Album

Album is a file browsing and tagging utility for BeOS and compatibles. It started out with a goal of the ultimate image organiser (code named Aberration), but ended up as something much more modest and BeOS-specific. The idea is to have a work pad for pictures from different locations where they can be previewed and tagged in one place. The program is not limited to picture files and BFS (Be File System) volumes, although that further limits whatever the usefulness since much of the functionality has to do with file attributes. Because many JPEG images already come with their own embedded tags there is a way to export their format-specific tags to file attributes.

Features

Reading and writing of the Translation Kit supported image previews (thumbnails)
Loading and processing of image previews in a separate thread
Writing of those not-so-useful Tracker icon thumbnails
File attribute management
File rename/renumber
Simple Drag and Drop
Node monitoring to keep everything in sync
Live Queries
Double-buffered updates for a flicker-free display, when needed
EXIF/IPTC tag extraction

Screenshot

Usage

Please note this document is a work in progress. There may be errors and inconsistencies.

Album presents the user with a single window divided in two parts or panels:

Album View on the right.
Details View on the left. It can be resized horizontally by dragging the divider.

Additionally, there is the Preferences window accessible by choosing Preferences in the View menu.

Album View

Shows a collection of image previews. Simply drag one or more files from any Tracker window to add them. To speed up loading image previews, embedded in files themselves are used whenever possible. The program attempts to load previews in the following order:

EXIF thumbnail - JPEG files only, if enabled.
Known BFS file attributes - adjustable in the Preferences.
Actual image data (slow)
Tracker Icon - unsupported formats or other file types.

EXIF thumbnail is extracted alongside other EXIF tags. For this to work 'Extract Tags' option must be enabled in the Preferences.
Note that generating an image preview from the actual picture may take a while, depending on the image size. Loading and image preview generation is done in the background and can be interrupted with the Stop button in the Details View.

Any file can be dropped into the view, but pay attention to some special cases:

Previews are loaded with the Translation Kit. Check Data Type system preferences for your supported formats.
Folders are expanded completely. A folder with many sub-folders may thus produce a great many of file items, which can eventually exhaust system resources. Please observe the item counter in the upper-right corner an be ready to press the Stop button if the number gets uncomfortably large.

Tracker live queries are expanded (run). That is, all files that match the query expression are added to the Album View and the program starts listening to any possible query updates later on. You can tell a live query is running by the enabled Stop button. Normally, it is disabled after all the files have been processed but in this case it is left enabled to give you a chance to stop the query updates.
Items in system Trash folder are shown slightly dimmed.

Live Query Caveats

For a query to work at least one of the its file attributes must be indexed. On a fresh BeOS set-up file name, size and modification date indices are already built-in, although technically they are not even file attributes. They do work in queries, though. On the other hand, the ever-present file type attribute (BEOS:TYPE) is notably absent from the list. You can check all this by typing 'lsindex' in Terminal. The problem is that even though a query combining both the file type and some of the built-in indices will work perfectly well on existing files it will not detect any new files unless BEOS:TYPE is indexed, probably because there are no real indexed attributes after all. To fix this problem, simply create the missing index by typing 'mkindex -t string BEOS:TYPE' in Terminal.

View Menu

Columns. Items can be arranged in rows of 5, 10 or based on the actual view width (Auto).
Sort by. Arranges items according to ascending file name, file size or modification date. These are all provided by the file system. A selected sorting order is honored when adding new items.
Labels. File name and/or file size can be shown under each item.
Tag indicators. If on, presence of EXIF or IPTC tags is indicated with small icons.
Flicker-free. If on, a double-buffering technique is employed to reduce flicker on window updates. It makes for a nicer visual experience, but wastes more resources.
Preferences. Shows the Preferences Dialog.

Tools Menu

Replaces the Attribute Actions menu field from the previous versions. All options operate on the selected file items.

Make Thumbnail. Stores image previews as attributes. The first name in the list of attributes in the Preferences is used for writing.
Make Tracker Icon. Stores image previews as attributes used by Tracker for icon display. These are 32x32 and 16x16 256 colour images, so they may not resemble the original previews all that much.
Delete Attributes. Removes all selected attributes in all selected files.

Item Counter

Placed in at the right-upper corner (in the menu bar) it shows the number of file items in the view.

Context Menu

Invoked by pressing the secondary mouse button over a file item. The upper part applies only to the item on which the menu vas invoked, the rest applies to the entire selection.

Open Folder. Opens the parent folder in Tracker.
Open With. Sub menu for launching applications registered for the particular file type. The upper part list the applications registered to open the exact type, the lower part lists applications supporting the generic type (MIME super type).
Mark. Either marks all selected files or unmarks them, if they are already all marked.
Remove. Removes the selected files from the Album View - the actual files are not deleted.
Move To Trash. Moves the selected file to the trash folder. Selected previews show up dimmed. Note that moving files to Trash just changes their locations.
Add Attribute.Adds an attribute predefined in Data Types system preferences.
Make Thumbnail. Same as in the Tools Menu.
Make Icon. Same as in the Tools Menu.

Details View

The panel on the left.

Stop Button. Enabled when file reading is in progress or when a live query is running. Cancels either, but the currently processed file must be completed first.
Item Count. The selected/total file count.
Scale Slider. Resizes all thumbnails. Full-scale (rightmost) shows previews in their original size.
Stats & Tags List. Aggregated file statistics. Name property includes a possible wild card. This is currently the only editable property in this list, double-click to edit.
Attribute List. A multi-selection list box with all attributes found in the selection. Only string and integer attributes are currently editable, double-click to edit.

Details are aggregated for the entire selection. For a single selected file this means the actual properties otherwise properties are merged. Values shown in red mean that a particular property has more than one distinct value in the selection.

Image tags are format-specific meta data information recorded alongside picture data. Unlike BFS file attributes they can only be manipulated with software that supports them and are subject to other limitations. It is therefore convenient to have tags copied to file attributes. Two ways are provided:

Copying. Drag a tag from the Stats&Tags list into an empty space in the Attributes list. Alternatively, drag a tag onto an existing attribute and choose Copy
Association. Drag a tag onto an attribute in the Attributes lists and choose Associate. Nothing happens but when a new file is added with an associated tag it will be automatically copied as an attribute. You can view and remove associated tag-attribute pairs in the Preferences window.

Preferences Window

Preferences are stored in the user settings folder and are restored on each program run.

Attribute Names. A space-separated list of names which are searched when looking for thumbnails stored in file attributes. The first name in the list is also used for writing.
Actual Size. The thumbnail dimensions for newly generated thumbnails.
Extract Tags. Currently adds EXIF image-specific tags to the Stats & Tags list.
Renumber From. The starting serial number used in renaming files that contain a wild card.
Done. Applies the changes and closes the window.

Applied changes are automatically saved on program exit.

Download

This program is provided AS IS. No guarantee whatsoever is given that it will work as advertised or that it will not hurt your data, your computer, your dog or whatever. You know the drill.

Album 0.7 binaries and sources for BeOS R5.

To save space, no debug symbols are linked-in. The program does however print some debug info when started in the shell. Please contact the author for details.