The Everlasting Picture Categorizing Project

[Brad]

I dunno I used it for my own photostream to see what I was uploading and what my most common (and uncommon) tags were. It is nice for other people's photostreams as well as you get a good idea about what kind of pictures they most commonly take.

I still think it'd be a worthwhile (and not very difficult) addition to the program. Plus if we ever implement web interface phase of this project it's likely you may get other people's pictures that they have tagged and whatnot.

On any semi-related note: Somebody should draw up some plans for what the top and bottom toolbars should look like. Courtney did the top one, but nobody has even suggested what the bottom one might look like.

[zourtney]

I hate my top one. It looks nothing like I planned. (Partially because I don't know how to use the framework I was using...) But yes, someone should make a mock-up. It doesn't have to be anything more than a MSPaint scribble, even.

My suggestion -- go big, go simple.

I think it should be...

• resizable
• have a big tag cloud (sizing the the height of the toolbar)
• big buttons, including one to show a larger tag cloud window and one to show a larger window displaying all properties (might be able to combine those two ideas)
• maybe some sort of label component stack where you specify a few fields you always want to see when you click on an image. Default would be date taken, camera model, and owner info or something. But perhaps you really are interested in knowing what ISO it was taken at, so you just add a field to that component.

[zourtney]

Do I have to try and make a screenshot mockup? What do you peeps think should be on the bottom of the screen? Or do we care anymore?

[Nick]

I care..... I am just not sure. Yet(i).

[zourtney]

Just a simple version of what we could do. I forgot to add +/- buttons on the right-hand side info. Opine if you've the time.

[Brad]

That makes sense for multiple images selected, but no sense at all for a single image selected.

We are going to need two completely different designs.

[zourtney]

Ok...what exactly do you mean by "no sense?" If the left side just listed tags instead of having different sized words ("tag cloud"), what is invalid or nonsensical? Better yet, what would make sense?

[Brad]

OK,maybe not "no sense" but maybe "not necessarily useful"?

If you are going to pluralize (is that a word?) all of your data fields then I guess it works. How many of those pluralized data fields are of any use though? The date range one is, as is the list of people who've taken the photo. The ISO one... maybe? You could do the same thing with focal range length, aperture, etc... I'm probably being a bit presumptuous assuming most of them won't be very useful to anybody.

The only data field I need to see exclusively with multiple photos is "how many photos have I selected?" Otherwise pluralize away!

Can I have my box for adding tags though? And what does the giant blue circle with the i in it do?

[zourtney]

I figured it'd be about 1:17 seconds worth of design and coding to make it pluralize when you had multiple items selected. Obviously, if you had only one image selected it would only day "Date Taken" or the equivalent singular form. The center stupidity was me tossing around and idea for a button that shows more info. Basically, a screen with the left and right side information, but...uh, more of it. Or in a bigger space, at least.

In my crap-crap WPF mockup I posted a few weeks ago, there was a statusbar with a pane showing how many items were selected. Very Windows Exploreresque. We could throw it in that (right hand) box too. I would want to make those fully customizable -- add, delete, and rearrange. But maybe that's not even a good UI approach anyway. Can you think of something better?...I'm no UI expert or graphic artist, for sure.

As for the tag-it box, I'm not sure where to put that thing. I'm a fan of the "just start typing and a textbox appears" (think Firefox's "find as you type" or Gnome's window manager) or an unobtrusive textbox tucked in a lower corner (think SketchIt's dimension input box). I know, I forgot about it when I was playing in paint...I was distracted with, uh, work.

[zourtney]

Here's a live(r) version of what I was talking about. It sucks, but yeah, it's in flash so you can run it in your browser. I left out the top bar we were talking about earlier. The image grid is multiselect via Ctrl+Click. Try it and watch the exif labels and statusbar change.

I don't want to do this project in Flex, it's just a convenient example medium. (Plus I've been using every day for years, so it comes pretty easy) This is just an ugly layout concept.

http://randomland.net/sites/default/files/zourtney/files/mockui.swf
[Source]

[Nick]

We could make a flex one for randomland. But its hardly needed.

But nice. We should try for smaller font with less padding in between lines to avoid the scroller though. But that's of minor concern.  A few more tool bars for navigating/searching and adding/removing/editing(aka adding information) and you have an alpha.

[zourtney]

Yeah, I was just trying to show a slightly more interactive view of my bitmap junk I posted yesterday. That's not polished at all. That was 6am code on a full night's rest (that is to say: not my best work). I'm trying to figure out what sucks and what doesn't

I don't actually like how the right-side info box is coming out, though. Even if that UI is very, very rough. Having a list of info seems to be a bad format...but what would be better? Don't we need some way to show common fields? I intend them to be customizable, too, but didn't have the time this morning.

[zourtney]

Does anyone have any suggestions or differing ideas?

[Nick]

I don't feel qualified to make negative comments about the interface as I would have nothing to add (and if you cant say something nice....)

I like where things are headed, we just need to start fleshing things out so some discussion gets started. Just sitting around waiting for ideas is what got suri where she is today. So as long as the backend is solid we are good, the UI can be changed easily.

[zourtney]

True. It's easy to change the UI, usually. If we know what the interface is going to look like (essentially), it is much easier to design the back end. If we don't, we'll overbuild certain parts and neglect others...just a fact. I'm sure you think of a certain, large-scale project whose back end was designed with no regard for use interface, but I won't name any names.