Mercurial > cgi-bin > hgweb.cgi > ImagePrep

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    <title>ImagePrep Read Me</title>
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    <h1>ImagePrep Read Me</h1>
    <p>This is a simple program mainly created for my own benefit.</p>
    <p>Because it is primarily for my own benefit, it does not build to a
      “clickable” app. That is too much of a pain to implement.</p>
    <p>Because I have code to crib, it does contain a help file. It’s pretty
      rudimentary, however.</p>
    <p>Because I have code to crib, it does run on a <code>.properties</code>
      file, but because coding preferences dialogs is something of a pain, it
      does not contain a preferences or settings dialog, even though there is
      some code to crib for both. The <code>.</code><code>properties</code>
      file must be edited by hand* (it will live in the normal place for such
      files on the system being run under). If no such file exists, a default
      one will be created. The only things in it will be the maximum dimension
      to clamp to, where the output file goes by default, and maybe what the
      output file’s name is by default (i.e. a name suffix).</p>
    <p>* This program is <em>for my own benefit</em>, and <em>I</em> have no
      problem editing text files, therefore this is reasonable.</p>
    <p>Contrary to JpegWasher, which is designed for batch processing, this will
      have more of a “document editor” style of design. Meaning, you open a
      file, you edit it, you save it, you close it.</p>
    <p>Upon opening a file, it will be auto-scaled to the specified maximum
      dimension. This will default to the value in the preferences file, but the
      user will be able to override it with a command-line argument.</p>
    <p>Ah, the command-line. Because it’s not a full “clickable” app, it is
      launched from the command line, and accepts arguments, much like the old
      days of using X Windows. This is actually <em>more</em> user-friendly for
      my purposes, because it ends up honoring the concept of the current
      working directory. (Directory management is one area where GUI programs
      fall short.)</p>
    <p>The current working directory is the input files directory. Depending on
      how the properties are configured, the output directory is either the
      current working directory, or a specified output file directory. Both
      directories act like a current working directory; the next time an input
      or output dialog is brought up in a given session, it will be in the same
      spot the previous dialog was when it was closed. All this makes it easy to
      rapidly edit files in a directory of images downloaded from a camera,
      without polluting that directory with the edited files.</p>
    <p>At that point, the editing step begins. It is extremely simple and is
      limited to rotation. Three types of rotation will be offered, 90°
      clockwise, 180°, and 90° counterclockwise.</p>
    <p>The user can rotate the file as many times as s/he wants. Sort of silly,
      but sometimes people are tired and get clockwise and counterclockwise
      confused, so might as well give ’em a chance to fix their mistakes. Plus,
      it would take special effort <em>not</em> to allow this.</p>
    <p>Then comes the closing and saving. They are one operation, because that
      makes the program easier <em>for me</em> to use.</p>
    <p>Ideally, I wouldn’t even puts around with making this a GUI app in the
      first place. It’s for my own use, so the command line would be good
      enough. The problem is rotation: it’s a hot mess. There’s really no way to
      do it right save to show the image to a human and let him (me) decide
      which way is up.</p>
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author	David Barts <n5jrn@me.com>
date	Fri, 17 Jul 2020 23:25:33 -0700
parents	e0efe7848130
children	404eb7e57fe6