of bounds(5)" Apart from that it's working). I just checked by temporarily using this one (removing all config files of the new version).

I traced it back...0.1.0.36 was the last one not to crash, but display the error. 0.1.0.47 is my next version I have and there SE just crashes, so I guess the problem existed before, but didn't result in a fatal crash.

Just send you a mail with the newest log, there are all albums and categories listed.
I hope this helps you.

Bye,
Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Sorry for my unclear answears, I'll try it again.

Yes it still happens with the newest version 0.1.0.49.

Last time I used the "get categories" feature (not get albums, that works) was with version 0.1.0.28 and it still works with that version (I get an error message box: "List index out of bounds(5)" Apart from that it's working). I just checked by temporarily using this one (removing all config files of the new version).

I traced it back...0.1.0.36 was the last one not to crash, but display the error. 0.1.0.47 is my next version I have and there SE just crashes, so I guess the problem existed before, but didn't result in a fatal crash.

Just send you a mail with the newest log, there are all albums and categories listed.
I hope this helps you.

Bye,
Sebastian
Thanks for your detailed answers! I also got your logs this time.
Hopefully will get the fix soon (if it's me.. if this is an API... well, I'll let you know anyways:-)

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

Features:

fix for the GetCategories bug
more options for file conversion
etc.
Check SE home page (http://www.smugmugexplorer.com) for more details
Cheers!:1drink

[rainforest1155]

It works! :clap
I'm glad you could fix it, looked for me like a nasty little bugger.

[Nikolai]

It works! :clap
I'm glad you could fix it, looked for me like a nasty little bugger.The fix was very simple (literally what's called "one-liner"), to find it - that was the problem, and the info you were so kind to send played the key part in it.

Did you try image conversion yet? I'm interested in some feedback on that feature..
Cheers!:1drink

[rainforest1155]

Did you try image conversion yet? I'm interested in some feedback on that feature..Nope, actually I don't have any pictures I want to convert. I save all my post processed pictures as high quality jpgs and use psd only for not finished ones. Everything else is a waste of space for me.

- Thinking of it reminds me that I've got some panoramas in png and 1 in a big jpg (14MB) file. For these rare files it would be great if I could define the output-jpg of conversion by size. I want to preserve the most quality possible, but have to keep the file under 8MB for smugmug.
I know that such an option would require a lot more cpu-time, but I would like to have it anyways.
If it's not to hard to code of course, because I don't have a lot of pictures of this size.

- Don't know if you already implemented it, but it would be great if you could show a report in the end when a picture was skipped. Just looked at my log when I uploaded a directory with such a file with version 0.1.0.34: Looks like it was just skipped without mentioning and yes I guess the 8 MB filter in the settings was turned on.

- I've some albums with German umlaut (ä,Ä,ö,Ö,ü,Ü) and other characters like & and it would be nice if SE would display them correct and not as "&amp#252".
I don't know if you got a table with such characters somewhere, but these are the ones I used so far:
ü=&amp#252
ö=&amp#246
ä=&amp#228
&=&amp#38

- just one thing more comes to my mind: What about importing the ITPC-description of a picture into the caption-table of SE. I know that smugmug does that too, but this way I could check if I set everything right before uploading. I also could make some last minute changes to the captions without kicking the picture out, resave the IPTC and reimport it into SE.

Phew, that's all for now. I hope you can make something out of my chaos. And remember: you asked! :rofl

Bye,
Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Size dependent conversion
Yeah, that is still in my plans. Technically it's very simple, but UI make take some time..
Skipped pictures report
yeah, that one's easy, I'll make the changes hopefully for the next release
Special characters (umlauts, accents, etc.)
Well, for now it is kinda very low priority. But eventually I'll do that, I would need that from my Russian-named albums anyway:-)
ITPC description and other caption related work
Yes, it's in the plans. Some stuff will be done sooner, some later.
Speaking specifically about IPTC - I was (lazily) looking for it, but could not find an "ez2do" reference. If I find it (or if somebody points me to it:-), chances are that it will be "in" sooner.

HTH

Cheers!:1drink

[rainforest1155]

Sounds great, these things aren't that urgent, so take your time! :thumb
Concerning the IPTC stuff...I guessed that you're programming SE in delphi, so google digged this for me up:

<TABLE border=1><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=120>IPTC</TD><TD vAlign=top width=640>Delphi example of extracting IPTC info (http://www.efg2.com/Lab/Library/Delphi/Graphics/IPTC.zip) from a JPEG file that has such information.

dIPTC can read, write, and generate IPTC jpeg data. dIPTC is part of the dEXIF library and as such is 100% Delphi, VCL free, and open source. The latest version is available from http://mcguirez.homestead.com/downloads.html (http://mcguirez.homestead.com/downloads.html)

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

source: http://www.efg2.com/Lab/Library/Delphi/Graphics/FileFormatsAndConversion.htm

Hope this is usable stuff...if not let me know and I'll look some more.
Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Sounds great, these things aren't that urgent, so take your time! :thumb
Concerning the IPTC stuff...I guessed that you're programming SE in delphi, so google digged this for me up:

<TABLE border=1><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=120>IPTC</TD><TD vAlign=top width=640>Delphi example of extracting IPTC info (http://www.efg2.com/Lab/Library/Delphi/Graphics/IPTC.zip) from a JPEG file that has such information.


dIPTC can read, write, and generate IPTC jpeg data. dIPTC is part of the dEXIF library and as such is 100% Delphi, VCL free, and open source. The latest version is available from http://mcguirez.homestead.com/downloads.html (http://mcguirez.homestead.com/downloads.html)


</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

source: http://www.efg2.com/Lab/Library/Delphi/Graphics/FileFormatsAndConversion.htm

Hope this is usable stuff...if not let me know and I'll look some more.
Sebastian
I'll look into it. If it is what it says it is, chances are you might be getting your IPTC stuff much earlier than I thought:-)

Cheers!:1drink

[schoenof]

It would be great if you could support HTTP proxies so we could use this app from behind firewalls...
The coding changes required to support proxies are minimal....

Thanks!

Tony

[Nikolai]

It would be great if you could support HTTP proxies so we could use this app from behind firewalls...
The coding changes required to support proxies are minimal....

Thanks!

TonyThanks for the suggestion. I'll look into this.

Cheers!:1drink

[Aaron Christy]

I know this sounds like a silly request, but as far as I know, no other photo-uploader application has this ability. It would be great if Smugmug Explorer had a bandwidth throttle feature.

More specifically, I would like to cap off how fast I want the upload to occur (i.e. 150 kbps).

The reason for this request is that like many people, I am using a VoIP provider rather than a standard (POTS) telephone service and since it uses my broadband connection for phone service, large uploads can negatively impact the quality of my connection.

(... and yes, for those in the know out there, I am using the QoS feature of my router, but I have yet to have it work completely as expected ...)

I know that there are probably many other important features for SE, but this would be a great one to add!

I'm a brand new SE user and I'm still evaluating, but I've been very impressed so far, especially considering how new it is.

[Nikolai]

I know this sounds like a silly request, but as far as I know, no other photo-uploader application has this ability. It would be great if Smugmug Explorer had a bandwidth throttle feature.

More specifically, I would like to cap off how fast I want the upload to occur (i.e. 150 kbps).

The reason for this request is that like many people, I am using a VoIP provider rather than a standard (POTS) telephone service and since it uses my broadband connection for phone service, large uploads can negatively impact the quality of my connection.

(... and yes, for those in the know out there, I am using the QoS feature of my router, but I have yet to have it work completely as expected ...)

I know that there are probably many other important features for SE, but this would be a great one to add!

I'm a brand new SE user and I'm still evaluating, but I've been very impressed so far, especially considering how new it is.Thank you for trying SE out and for your kind remarks!

It's an interesting suggestion, and I do understand the reason for it.
However, at this moment I don't have a clear vision how to achieve it. It may be as simple as pausing between "batches", but I need to look into it.
I promise I'll keep it in my todo list, though:-)

Cheers!:1drink

[mslammers]

I got all the way to the login. The login fails.:wxwax I am using the same login and password and can login directly. My browser is Firefox. Any Ideas?:dunno

http://nik.wyw.ru/products/smugmug_explorer/
CHANGED to: http://www.sklobovsky.com/community/smugmug

I forged it in Word, it certainly lacks "style", but hey, it works, and I can update it :-)

Thanks again!

[Nikolai]

I got all the way to the login. The login fails.:wxwax I am using the same login and password and can login directly. My browser is Firefox. Any Ideas?:dunno
Sorry about your troubles..:-(

Are you using the latest version (www.smugmugexplorer.com (http://www.smugmugexplorer.com))?
Are you using a proxy?
Are you using SSL?
If nothing else, make sure you get the latest version, enable all availalbe logging options and email me the log...

Thanks!

[mslammers]

Email sent. I am using latest version, no proxy, using SSL as required by apps.

Sorry about your troubles..:-(



Are you using the latest version (www.smugmugexplorer.com (http://www.smugmugexplorer.com))?
Are you using a proxy?
Are you using SSL?
If nothing else, make sure you get the latest version, enable all availalbe logging options and email me the log...

Thanks!

[Nikolai]

Email sent. I am using latest version, no proxy, using SSL as required by apps.Mel,
Thank you for the log!
I'll look into it, if not now (I don't have latest source code at work) then at least tonite, when I get home.
I'll notify you as soon as I got any new info on it.
Thanks!

[Nikolai]

Got an automated response from earthlink that it's moved to junk suspect.

Check your email plz:-)!

[blackwaterstudio]

Nvm got it to work :)

Thanks for a great program

[Nikolai]

Nvm got it to work :)
I would really apreciate the info - need to know what to fix or make easier..


Thanks for a great program
My pleasure, thanks for trying it out!

Cheers!:1drink

[blackwaterstudio]

I would really apreciate the info - need to know what to fix or make easier..


My pleasure, thanks for trying it out!

Cheers!:1drink
I was using firefox, first time I tried it I didn't have the SSL files in the same folder, installed them into the same folder and bam it worked fine.

Just a suggestion, but why not zip the SSL files with the .exe file?

[Nikolai]

I made SE proxy aware, but I don't currently have a way to test it. I need somebody (1-2 ppl would be plenty) willing to spent some time tonight (6-7 pm Pacific Time, GMT-8) checking if it works. I will upload new version to some place and let the tester know the URL over PM or email, whatever you choose.
Please reply here if you want to play this game:-)
TIA!:thumb

[Nikolai]

I was using firefox, first time I tried it I didn't have the SSL files in the same folder, installed them into the same folder and bam it worked fine.

Just a suggestion, but why not zip the SSL files with the .exe file?
Very simple reason - those SSL stays the same (at least for now), exe changes frequently. Once you have them - you don't need them anymore. I don't want to waist your (and mine) bandwidth over sending the same files over and over again.

Once SE goes into "production" (later this summer), there will be some kind of installer to take care of those things. For now - please bear with the "manual install annoyances"!

Thanks again for a quick resolution!

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

I decided to bite the bullet and uploaded the new version. Proxy, EXIF - and many other things. See the home page.

[dilbert]

thats an easy one, download and unzip the ssl_dlls.zip and try again, everything should work.
From the smugmug explorer webpage

http://www.smugmugexplorer.com/download/ssl_dlls.zip

I got all the way to the login. The login fails.:wxwax I am using the same login and password and can login directly. My browser is Firefox. Any Ideas?:dunno

[Baldy]

Go Nikolai:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1034&message=11787243

[Nikolai]

Go Nikolai:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1034&message=11787243Getting there, step by step:-)
"With the little help of my friends":-):thumb
Cheers!:1drink

[rainforest1155]

I decided to bite the bullet and uploaded the new version. Proxy, EXIF - and many other things. See the home page.Thanks for the new version. I just had some time to look a bit into it.
ITPC+EXIF-display works for me, at least for few pictures I had a look at.

Now that the basics are implemented I would like to see a field in options where I can "build" my own caption and keyword-field based on IPTC, EXIF and filename. In combination with regular expressions (some info: http://regexpstudio.com/ ) or some other kind of filter, that should be individual chooseable for every field in order to filter out unwanted characters e.g. from the filename, this would be the ultimate captioning tool to automate my workflow. :bow :clap

What do you think? :D

Bye,
Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Thanks for the new version. I just had some time to look a bit into it.
ITPC+EXIF-display works for me, at least for few pictures I had a look at.

Now that the basics are implemented I would like to see a field in options where I can "build" my own caption and keyword-field based on IPTC, EXIF and filename. In combination with regular expressions (some info: http://regexpstudio.com/ ) or some other kind of filter, that should be individual chooseable for every field in order to filter out unwanted characters e.g. from the filename, this would be the ultimate captioning tool to automate my workflow. :bow :clap

What do you think? :D

Bye,
Sebastian
This "advanced captioning" IS what I was thinking about since I added IPTC/EXIF support.:-)

For now I imagine it in the form of user-formattable string containing "macros" like:

%caption% - existing caption (i.e. before new "formula" is applied)
%filename% - image filename w/o extension - I'm even thinking of having variations like %filename%, %Filename%, %FileName% and %FILENAME%, which would automatically take care of proper word capitalization
%datetime%, %date%, %time% - exif- or file-based timestamp info
%iptc_xxx% and %exif_xxx% - relevant items from meta data
etc.:-)
However, as you probably would agree, this whole thing needs to be implemented very carefully, otherwise it would become a "scary feature" nobody except you and me would use:-)

Other than that - I think you ARE reading my mind:-):thumb

As a side comment - there are few other "basics" that I need to take care of first:-). I may come out with a rough preliminary version of advanced captioning some time soon, but the actual fancy solution probably will take place later.

Thank you very much for your support!

Cheers!:1drink

[rainforest1155]

This "advanced captioning" IS what I was thinking about since I added IPTC/EXIF support.:-)

However, as you probably would agree, this whole thing needs to be implemented very carefully, otherwise it would become a "scary feature" nobody except you and me would use:-)
Yeah, I knew it that you've already some ideas on how to realize all that, but I just wanted to let the others know! :D
Take your time implementing, as you already pointed out this whole thing has to be user friendly.

What about regular expressions? Would be very useful for filenames longer filesnames with various information included, where only a certain part is necessary for captioning. Personally I wouldn't need it that much, but maybe others. :dunno

[Nikolai]

What about regular expressions? Would be very useful for filenames longer filesnames with various information included, where only a certain part is necessary for captioning. Personally I wouldn't need it that much, but maybe others. :dunnoWell, here is my take on it.

It's a nice feature. And with TRegExp being ready, free and all, it would be a relatively simple thing to do (thanks for the link, by the way).
However, SE is NOT a generic album management software. This market is already heavily populated by many well-established companies that have been in that business for a long time. I, being a "spare-time-only-one-man-army", would not stand a chance.
SE was originally designed for and continues to pursue a very limited goal - bring more convenience for PC-based smugmug user via adding some windows-specific features that are very hard to achieve for the original web-based (or cross platform) solution.
Smugmug is your (online) album management piece, and its recently introduced features (like keywords and timeline) improves its position on that market a lot.

I'm not even talking about a very complex nature of the regular expressions usage from the end-user standpoint. Not so long ago here at dgrin we were having a very heated discussion about adding "fit to media" (aka "best fit", aka "white margins", etc.:-) option to the shopping cart. The primary argument of Onethumb was that majority of SM users would simply not understand what it is, become confused, frustrated and hence disappointed, thus descreasing the CSI and consequently impairing the business.
One simple option! Regular expression usage would be a mammoth compared to an ant. How many would use it? 10? 20? I would say that would be plenty. How many would be scared away by a simple fact that this product provides a feature they cannot possibly comprehend? Hundreds, if not thousands.

Having said all that, I will take a good notice of the regular expressions, as well as the other features you and others suggested here at dgrin and in via email. Shall the time come when it would be natural to add them - I don't have any problems of doing it.

However, at this point in time I still have a lot to cover (trust me, you've only seen the tip of the iceberg:-), so I highly doubt I'll be introducing regular expressions support in "Phase One".

Hope you understand my point!

Cheers!:1drink

[bradrob]

It would be great if you could support HTTP proxies so we could use this app from behind firewalls...
I made SE proxy aware, but I don't currently have a way to test it. ...For those looking for a proxy enabled version, v0.1.0.58 has it and it works! :thumb
No SSL yet. You must disable it (Tools-->Options : SSL Usage - uncheck ALL boxes) to be able to use SE from behind a proxy.

Thanks Nikolai, keep up the good work!

[Nikolai]

For those looking for a proxy enabled version, v0.1.0.58 has it and it works! :thumb
No SSL yet. You must disable it (Tools-->Options : SSL Usage - uncheck ALL boxes) to be able to use SE from behind a proxy.

Thanks Nikolai, keep up the good work!
SSL proxy support is a little separate thing, which was not implemented in this version. Once I'm back from the show, it will be one of the first things on my "to do" list.

Cheers!:1drink

[acitrano]

Nikolai,

Good product - very useful. I just paypal'd you some cash. Keep up the good work.

[Nikolai]

Nikolai,

Good product - very useful. I just paypal'd you some cash. Keep up the good work.Thank you for using SE - and for supporting it! Your name's been added to SE's little (but growing:-) "Hall of Fame":-)

Cheers!:1drink

[TheDuck]

My friend in Germany loves SME, Nikolai, but my first time trying it caused it to hang on the first photo upload (I had to alt-ctl-delete and close the "not responding" SmugMug Explorer program). I'm having all sorts of trouble with uploading photos to the SmugMug website this past week, so the problem with SME is probably related. I'm hopeful that you can look at whatever error codes were encountered by SME that caused it to lock up to improve your program and to get me moving again!

I'm running XP home on a fairly new PC. No spyware or viruses on the machine, so as a user - I'm stumped! Let me know what I can do to get debugging info to you!

Thanks, and be seeing you,
The Duck

[Nikolai]

My friend in Germany loves SME, Nikolai, but my first time trying it caused it to hang on the first photo upload (I had to alt-ctl-delete and close the "not responding" SmugMug Explorer program). I'm having all sorts of trouble with uploading photos to the SmugMug website this past week, so the problem with SME is probably related. I'm hopeful that you can look at whatever error codes were encountered by SME that caused it to lock up to improve your program and to get me moving again!

I'm running XP home on a fairly new PC. No spyware or viruses on the machine, so as a user - I'm stumped! Let me know what I can do to get debugging info to you!

Thanks, and be seeing you,
The Duck
Really sorry about your troubles..:-(
I might need the detailed log.
To to options, enable detailed logging, run SE, and, if errors prevail, send me the log (support@smugmugexplorer.com). You may also take a look at it first and remove all the confidential info you want.
Thank you for trying SE!:thumb

[marjorie]

http://nik.wyw.ru/products/smugmug_explorer/
CHANGED to: http://www.sklobovsky.com/community/smugmug

I forged it in Word, it certainly lacks "style", but hey, it works, and I can update it :-)

Thanks again!
The links do not work (January 23, 2005)

[marjorie]

The links do not work (January 23, 2005)
I have now read all 15 pages of this thread and found that the links on the beginning pages were replaced with the new ones: http://www.smugmugexplorer.com/
and
http://www.smugmugexplorer.com/
which are linked on each note as "home" and "news"

I found this out by trial and error. It would be nice for first time readers if some note was added to the effect that "earlier links have been replaced by "home" and "news."

Thanks!

[marjorie]

I have now read all 15 pages of this thread and found that the links on the beginning pages were replaced with the new ones: http://www.smugmugexplorer.com/
and
http://www.smugmugexplorer.com/
which are linked on each note as "home" and "news"

I found this out by trial and error. It would be nice for first time readers if some note was added to the effect that "earlier links have been replaced by "home" and "news."

Thanks!
Next time you update SE, you might also eliminate the link to Arthor's Homepage at www.Sklobovsky.com (http://www.Sklobovsky.com) since it apparantly no longer exists.

[TheDuck]

Really sorry about your troubles..:-(
I might need the detailed log.
To to options, enable detailed logging, run SE, and, if errors prevail, send me the log (support@smugmugexplorer.com). You may also take a look at it first and remove all the confidential info you want.
Thank you for trying SE!:thumb
Thanks for your offer to help, Nikolai! I've rerun SE with the detailed log, and I've emailed the log to you. For the benefit of anyone else reading this thread:

1) kudos to Nikolai for supporting his software!! We all know how rare that is with "real" companies these days - if you like SE - send a contribution!

2) if you suspect you're having a similar problem - my two errors appear to be Error: Read Timeout (EIdReadTimeout) and Error: Socket Error # 10022 Invalid argument. (EIdSocketError)

Be seeing you,
The Duck

[Aaron Christy]

I am in the process of scanning a very large quantity of old 35mm slides using a Nikon Coolscan 5000 film scanner. Since many of these slides are for my parents, I wanted to be able to share them on smugmug for them to view after each "album" is uploaded.

I am scanning each slide at 4000 DPI with the maximum quality set on each .jpg. This means each .jpg file is around 12.5 megs.

I attempted to upload my first batch of these to smugmug using SE and it does not let me add any of the files to my upload queue. Figuring that it had something to do with the size of the individual files, I changed some of my scan settings and was able to add the files when scanned at 500 DPI (289KB file) and 2000 DPI (4,035KB file), but was not able to upload them via SE using 2500 DPI (~6,000KB file) or 3000 DPI (8,315KB file).

This begs the question: is there an individual file size limit for SE?

Thanks for your help and your great software!

[Nikolai]

Next time you update SE, you might also eliminate the link to Arthor's Homepage at www.Sklobovsky.com (http://www.sklobovsky.com/) since it apparantly no longer exists.
Thank you very much for trying SE!

I sincerely apologize for the confusion. Due to a numerous and various reasons (one of them being very unexpected warm and broad welcome of the application:-) I had to change the location of the smugmug explorer several times. Hopefully it stays where it is now for a longer time, since I managed to get both dedicated domain name and a hosting for it.

As I mentioned some time ago, I currentlly cannot make any changes to the software due to the workload at the workplace related to a trade show. SO for now you have to igonre some links in the About dialog, sorry about that..

I guess I need to go through all the pages on the Dgrin and update all the links. I will do that. Not that it would help you (you have already suffered and found your way out), but it will definitely help the others.

Please accept my apologies - and my gratitude for pointing this issue out!

And, by the way - www.sklobovsky.com (http://www.sklobovsky.com) is working. It may be up and down (freeservers turned out not to be a very reliable place, that's why I moved SE from there in the first place), but most of the times it's up..:-) Just checked it out, it was up and running:-)

Thank you for your time and patience!

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

Thanks for your offer to help, Nikolai! I've rerun SE with the detailed log, and I've emailed the log to you. For the benefit of anyone else reading this thread:

1) kudos to Nikolai for supporting his software!! We all know how rare that is with "real" companies these days - if you like SE - send a contribution!

2) if you suspect you're having a similar problem - my two errors appear to be Error: Read Timeout (EIdReadTimeout) and Error: Socket Error # 10022 Invalid argument. (EIdSocketError)

Be seeing you,
The Duck

I appreciate your patience and your kind words about SE and myeself!

I received your emails, I'll check them out and get back to you as soon as I have something to say:-). Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, I'm currently "out of development" due to the trade show. However, it's gonna end much sooner than I expected, I hope to be "back in business" by Feb 1st. So if your issues require some dev work - they'd have to wait:dunno , but if it is a configuration issue - it might be faster:-)

Thanks again!

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

I am in the process of scanning a very large quantity of old 35mm slides using a Nikon Coolscan 5000 film scanner. Since many of these slides are for my parents, I wanted to be able to share them on smugmug for them to view after each "album" is uploaded.

I am scanning each slide at 4000 DPI with the maximum quality set on each .jpg. This means each .jpg file is around 12.5 megs.

I attempted to upload my first batch of these to smugmug using SE and it does not let me add any of the files to my upload queue. Figuring that it had something to do with the size of the individual files, I changed some of my scan settings and was able to add the files when scanned at 500 DPI (289KB file) and 2000 DPI (4,035KB file), but was not able to upload them via SE using 2500 DPI (~6,000KB file) or 3000 DPI (8,315KB file).

This begs the question: is there an individual file size limit for SE?

Thanks for your help and your great software!
First of all - thank you very much for your contribution!

8mb per file is a smugmug limit. I made it configurable only to avoid needless updates in case they change this limit - or if you want to be "holier than the pope":-) and want to restirct yourself from accidental uploading of some huge files (by setting the limit to a lower value). 6Mb files should be OK - that is, of course, if your connection can withstand a contiguos upload of such a file.

Can you try of of such files with smugmug "standard" uploader(s) and the compare it to SE's one? That may help.

Also, try to enable all the logging options and look at the logs. I tried to make loggin as descriptive as possible, so it may give you some ideas of what went wrong. If the log is still too technical (which may be:-), please send the log to me (support@smugmugexplorer.com), and I'll do my best to help you.

Thanks again for your support!:thumb

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

It seems like the first file was slightly above smugmug 8mb limit.

I know that SE should have catch that first, but I think we're getting to a gray area with regard to "how you count the megabytes". It's an eternal problem of "kilo" being either 1,000 or 1,024. And from there "mega" being 1,000,000 bytes, or 1,000 "Kilobytes" (whatever the "kilobyte" means:-), or 2^10 bytes... So here is' where you (we all) need to experiment about what is the exact meaning of "8Mb" from smugmug point of view.

That said, I did have experience problems in the past, that if the first (or any, for that matter) file exceeds that limit, all the following uploads will fail, at least within some limited time frame. I didn't have a chance to explore the reason of that consuquent failures (time frame? same session? same user?), but I did observe that behaviour.

Can you please try some set of smaller files (1Mb..7Mb) and let me know?

Thank you!

[Aaron Christy]

Can you please try some set of smaller files (1Mb..7Mb) and let me know?

I changed my scan settings to allow a little better compression for my JPG outputs and added a macro to also do full resolution TIF files for achival. My .jpg file size are now in the 6-7MB range and I had no trouble uploading a bunch of them this morning.

Thanks for your quick response!

[Nikolai]

I changed my scan settings to allow a little better compression for my JPG outputs and added a macro to also do full resolution TIF files for achival. My .jpg file size are now in the 6-7MB range and I had no trouble uploading a bunch of them this morning.

Thanks for your quick response!Nice to know, thank for posting the info!

I guess auto-resizing would be a next option I'd need to add soon.

In the mean time you probably can avoid an extra manual work by trying the following:

get your hi-res images as tiffs
specify tiff as an applicable format for SE
in the Conversion section mark tiff as a format to convert to jpeg
play with the JPEG compression settings to make sure you biggest tiff fits within the limits. SE converts a file immediately after you drop/add it, but before the upload, which you can then cancel.
this way you have your archivals, and SE will automatically create an uploadable jpeg for you.

I plan to make it more easy, more convenient and more flexible in the nearest future.

Cheers!:1drink

[PeteWilson]

Nikolai

Thought I'd let you and the world know of my success in using SE under Mac OS X.

Of course, not native. But running Win XP under Virtual PC 7.0.1 on my Mac (Mac OS 10.3.7, dual 1.25 GHz G4) the uploads are working perfectly. Transfer rate (Roadrunner cable) is about 45 KB/sec, the same as native Mac uploads.

Interestingly, the otherwise most excellent Mac OS X smugmug uploader had serious problems uploading this batch of images - just uploaded the top half of each image. Picturesync had the same problem. smugmug's Windows Internet Explorer upload worked fine (under VirtualPC) but of course - that 100 MB limit is a real pain. On reporting this, smugmug - excellent support - suggested trying smugmug explorer and yay! it works.

Thanks!

-- Pete

[Nikolai]

Thank you for the great news, Pete!:thumb
I guess I was wrong when I assumed SE is for us poor wintel bigots only:D
Cheers!:1drink

[FAU4U]

FYI, Smugmug has two file limits: 8 mega bytes for any file, and not more than 30 mega pixels. Exceed either limit and file will be rejected. So scanning at 2" negative at 4000dpi would result in a 8000x8000 pixel file which equates to 64 MP exceeding the 30MP limit; if one compresses the file using a lower quality setting this will only help with the file-bytes limit, the file dimensions will not change.

jlw



First of all - thank you very much for your contribution!

8mb per file is a smugmug limit. I made it configurable only to avoid needless updates in case they change this limit - or if you want to be "holier than the pope":-) and want to restirct yourself from accidental uploading of some huge files (by setting the limit to a lower value). 6Mb files should be OK - that is, of course, if your connection can withstand a contiguos upload of such a file.

Can you try of of such files with smugmug "standard" uploader(s) and the compare it to SE's one? That may help.

Also, try to enable all the logging options and look at the logs. I tried to make loggin as descriptive as possible, so it may give you some ideas of what went wrong. If the log is still too technical (which may be:-), please send the log to me (support@smugmugexplorer.com), and I'll do my best to help you.

Thanks again for your support!:thumb

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

I was not aware of the second one, but now, thanks to you, I am:-):thumb
Cheers!:1drink

[FAU4U]

Nikolai:

Here is an abstract from Smugmug's help page that addresses file limits

James Wilson (a loyal and delighted smugmug explorer user and contributor)

Preparing photos: Supported files

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>http://www.smugmug.com/img/help/bigfish.gifSmugmug supports the two types of photo files that are compatible with virtually every browser: JPEG and GIF images, including animated GIFs.


(Note that animated GIFs only animate when they are viewed at their original size, not necessarily when they are viewed as thumbnails.)

The current size limitations are:

8 megabytes or 30 megapixels.

We do our best to support other file formats you may upload, such as PSD, BMP, TIFF, and WMF. Unforunately, there are two important provisos:

1. PSD, BMP, and TIFF files are often HUGE! It may take a long time to upload them depending on your connection.

2. We convert all formats but GIF to JPEG when we receive them; they are stored in our database and displayed as JPEGs. Although we can successfully convert most of them, we are unable to succeed 100% of the time. You might check the help section on preparing photos (http://www.smugmug.com/help/photo-storage) for tools that can help you convert them before you upload.

For video clips, we support the ubiquitous MPEG-1 format (http://www.smugmug.com/help/video-clips-online).


</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>





I was not aware of the second one, but now, thanks to you, I am:-):thumb
Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

I remember now, I saw that 30 mp..
But since I don't do film/scannig, and 30mp digital is waaaaaaaay above my budget:-) I mentally discarded it as a redundant info, since 8Mb would be my primary limitation in 100% of cases.

And, I guess, somebody has to like the autoconversion function I added to SE (http://www,smugmugexplorer.com) earlier in January...

Cheers!:1drink

[FAU4U]

Is there documentation on SE - there are probably many features that I am not using - including the autoconversion function ?!?!

JimWilson


I remember now, I saw that 30 mp..
But since I don't do film/scannig, and 30mp digital is waaaaaaaay above my budget:-) I mentally discarded it as a redundant info, since 8Mb would be my primary limitation in 100% of cases.

And, I guess, somebody has to like the autoconversion function I added to SE (http://www,smugmugexplorer.com/) earlier in January...

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

Is there documentation on SE - there are probably many features that I am not using - including the autoconversion function ?!?!

JimWilsonmy bad - this feature (and quite a few others) are not covered by FAQ..

However, I think I was pretty accurate listing them in the "what's new" part of each version update.

Here is an excerpt for your (and others' :-) convenience:

Major facelift for the website, including all new FAQ
Download/initial install is now more streamlined
Added option to open URLs in new browser window (Misc tab)
Stats can now be viewed by year/month
Added list data export to CSV (clipboard and file) for both album and uploade lists
Tony asked for proxy - proxy support added (not tested!)
Added (optional) workaround for apostrophes (' --> `) in albums Description
Added "use existing" to "target exists" option
Options are saved upon exiting options dialog
Added image keywords in hope that API will follow
Characters & and < now work in createAlbum
Character % in image captions generated internal format error - fixed
EXIF/IPTC info (with OEM-specific data) provided - for now in caption editor only
Auto Create Albums (Ctrl+Shift+U) works
Skipped files are now reported in the log
Smarter version difference detection, build# is now ignored (for versions AFTER this, though)
AutoCreateAlbums feature works.
HTTP Timeout introduced.
About dialog links have popup menu
If you drop a large set of files/folders, you can cancel the process now
If you try to close the app while it's busy online, it would warn you
Auto scroll check box added to Terminal panel
User can save/reset/reset to factory all the preferences
User have control over what's logged and what's not. Recommendation is to keep it to factory setting or less, and only log more if you need to report the problem.
Multi-album upload. Check context menu. Select album and drag files.
Editable captions
Various sorting options (via popup menu) to control initial image arrangement
Both upload methods work with or without verification (option)
If upload is cancelled, you still should be able to see what's left
Account editor, Options editor and even rather useful About dialog (F1)
Backward compatibility check
Another suggestion is to go through Options dialog and see what's there..:rolleyes As well as to try right mouse button (context menu) on everything - you'll find a whole bunch of minor and not-so-minor goodies..

Sorry for being so lousy in documenting my work, still trying to catch up with new API, friendly competitions and my own plans...

Cheers!:1drink

[onethumb]

FYI, Smugmug has two file limits: 8 mega bytes for any file, and not more than 30 mega pixels. Exceed either limit and file will be rejected. So scanning at 2" negative at 4000dpi would result in a 8000x8000 pixel file which equates to 64 MP exceeding the 30MP limit; if one compresses the file using a lower quality setting this will only help with the file-bytes limit, the file dimensions will not change.

jlw

FYI, we're talking about upping both the size limit and pixel limit for Pro accounts only.

No promises as to whether we'll actually do it, timeframe, or anything else, but I'm inclined to do 20MB and 50Mpix. Other account types would still be limited to 8MB/30Mpix.

We'll see what happens.

Don

[Nikolai]

FYI, we're talking about upping both the size limit and pixel limit for Pro accounts only.

No promises as to whether we'll actually do it, timeframe, or anything else, but I'm inclined to do 20MB and 50Mpix. Other account types would still be limited to 8MB/30Mpix.

We'll see what happens.

Don
And when this happy days comes, all it would take for SE users is to change one setting in the Options:-).

Thank you for the heads-up, Don!:thumb

Cheers!

[FAU4U]

That's is good news indeed as a Canon 1DsMk2 user, I'm having a terrible time having to worry about the 8MB limit with a 16.7 MPix camera, as many files are over 8MB when ISOs at high. (And if we are going to print 20x30 we need the pixel count to have good results. If I cannot print at 300dpi, then I have to find another printer for the larger stuff.)

Thanks to Nik his SE has solved the 100MB up loading issues, so I can bulk-upload hundreds of files in the late evenings.

Also, food for thought, the movie mode should have MPEG-4 capability as most of the digital camera Manufacturers are switching from MOV and MPEG-1, and have announced at current pre-PMA meetings that they are switching to this higher quality compression format. Approx 8x TIME with improved quality, over MPEG-1 format for the same memory consumption.

You guys and gals at smugmug have a great thing going here, and I for one would gladly pay-up more $$$ per year for these added benefits for the pro-user, so that you keep up with present day technology; and I would hope for prompt development times.

jw


FYI, we're talking about upping both the size limit and pixel limit for Pro accounts only.

No promises as to whether we'll actually do it, timeframe, or anything else, but I'm inclined to do 20MB and 50Mpix. Other account types would still be limited to 8MB/30Mpix.

We'll see what happens.

Don

[gus]

You blokes ever just feel a change in the wind & think..

" hmm...today i pull on my favorite animal skin ...find best club & go hunt some food ?"

[Nikolai]

You blokes ever just feel a change in the wind & think..

" hmm...today i pull on my favorite animal skin ...find best club & go hunt some food ?"The tools have changed, nowadays I use debugger instead of the club/bow/spear/boomerang/etc, but the nature of the game is the same - survival of the fittest...

[mslammers]

I remember now, I saw that 30 mp..
But since I don't do film/scannig, and 30mp digital is waaaaaaaay above my budget:-) I mentally discarded it as a redundant info, since 8Mb would be my primary limitation in 100% of cases.

And, I guess, somebody has to like the autoconversion function I added to SE (http://www,smugmugexplorer.com) earlier in January...

Cheers!:1drink Well, Nik here are the stats from my upload. Note the dates on the left and hours in the bottom line. I started this as a test so I just bulled my way in and only after started checking the capabilities of SE. Hence I have one giant 1115 page gallery with 9084 photos. On the good news side, the computer never quit or the connection never quit (Thanks Earthlink/Time Warner cable broadband). Of course it only uploaded at 350KB hence the long time. Also, my HDD file structure leaves something to be desired so I am taking this opportunity to redesign things, both in smugmug and my HDD.:):

2/27/2005 6:24:05 PM: Started Uploading 9084 files, 18.16 GB
3/5/2005 2:55:15 AM: Finished Upload: 9,084 files, 18.16 GB (128:14:02)
3/5/2005 2:55:27 AM: Finished Uploading (128:14:14)

[Nikolai]

Well, Nik here are the stats from my upload. Note the dates on the left and hours in the bottom line. I started this as a test so I just bulled my way in and only after started checking the capabilities of SE. Hence I have one giant 1115 page gallery with 9084 photos. On the good news side, the computer never quit or the connection never quit (Thanks Earthlink/Time Warner cable broadband). Of course it only uploaded at 350KB hence the long time. Also, my HDD file structure leaves something to be desired so I am taking this opportunity to redesign things, both in smugmug and my HDD.:):

2/27/2005 6:24:05 PM: Started Uploading 9084 files, 18.16 GB
3/5/2005 2:55:15 AM: Finished Upload: 9,084 files, 18.16 GB (128:14:02)
3/5/2005 2:55:27 AM: Finished Uploading (128:14:14)
Appreciate your sharing - and your trust in SE!:thumb

Cheers!:1drink

[ndsimm]

Appreciate your sharing - and your trust in SE!:thumb

Cheers!:1drinkwish I had found this forum when I first joined smugmug. Is this program still in beta or is the full version available? either wayI'd like to try it

[rainforest1155]

wish I had found this forum when I first joined smugmug. Is this program still in beta or is the full version available? either wayI'd like to try itIt's still in devolopment, but works very stable as you can see on the fact that someone Mel did an almost 20GB upload in one sitting.
Head over to www.smugmugexplorer.com (http://www.smugmugexplorer.com/) for more details.

Sebastian

P.S. Welcome to dgrin! Hope you enjoy your stay here. :D

[Nikolai]

wish I had found this forum when I first joined smugmug. Is this program still in beta or is the full version available? either wayI'd like to try it
Officially iSE is still in beta (no fancy installer, no user agreement, no help files, etc.:-), But, as Sebastian mentioned, lots of people find it usefull already (my websote hit counter is currently at 6,300+ - and counting:-).
For now SE is in a trial mode (meaning: you don't have to pay anything:-), so you simply can download the full version and start using it. There is a FAQ, I'd suggest you look at it if you unsure how to start.
There is also a (non-free) PRO version, which features certain pro-related advanced features (and will feature way more in the future).

HTH

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

It's still in devolopment, but works very stable as you can see on the fact that someone Mel did an almost 20GB upload in one sitting.
Head over to www.smugmugexplorer.com (http://www.smugmugexplorer.com/) for more details.

Sebastian

P.S. Welcome to dgrin! Hope you enjoy your stay here. :D
As always, I appreciate your support:-):thumb

[lumbus]

Yeah, my only fear is that it becomes no longer profitable for them to allow unlimited storage space to their users. I suppose their thinking is that the mojority of their users are not going to upload gigs and gigs of photos so it works out for them.

I hope they can continue to offer this "unlimited" service in the future.
(Sorry about the late reply.)

Sounds like a valid concern to me. I guess that smugmug can offer this "unlimited" service based on two assumptions:

a. There is some sort of probability of prints being sold for the average picture.
b. The vast majority of users do not upload "unlimited" amounts of data.

It is cheaper to get a smugmug account than to buy a server with a 1 TB RAID array or something, but if too many people used their smugmug accounts as their personal file server it would not be possible to offer "unlimited" storage anymore. Storage costs money, after all. Also, with the 16 GB/month limit, it could take quite a while to get your files off of smugmug, should you suddenly need to.

Obviously, I don't speak for smugmug.... Just some random thoughts on the subject. Hope you don't mind.

[Crvtte65]

to have SE disconnect completely (and require login again) after a specified period of inactivity. Many times, I get all my photo's ready to upload, throw them in a folder, start it, then leave for whatever (class, work etc). I would be more comfortable if the connection closed after 5 min. of inactivity etc. Call me paranoid.

I used to use Imageevent with SmartFTP and in the logon sequence it said I would be disconnected after 15 min. of inactivity. I looked around the settings and Knowledge base but I cannot find a way to change it so either it cannot be changed or it is set by Imageevent.

What do you think, the FTP server disconnecting or the FTP program?

[Nikolai]

to have SE disconnect completely (and require login again) after a specified period of inactivity
It's a valid concern, and I'll do it asap. Hopefully this weekend, if my other stuff I'm currently working on is ready.

Thank you for the good suggestion:thumb

Cheers!:1drink

[eugene]

Can you print out the new image id after the "Finished Uploading C:\blahblahblah" message? I use the image id for my website to get "Order This Print" to work. Right now I have to go to gallery, open the newly uploaded image and then cut and paste the image id from the url.

Thanks,
Eugene
http://eugene.photopickles.com

[Nikolai]

Can you print out the new image id after the "Finished Uploading C:\blahblahblah" message? I use the image id for my website to get "Order This Print" to work. Right now I have to go to gallery, open the newly uploaded image and then cut and paste the image id from the url.

Thanks,
Eugene
http://eugene.photopickles.com
Eugene,
thank you for your suggestion!
I put some additional logging for album creation.
However, there are many ways to get new album id without going online to SM even with the existing version.
The easiest way, I think, is to do the following:

Navigate to the root of the tree (or category subcategory in which new albums were created, but the root is fine)
In the albums list view click on the Album ID one or two times to achieve descending sorting. This way all your most recently created albums will be on the top of the list
Select lines with the albums in whose IDs you're interested
Hit right-mouse button
From the context menu select export to clipboard (or to the csv file, if you prefer)
Use the results:-)
HTH

Cheers!:1drink

[rainforest1155]

Eugene,
thank you for your suggestion!
I put some additional logging for album creation.
However, there are many ways to get new album id without going online to SM even with the existing version.
Nik,
I think you overlooked a word...Eugene was refering to the image id:
Can you print out the new image id after the "Finished Uploading C:\blahblahblah" message? I use the image id for my website to get "Order This Print" to work.If I'm not mistaken that's not possible with SE, yet, but it'll be in some time. We all have to be patient a littlemore I guess.

Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Nik,
I think you overlooked a word...Eugene was refering to the image id:
If I'm not mistaken that's not possible with SE, yet, but it'll be in some time. We all have to be patient a littlemore I guess.

Sebastian
That's why we have QA at work, to correct a programmer :-)
I apologize for the confusion..

I will add this option to logging part for now. *Eventually* there will be an easier way.
ETA - tonight (GMT-8), if other thing is ready. In any case it will be in the next version, whenever it'll happen..

Thanks Eugene and Sebastian!

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

Nik,
I think you overlooked a word...Eugene was refering to the image id:
If I'm not mistaken that's not possible with SE, yet, but it'll be in some time. We all have to be patient a littlemore I guess.

SebastianYes, I overlooked the word, but it IS a way to get image ids even now:-)
Got to Options, Log and Terminal, and check "Log HTTP responses" on.
Click OK and proceed with uploads. Once upload's finished, go to the terminal window (Ctrl+T) and you will see a bunch of results that look like follows:

0:32:47: Multipart Post results
<?xml version='1.0' encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
<methodResponse>
<params>
<param>
<value>
<int>18331179</int>
</value>
</param>
</params>
</methodResponse>


If those you want are already "scrolled out" you can go to full log file (Tools|View Log file..).
I know it is a bit cumbersome, but hey, it's still faster than go online for each picture:-)
And I promise I'll make more straightforward way asap - and you guys gonna love it:-)

HTH

Cheers!:1drink

[rainforest1155]

Yes, I overlooked the word, but it IS a way to get image ids even now:-)Thanks! Since everything was so smooth without major bugs I never used these logging options anymore and so I missed this great feature. Dang. :wxwax

[eugene]

However, there are many ways to get new album id without going online to SM even with the existing version.


Actually I need the Image id, not the album id, if you can add that, it would be great.

[rainforest1155]

Actually I need the Image id, not the album id, if you can add that, it would be great.Just have a look at Niks last post...this is the way to go until he releases a new version.

[Nikolai]

Actually I need the Image id, not the album id, if you can add that, it would be great.
You're correct, I misread your post, but getting image id is possible too;-) See my other reply:-)

[victor]

Woohoo, great tool!!!

One small issue ... I've installed SE using XP's Administrator account and when using my non-privileged user account I'm not able to start SE - it complains about having no privilege to write to C:\Programmes\Smugmug Explorer\Data\<date>.

I eventually got SE to work by creating a Data folder in "Smugmug Explorer" and giving my account some access rights to it.

Is there a way to get SE to use the account-specific folders for \Data? Or should I use XP's "Run As..." command to run SE with admin rights?

[Nikolai]

Woohoo, great tool!!!

One small issue ... I've installed SE using XP's Administrator account and when using my non-privileged user account I'm not able to start SE - it complains about having no privilege to write to C:\Programmes\Smugmug Explorer\Data\<DATE>.

I eventually got SE to work by creating a Data folder in "Smugmug Explorer" and giving my account some access rights to it.

Is there a way to get SE to use the account-specific folders for \Data? Or should I use XP's "Run As..." command to run SE with admin rights?
Thank you for your feedback, I really appreciate your kind words!:thumb

You brought up a very valid point. Data folder MUST be located in a writeable place.. I will try to make this change asap..
Since I'm in the middle of something relatively big I will not be able to deploy this fix right now. However it will most likely make the next deployment, ETA coming weekend.
Thanks again - and stay tuned!
Cheers!:1drink

[victor]

Data folder MUST be located in a writeable place.. I will try to make this change asap..

Thanks for the very quick reply. Very impressive!

I've found that SE saves its config in \Programmes\Smugmug Explorer\SmugmugExplorer.ini and smugmugexplorer.smg. This means that an unprivileged user also needs write access to SE's install folder.

Victor

[Nikolai]

Thanks for the very quick reply. Very impressive!Thank you:-)

I've found that SE saves its config in \Programmes\Smugmug Explorer\SmugmugExplorer.ini and smugmugexplorer.smg. This means that an unprivileged user also needs write access to SE's install folder.
Victor
yeah, I know.. :-(

I will change all that along with those changes we spoke about before. Essentially, all writeable files will go by default to
%documents and settings%\all users\applicationdata\smugmugexplorer\
and you will be able to change its location to something else..

Again, hopefully this weekend:-)

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

As of April 2 2005, Smugmug disallowed usage of its brand name/logo in 3d party products (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=9093).
As a 3d party vendor, I have no other choice but to comply with this request.
The product name and its icon will change soon, so will the URL.
However I will make it my top priority to provide the smoothest possible transition. I apologize for any inconvenience.
Thank you for your patience!

Nikolai Sklobovsky

PS
I will also post this as a separate thread

[caseserve]

I'm having problems running the app. I'm getting msdart.dll errors. Has anybody else received these errors?

If so what did you do.

thanks
John

[Nikolai]

I'm having problems running the app. I'm getting msdart.dll errors. Has anybody else received these errors?

If so what did you do.

thanks
John
I apologize for the errors.
I received your email.
I think the problem is with missing gdiplus.dll. I sent you some ideas. Please keep me posted.

[Nikolai]

I learned that many users do not put DLLs where they are supposed to be and then experience hard time to get the product work.
Next version of S*E will come with DLL detection built in, in the mean time I put a small executable on the download page. If you just downloaded S*E and it "does not want to run", please download this tool (it's only 200Kb), put it next to the starexplorer.exe and run it.

Also: it's NOT recommended to download S*E directly to your desktop. Windows sometimes does funnny things with the executables put on a desktop, replacing them with shortcuts, etc. It's always a good idea to have a separate Download folder and save stuff ftom the Internet there (create a folder for each product).

HTH

Nik

[Maki]

Hi Nikolai!

Odd thing, this... but if you've already discussed this, forgive me.

I happened to open SE offline to see how my cat/subcat was arranged (in Categories with Albums tab) and I found some old categories that I no longer use. I figure I just didn't update my list, so I update at home and everything is super.

Now, I just created a new gallery, and WHAM... back to the old info. Any thoughts?

Running v1.0.0.123 -- I saved the log file but not sure if that would help.

Hope you're enjoying your time in Yosemete!

[Nikolai]

Hi Nikolai!

Odd thing, this... but if you've already discussed this, forgive me.

I happened to open SE offline to see how my cat/subcat was arranged (in Categories with Albums tab) and I found some old categories that I no longer use. I figure I just didn't update my list, so I update at home and everything is super.

Now, I just created a new gallery, and WHAM... back to the old info. Any thoughts?

Running v1.0.0.123 -- I saved the log file but not sure if that would help.

Hope you're enjoying your time in Yosemete!
Sorry about this.. Probably the cache problem.. Did you create the gallery from S*E?

The most reliable way to clear the cache is to manually download *both* Albums and Galleries. I will (eventually) add some sort of utility button somewhere in Options. but for now this should do the job.

Please let me know if it did not.

Thank you!

[tmlphoto]

Nik,
Any chance of future star*explorer version supporting some type of bulk downloading FROM smugmug. I know many people use smugmug as a backup system. I just recently had a total hard drive failure and want to download alot of pics from smugmug. I'd love to be able to do it without having to buy the backup DVDs.

[Nikolai]

Nik,
Any chance of future star*explorer version supporting some type of bulk downloading FROM smugmug. I know many people use smugmug as a backup system. I just recently had a total hard drive failure and want to download alot of pics from smugmug. I'd love to be able to do it without having to buy the backup DVDs.
Ouch, truly sorry about this..
Yes, image download is one of the most important next features to happen, many S*E users already asked for it. In the mean time (if you need them now) try smugmug exporter, that's what it does..

Cheers!:1drink

[flyingpylon]

Ouch, truly sorry about this..
Yes, image download is one of the most important next features to happen, many S*E users already asked for it. In the mean time (if you need them now) try smugmug exporter, that's what it does..
This seems to be a hot topic recently. Just to clarify, Smugmug Exporter does not allow you to download the actual images, just the image metadata (ID, size, caption, etc.).

[Nikolai]

This seems to be a hot topic recently. Just to clarify, Smugmug Exporter does not allow you to download the actual images, just the image metadata (ID, size, caption, etc.).I'm sorry, didn't mean to misinform..:dunno

[Maki]

Sorry about this.. Probably the cache problem.. Did you create the gallery from S*E?
Well, not exactly, as these are cats/subcats that were used before S*E. The new ones seem ok... well, sort of.

The most reliable way to clear the cache is to manually download *both* Albums and Galleries. I will (eventually) add some sort of utility button somewhere in Options. but for now this should do the job.

Ok, did that... seems to be working for the moment. Before trying this, it seemed to get worse. Every time I created a new gallery, I would have to download all galleries each time since it would revert to the old structure, and not show my new gallery. I just created several new ones to test (after downloading both as you asked) and it seems ok. The next time I batch upload and find the issue come up, I'll let you know.

[devbobo]

Nik,
Any chance of future star*explorer version supporting some type of bulk downloading FROM smugmug. I know many people use smugmug as a backup system. I just recently had a total hard drive failure and want to download alot of pics from smugmug. I'd love to be able to do it without having to buy the backup DVDs.
Thomas,

I have been developing a Firefox extension for Smugmug, and I have the download functionality that you are looking. It is still kinda of in beta and I haven't done a general release, but if you are interested in trying it, send me a PM.

Cheers,

David

[Nikolai]

http://www.starexplorer.com

Improved registration logic, etc.

[rainforest1155]

http://www.starexplorer.com (http://www.starexplorer.com/)

Improved registration logic, etc.Thanks Nik, hope you enjoyed your off-coding time!
The little doubleclick feature looks very useful, because it's faster than rightclick.
Maybe you could make it customizable either by letting the user choose between open album, open statistics and customize album?! Even better might be adding support for modifiers: shift+dblclick=statistics and ctrl+dblclick=album settings :clap


Thanks!
Have a nice weekend,
Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Thanks Nik, hope you enjoyed your off-coding time!
The little doubleclick feature looks very useful, because it's faster than rightclick.
Maybe you could make it customizable either by letting the user choose between open album, open statistics and customize album?! Even better might be adding support for modifiers: shift+dblclick=statistics and ctrl+dblclick=album settings :clap


Thanks!
Have a nice weekend,
Sebastian
I was thinking about smth like that, I like your idea. Will do!:thumb

[Shima]

0:01:24: Started Gettings list of albums
0:01:24: Started Getting albums for My Smugmug
0:01:25: RPC-XML: invalid user (4)
0:01:25: Finished Getting albums for My Smugmug (0:00:01)
0:01:25: Trying to re-login
0:01:25: Started Getting albums for My Smugmug
0:01:25: RPC-XML: invalid user (4)
0:01:25: Finished Getting albums for My Smugmug (0:00:00)
0:01:25: Finished Gettings list of albums (0:00:01)


And when I went to create an album it also gave me an invalid user error too.... I can't do anything on it... I still have 13 days left for my trial-- what's going on?

[Nikolai]

0:01:24: Started Gettings list of albums
0:01:24: Started Getting albums for My Smugmug
0:01:25: RPC-XML: invalid user (4)
0:01:25: Finished Getting albums for My Smugmug (0:00:01)
0:01:25: Trying to re-login
0:01:25: Started Getting albums for My Smugmug
0:01:25: RPC-XML: invalid user (4)
0:01:25: Finished Getting albums for My Smugmug (0:00:00)
0:01:25: Finished Gettings list of albums (0:00:01)


And when I went to create an album it also gave me an invalid user error too.... I can't do anything on it... I still have 13 days left for my trial-- what's going on?
Sorry about the troubles..:-(
Did it work before and just stopped now, or you never had it working, period?
If it did, can you please veryfy that you can actually go to smugmug online (via browser) and do something with your account?
Lately several users experienced similar issues and on all accounts it was server-side problem, since their web access didn't work, too..:-(
With all that Rafael Nadal' success SM can be a bit slow lately...

For faster support please use support@starexplorer.com.
I may miss a post in a thread, but I never miss an email:-)
Thank you!

[Shima]

It worked without fault before... and then it just would not create albums or get albums without an invalid user error...

I still had complete functionality over my account on smugmug.com though, and was able to manually upload each file to the folder on there as a slower alternative...

It has magically started working like normal again now though, so now I am more confused as to why it temporarily didn't work! Who knows!?!

I will remember to email in the future.

One last quickie question- when my trial expires, if I don't purchase will I be locked out of using the program? I'll probably be purchasing it, but I was just wondering how that works. Thanks :)


Sorry about the troubles..:-(
Did it work before and just stopped now, or you never had it working, period?
If it did, can you please veryfy that you can actually go to smugmug online (via browser) and do something with your account?
Lately several users experienced similar issues and on all accounts it was server-side problem, since their web access didn't work, too..:-(
With all that Rafael Nadal' success SM can be a bit slow lately...

For faster support please use support@starexplorer.com.
I may miss a post in a thread, but I never miss an email:-)
Thank you!

[Nikolai]

It worked without fault before... and then it just would not create albums or get albums without an invalid user error...

I still had complete functionality over my account on smugmug.com though, and was able to manually upload each file to the folder on there as a slower alternative...

It has magically started working like normal again now though, so now I am more confused as to why it temporarily didn't work! Who knows!?!
I'm not sure what is exact reason (most likely servers overload), but it's definitely server-side. As I mentioned before, several S*E/SM users had similar symptoms which were magically cured when the owner visited his/her SM account..


I will remember to email in the future.
Yes, please, way more reliable method:-)


One last quickie question- when my trial expires, if I don't purchase will I be locked out of using the program? I'll probably be purchasing it, but I was just wondering how that works. Thanks :)
Yes, once the trial expires it will simply stop working.
But hey, you still have 13 days or so left:-)
Not that it matters since it's a one time deal, you don't have to repurchase it every year (even though I would not mind:-)

Cheers!:1drink

[winnjewett]

Nikolai,
I just purchased a copy of star*explorer, but I forgot to input my smugmug account. One problem is that I use two of them. Will I have to purchase two licenses?

Thanks,
Winn

[Nikolai]

Nikolai,
I just purchased a copy of star*explorer, but I forgot to input my smugmug account. One problem is that I use two of them. Will I have to purchase two licenses?

Thanks,
Winn
Thank you very much!

Yes, all you have to do is you need is to purchase an extra license (which is only 50% of the full price).

When you do it, please specify both accounts and also specify whether you need two separate license files (in case you are going to use them on different computers) or a single "combined" license, which would allow you to switch between the accounts on any PC.

HTH

[rainforest1155]

Just discovered a S*E feature that's somehow in my way while figuring out a new way to presort my pictures, so they appear in a non-alphabetical order in the gallery.
When you drag in some files, S*E seems to sort this list alphabetically instead of leaving the order as it is. This is obsolete in my view, because you can easily do it afterwards with the S*E GUI.
Can you reproduce this and at least make it optional in the next release? :wink

Thanks,
Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Just discovered a S*E feature that's somehow in my way while figuring out a new way to presort my pictures, so they appear in a non-alphabetical order in the gallery.
When you drag in some files, S*E seems to sort this list alphabetically instead of leaving the order as it is. This is obsolete in my view, because you can easily do it afterwards with the S*E GUI.
Can you reproduce this and at least make it optional in the next release? :wink

Thanks,
Sebastian
It's not possible. Windows drag and drop works as a black box and gives me (an application programmer) absolutely no way to know in which order the files being dropped were originally selected. They always come sorted by name :dunno
That's why S*E has a full sleuth of ways to change and fix that order.
As a workaround (which I use sometimes) is simply drop files one by one in the order you want. This way they will acquire proper position in the queue from the very beginning.

Other than that - it's beyond my reach :dunno

HTH

[rainforest1155]

It's not possible. Windows drag and drop works as a black box and gives me (an application programmer) absolutely no way to know in which order the files being dropped were originally selected. They always come sorted by name :dunno
That's why S*E has a full sleuth of ways to change and fix that order.
As a workaround (which I use sometimes) is simply drop files one by one in the order you want. This way they will acquire proper position in the queue from the very beginning.

Other than that - it's beyond my reach :dunno

HTHBut it does seem to work for PS. How did the Adobe guys do it? :dunno
I'll have a look around the net and will see if I can dig something up for you.

Sebastian

[Nikolai]

But it does seem to work for PS. How did the Adobe guys do it? :dunno
I'll have a look around the net and will see if I can dig something up for you.

Sebastian
If you're talking about filebrowser or bridge - then yes, they have total control.
But in windows explorer..:dunno it's a different story :-(

If you find me wrong - I'll be very happy!:thumb

[rainforest1155]

If you're talking about filebrowser or bridge - then yes, they have total control.
But in windows explorer..:dunno it's a different story :-(

If you find me wrong - I'll be very happy!:thumbNo, I dragged some files over from my database (IMatch (http://www.photools.com)) directly into PS6. I see that the Windows Explorer doesn't do this, but there the files are sorted by name. In my database there's a sort mode where I can sort the pictures manually to fit my needs (Lighttable). It doesn't matter in which order I selected the pics, but in which order the picturelist is. So when I sort the files in my database after size and drag a couple over to PS they are in exactly the same order.
I can't reproduce this in the Windows Explorer (use it never anyways), but for example TC (written in Delphi) is doing it the same way as IMatch by sorting the drag and drop list after the current sortpreset in TC.

Hope this clears things up a bit,
Sebastian

[Nikolai]

No, I dragged some files over from my database (IMatch (http://www.photools.com/)) directly into PS6. I see that the Windows Explorer doesn't do this, but there the files are sorted by name. In my database there's a sort mode where I can sort the pictures manually to fit my needs (Lighttable). It doesn't matter in which order I selected the pics, but in which order the picturelist is. So when I sort the files in my database after size and drag a couple over to PS they are in exactly the same order.
I can't reproduce this in the Windows Explorer (use it never anyways), but for example TC (written in Delphi) is doing it the same way as IMatch by sorting the drag and drop list after the current sortpreset in TC.

Hope this clears things up a bit,
Sebastian
The order of the items in a standard issue drag-n-drop message (which S*E uses) is controlled by the source app (in our case - windows explorer). There is also another, more advanced drag-n-drop protocol, called "OLE drag-n-drop", but its implementation and usage is way more complicated (as practically everything with OLE:-).
Sorry, buddy, I guess it's not in the (nearest) stars :-)

[rainforest1155]

The order of the items in a standard issue drag-n-drop message (which S*E uses) is controlled by the source app (in our case - windows explorer). There is also another, more advanced drag-n-drop protocol, called "OLE drag-n-drop", but its implementation and usage is way more complicated (as practically everything with OLE:-).
Sorry, buddy, I guess it's not in the (nearest) stars :-)Okay, I see your point. The whole thing isn't top priority, but it would be nice to have. It looks that TC is using OLE and so IMatch most certainly does it too.

What about a compromise by adding the possebility to drop listfiles on S*E which just contain the filenames in the desired order?! :wink
From my non-programmers standpoint this should be easy to do? :D And I'm not asking for a csv-import feature - just a txt files with path+filename.

Thanks a lot,
Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Okay, I see your point. The whole thing isn't top priority, but it would be nice to have. It looks that TC is using OLE and so IMatch most certainly does it too.

What about a compromise by adding the possebility to drop listfiles on S*E which just contain the filenames in the desired order?! :wink
From my non-programmers standpoint this should be easy to do? :D And I'm not asking for a csv-import feature - just a txt files with path+filename.

Thanks a lot,
Sebastian
I see what I can do about it:-)

[Nikolai]

Apart from miscellaneous minor UI improvements, The Big Thing of this version is Image Info download. Now S*E can bring back such image data as:

caption
keywords
file name
original URL
file size
image width
image height
While there are other fields available for download, I reckoned that such data as Serial (number?) of MD5 hash value is not of any utter importance to a business user.:rolleyes (I can always add them later should the need arise..:-)

The primary pushers for this feature were the Pro users who had multiple photographers working for them, each photog uploading his images independently (BTW, I'd like to remind you pros that in this case you need to cover your employees with the extra S*E licenses:): ).

Since SM sales data carry practically no overhead, it was next to impossible for the account holder to analyze the sales information and figure out who sold what, even if the guys used captions (or file names, or keywords) to differentiate their own images from the rest of the site.

Now, with the Image Info download available in S*E since v. 131, this issue will cease to be a logistical nightmare and become a simple database report:-)

The data is downloaded automatically when a pro user saves sales data to the local database.
This action can be also invoked from the main menu, context menus or a toolbar. You can run it against the whole account, a category, a subcategory or a set of albums (including one:-).

The application is smart enough to not waste any time/bandwidth for the images it has processed before, although you can always force S*E to reprocess them again (in cases such as when you know that some data has been changed online outside S*E knowledge).
Once data is downloaded, you can run report off T_IMAGES table with the new fields.

Bad news: this feature is only available for Power and Pro S*E users, and Power license holders can only process one album at a time. But since the SM sales data is available only for SM Pro users anyway (and image meta data is not needed for any other practical purpose besides sales reporting), I figured this should go OK with everybody.:dunno

Good news: very soon (hopefully before this Xmas) S*E will be able to download images themselves (also designed as mostly Pro/Power feature) - anything from originals to "tinies", thus implementing Baldy's idea about "SM not being your regular roach hotel:-)"

Stay tuned!:1drink

[rainforest1155]

Mhhhhmmm....sounds gooood. Especially the exporting the URL. This was done before by smugmug exporter, but maybe I manage it this time to merge the info with my photo database. I hope I'll find some time to figure this all out.

Thanks for the update and the corrosponding push for me to get this done! :D
Sebastian

[rainforest1155]

Is it correct that the 'Update Sync Tree' option form the file menu is already availiable, but doesn't seem to do anything?

Also tried to figure out what the 'Get images' from the context menu is all about. Seems to be pretty dangerous when you don't know what you're doing?! As I see it the function attempts to move all images from the selected gallery to a gallery you have to specify by entering a number. It does so and it seemed to work, but the thing should be really better documentated and properly named. :wink
After finishing moving the target (or was it the source) gallery is opened in the browser immediately. This doesn't make sense as I only moved 2 pictures and when the browser was launched only one had been moved already - imagine this with a standard gallery consisting of 20 pictures at minimum. I would recommend turning this browser launch off for the feature as the user would have to reload anyways. So let him do a double click on his own...this gives smugmug a littlebit more time to do the actual moving and let's the user deceide if he wants to view source or target. :wink

Again - this all looks very promising and I'm looking forward to the image download thing,
Sebastian

[rainforest1155]

Phew...still downloading individual image info...but I guess I made a mistake as I only selected to download imageinfo for files not currently in cache. So the info for all images I uploaded with S*E is not updated, because then it's already in the db? Hopefully I'm wrong.
Another thing - why S*E chews my whole CPU while doing this?? I have 2x 1,4GHz and S*E takes one whole CPU, even when minimized or when in mainscreen-view - isn't that a bit much?! And I thought the connection to SM is the bottleneck - in terms that only one or let's say 10 requests go out a time. How many are you sending at a time? (my connection can handle a lot being 6mbit/s down and 512kbit/s up)

Sebastian

[flyingpylon]

Nik-

I'm very glad to hear that you've added this to S*E. Maybe I missed it, but can the data be exported to something like CSV easily?

Now S*E can bring back such image data as:


caption
keywords
file name
original URL
file size
image width
image height
This sounds good, but an absolutely critical element for me is the smugmug image ID. I know it would appear in the original URL, but I would need it all by itself.


But since the SM sales data is available only for SM Pro users anyway (and image meta data is not needed for any other practical purpose besides sales reporting), I figured this should go OK with everybody.:dunno I don't need sales data at all, but I need image meta data to synchronize my image management database with smugmug. That's a pretty practical purpose, at least for me.

[rainforest1155]

I don't need sales data at all, but I need image meta data to synchronize my image management database with smugmug. That's a pretty practical purpose, at least for me.Don't worry! The imageID has been in S*E's database for some time. When opening the database you get the following fields for every image in the image table:

f_image_id (internal image id of S*E)
f_album_id (internal albumID --> real albumID in album table)
f_image_smid (smugmug imageID)
f_image_name (original path+filename (when uploaded with S*E))
f_time_stamp (date+time when imageinfo was downloaded from SM)
f_file_name (original filename from SM (no matter what you used to upload))
f_caption (image caption)
f_keywords (image keywords)
f_file_size (file size)
f_width (image width)
f_height (image height)
f_url_original ("smugmugID-O.extension", some files have a checksum instead - I don't know why e.g. "21090429-2c5750433d50065834bd4c3283a40539.jpg" ??)
Hope this helps,
Sebastian

EDIT: What I originally also wanted to ask you and therefore the image database-quote: What database you use to organize your photos?
I use iMatch which has a lot of scripting options and a unique way to dynamicly categorize pictures in a tree-form with theoreticly an unlimited amount of categories per picture.

[Nikolai]

f_image_id (internal image id of S*E)
f_album_id (internal albumID --> real albumID in album table)
f_image_smid (smugmug imageID)
f_image_name (original path+filename (when uploaded with S*E))
f_time_stamp : last time the record was updated locally. Same logic applies to this field in all the tables
f_file_name (original filename from SM (no matter what you used to upload))
f_caption (image caption)
f_keywords (image keywords)
f_file_size (file size)
f_width (image width)
f_height (image height)
f_url_original ("smugmugID-O.extension", some files have a checksum instead - I don't know why e.g. "21090429-2c5750433d50065834bd4c3283a40539.jpg" ??)
NIK: I guess it's the url for the file that has been uploaded with the new md5-based method. Only the files that were uploaded before that method came to work would have -0 instead of the checksum.

[rainforest1155]

f_url_original ("smugmugID-O.extension", some files have a checksum instead - I don't know why e.g. "21090429-2c5750433d50065834bd4c3283a40539.jpg" ??)
NIK: I guess it's the url for the file that has been uploaded with the new md5-based method. Only the files that were uploaded before that method came to work would have -0 instead of the checksum.
Ah, that makes sense. I was confused with the appearing checksum, because you said that you didn't included this in the release.

Sebastian

PS: S*E's still working after 5h...now getting the data for every imageID - this process isn't that CPU intensive anymore.

[Nikolai]

Is it correct that the 'Update Sync Tree' option form the file menu is already availiable, but doesn't seem to do anything?....
Thanks for the prompt feedback! Allways appreciate your attention!

In this case: man, you need to remove /debug command line parameter :D - unless you want to step into something not yet tested to work (sideeffects include, but not limited to: hard drive formatting, BSOD, stealing your soul, etc.)

Cheers!:1drink

[Nikolai]

Mhhhhmmm....sounds gooood. Especially the exporting the URL. This was done before by smugmug exporter, but maybe I manage it this time to merge the info with my photo database. I hope I'll find some time to figure this all out.
As I said int he first post, pretty soon you'll be able to get back all the files, both originals and all the scaled down versions. Technically it can be done tonight, but I need a clear UI concept, which may take time...:dunno

HTH

[rainforest1155]

In this case: man, you need to remove /debug command line parameter :D - unless you want to step into something not yet tested to work (sideeffects include, but not limited to: hard drive formatting, BSOD, stealing your soul, etc.):rofl :lol3 :giggle - - seriously...never used this parameter as far as I know and it's definately not set now!:huh I just started the exe from my desktop link without anything added.
Here's the md5 checksum of my exe version 1.0.0.131 (696.832 bytes):
0db7ea144a3ef757de07226efbb26513 *StarExplorer.exe

I downloaded the starexplorer_100_131.exe file at 12:50am GMT.

Was there a mix-up with your developer version maybe?
Can't restart S*E currently, as the image info still runs, but if it's ready is there anything I can do to figure out what's the matter?

Thanks,
Sebastian

EDIT: I just redownloaded both the full version and the self-extracting exe - both are identical to the one I got. So go on and try it for yourself. Or am I missing something? :D

[Nikolai]

:rofl :lol3 :giggle - - seriously...never used this parameter Then I guess it's my Eastern Egg then:-).
Don't use them please.
I hope I'll upload the new version (with the file downloads) soon enough, so I would not worry about these two.

Oh, and btw, I will add the bandwidth control on the download, too. There has been one for upload for quite some time already, but now with the more stuff coming this direction S*E would need to control that, too:-)

Thanks, mate!:thumb

[rainforest1155]

Then I guess it's my Eastern Egg then:-).
Don't use them please.
[...]
Oh, and btw, I will add the bandwidth control on the download, too. There has been one for upload for quite some time already, but now with the more stuff coming this direction S*E would need to control that, too:-)Don't need to use them anymore as I already tried everything new as I wrote before. :D
Yeah bandwith control for download will be definately useful to many people, but definately not for me as the line to Germany isn't that big as I've figured already - I can't remember having more than 20kb/s while using SM, but we'll see - just don't believe it's gonna blow up my 500kb/s :lol3

Keep up the great work,
Sebastian

[rainforest1155]

My database is now full of data! Looks good so far. Took me 8 hours for 8700 images in 115 albums.
Haven't tried anything with the database yet - just looked at the tables. Hopefully I'll get some more out of it soon.
I discovered one problem regarding the captions: During my post-processing at one step there's a IPTC-caption added which I don't know where it comes from:
" " (this is the caption without quotes)
At the time I didn't put a caption in IPTC this collection of spaces stayed in it and smugmug has read it into their database, but doesn't show it. Now S*E gets the data too, but it makes something else out of it:
"/string>"
This caption now is in the S*E database for every image that I edited without adding a caption afterwards. Maybe you can fix this. It's not very important, but still a weird behavior - which maybe could turn-up for other combinations as well. :dunno
If you need more info on this drop me a note.

Examples can be found here (http://rainforest1155.smugmug.com/gallery/134913) - the whole gallery should have these caption-spaces in IPTC...just have a look at the originals. You can upload one of those to your account and try it for yourself.

Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Don't need to use them anymore as I already tried everything new as I wrote before. :D
Yeah bandwith control for download will be definately useful to many people, but definately not for me as the line to Germany isn't that big as I've figured already - I can't remember having more than 20kb/s while using SM, but we'll see - just don't believe it's gonna blow up my 500kb/s :lol3

Keep up the great work,
Sebastian
Need to fine-tune it anyway, so I prolly make another release with those fixes, including bw cap, some performance boost for download, etc.

[Nikolai]

My database is now full of data! Looks good so far. Took me 8 hours for 8700 images in 115 albums.
Thanks for the benchmark!
I'll improve the speed, I forgot a few things:-)


I discovered one problem regarding the captions: During my post-processing at one step there's a IPTC-caption added which I don't know where it comes from:
" " (this is the caption without quotes)
At the time I didn't put a caption in IPTC this collection of spaces stayed in it and smugmug has read it into their database, but doesn't show it. Now S*E gets the data too, but it makes something else out of it:
"/string>"
Interesting..
Can you do me a favor?
Open S*E, turn on ALL the logging options you can, and then force it to read the info off this album.
Then send me the log to support@starexplorer.com
Thanks!


This caption now is in the S*E database for every image that I edited without adding a caption afterwards. Maybe you can fix this. It's not very important, but still a weird behavior - which maybe could turn-up for other combinations as well. :dunno
If you need more info on this drop me a note.
For now you can simply use access/sql commands to replace this text everywhere.

If you send me the log I asked above, Ill prolly fix it tonight..

Cheers!:1drink

[rainforest1155]

If you send me the log I asked above, Ill prolly fix it tonight..
Send you the log, but I did sent it to your gmail - hope that's not a problem for you. If yes I can resent it to the other one.
I'm not bothered by the wrong entries in the db - it's just a drop in the water, but thanks for the proposal - will try it later. Have some trouble with the new openoffice I installed just now.

Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Send you the log, but I did sent it to your gmail - hope that's not a problem for you. If yes I can resent it to the other one.
I'm not bothered by the wrong entries in the db - it's just a drop in the water, but thanks for the proposal - will try it later. Have some trouble with the new openoffice I installed just now.

Sebastian
Good luck with the OpenOffice!

[rainforest1155]

Another thing that just came to my mind. I came across some orphanized entries in the db. Any chance of introducing a cleaning-up function that removes all entries that haven't been updated at a certain point just because the images don't exist anymore?
Should be easy especially for those that haven't been downloaded at all.

Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Another thing that just came to my mind. I came across some orphanized entries in the db. Any chance of introducing a cleaning-up function that removes all entries that haven't been updated at a certain point just because the images don't exist anymore?
Should be easy especially for those that haven't been downloaded at all.

SebastianThe whole reason I was cautios about caching image info locally was the high volatility of the latter substance. The only way for me to detect that some image (or album, or a category) is a ghost is to redownload the whole thing from scratch...:dunno
And while it's relatively easy up to an album level, with images it can get messy. You just spent 8 hours getting meta info... How often would you like to repeat that procedure just to avoid storing some ghost info...

You see, this is a perception problem. A person deletes/renames/moves an image from SM server and has a perception that S*E (or any similar client-side app) should have no problem to pick up this difference. Unfortunately, it's not that easy. To get an image properties I need to ask server specifically about this image. And if you have dozens of thousands of images - I have to make dozens of thousands of requests.

Of course there are tricks. I can get the list of images per album, and if my local copy does not exist in that list I can assume the image was deleted and remove it from cache. But what if image was not deleted, but simply moved to another location? This means that before deletion I need to get the list of all the images (hours!) and only then make executive decision about deletion/moving.

The whole would be much easier if SM would agree to "surface" its image database at least for readonly, highly purified and non-dangerous actions. But thus far Don's position on this issue was pretty solid "never"..

Therefore, unfortunately, local cache is doomed to get a bit messy along the course of time. But the good news is - if you don't go crazy online with shuffling images, albums and categories left and right, the amount of "ghost data" should be relatively small and shall not affect S*E activity in any way.

And if you do have a major site shuffle it maybe easier simply to drop the local cache and start populating it from scratch...

HTH

[rainforest1155]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Haven't thought about it in detail and also forgot the moving thing.
Let's see what you can get out of your speed optimizations - maybe it'll then only take half of the time to fetch all image data. :D

Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Haven't thought about it in detail and also forgot the moving thing.
Let's see what you can get out of your speed optimizations - maybe it'll then only take half of the time to fetch all image data. :D

Sebastian
Half of time - I wish..:uhoh I'hoping to get 10-15%, if I'm lucky:dunno

[Nikolai]

The issues that Sebastian pointed out are taken care of.

Bandwidth control added to mass download actions, too
Performance made slightly better
Minor UI improvements
HTH

[rainforest1155]

Again the first one to comment on!:deal
Looks good so far even though it's been the dl bandwidth cap which will be become more important in the future and just some minor fixes I really appreciate the hard work you put in it. :thumb

Looking forward to the next release - till then simply enjoy the program folks! :D
Sebastian

[rainforest1155]

Something is not right with the newest version 132. After finishing an upload the statusbar always looks like this:
http://rainforest1155.smugmug.com/photos/46439338-L.gif
As if it's not yet finished. Also the bar flickers as it is updated all the time, I guess that's why S*E pulls 100% CPU in my taskmanager all the time.
Happens after each upload - just tried a tiny gif file after restarting it - the same and the log doesn't show anything unusual even with all logging options turned on. Just 'Finished upload'.

This doesn't apply for getting image infos from the SM server.

Hope you can nail the problem,
Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Something is not right with the newest version 132.
......
Hope you can nail the problem,
Sebastian
I will check and hopefully fix it tonight!:thumb

[Nikolai]

Again the first one to comment on!:deal
Looks good so far even though it's been the dl bandwidth cap which will be become more important in the future and just some minor fixes I really appreciate the hard work you put in it. :thumb

Looking forward to the next release - till then simply enjoy the program folks! :D
Sebastian
Thanks!:-)
That's why it's so great to have development/qa teams spread across the globe: I wake up - and there is a bug report; you wake up - and there is a fix:-)
Cheers!:1drink

[rainforest1155]

That's why it's so great to have development/qa teams spread across the globe: I wake up - and there is a bug report; you wake up - and there is a fix:-)
Cheers!:1drinkWell spoken - it doesn't get any better! :1drink

Sebastian

[Nikolai]

Fixes and improvements:

Sebastian reported an issue with "empty" captions (consisting of spaces). Fixed
Sebastian reported an issue with flickering status bar. Fixed.
If S*E is minimized during the image info download, it can optionally restore itself at the end (same Option as with the upload)
Added the rest of the fields to the image info: positions, dates, etc., all except md5 and trivial URLs (the first has no practical value IMHO, all the latter are easily constructed from image id - but they all would take a lot of space)
Enjoy!:1drink

[rainforest1155]

Hmm, if you keep on fixing my bugs so fast I've got a hard time finding new ones to keep you busy. :D

Thanks,
Sebastian