Additional iPhoto requests
I have sent this list of wants to Apple, but I would like to know what others think.
1. The 'toolbar' at the bottom of the screen should behave more like the finder's toolbar and that in MacJournal. Applescripts should be available here. It would be a bit better than constantly going to the top right corner to use applescripts.
2. This area should be customizable as well, so you can choose what goes there. This should be enabled for the book, edit and organize panels as well.
3. The keywords should be a drawrer that you can open to the left or the right. I need more than just ten global ones, and would really want to have ones I can assign to certain folders locally (My texture photos need different categories than my family ones, and I need far more than ten altogether) Local keywords should be transferable from one folder to another (If I use the same keywords in my farmhouse folder as I do in my factory folder, I should be able to drag them enmass from one to the other. Likewise, I should be able to share local keywords amongst my family, friends and christmas folder.)
4. A method of putting customizabnle frames around photos in the edit panel would be neat and useful. Or a way of assigning frames to specific photos in the book panel would be nice, too. Actually, being able to do anything to the photos in the book panel would be nice.
5. The format for how to develop books needs to be public. Publically created book themes would be a neat way to slowly build an addiction to all those people new to photos.
6. You should be able to enter comments for multiple images (ie: old woood textures from the same place have to be selected seperately to enter the comments)
7. When making a book you should be able to select whether keywords are displayed, especially when creating a catalog. Right now you can only select titles, comments and page numbers.
8. And lastly (for now) my camera (and many others) saves important information about the photo, which is available in Graphic Converter. Being able to assign this information to a readable comment for the differnt photos would be extremely useful. Perhaps a 'show selection in comments' and a series of radio buttons to turn their visibility on or off. I am especially interested in seeing the f-stop and shutter speed, as well as the date the photo was taken (not necessarily the date they were added to iphoto.)
9. Oops... one more... if image capture is ever discontinued (and I don';t think it will be for the same reason 'address book' is separate from 'mail') there must be a way to save the photos in a separate folder. I download photos, and drag only the ones I want to archive internally into iphoto. All others get selected on a cd for that month (unless I have too much, then that month gets two cd's) Besides, sometimes you don't want project photos lying around your playing photos...
There. I have given this a lot of thought, and I am sure I have left something out.
1. The 'toolbar' at the bottom of the screen should behave more like the finder's toolbar and that in MacJournal. Applescripts should be available here. It would be a bit better than constantly going to the top right corner to use applescripts.
2. This area should be customizable as well, so you can choose what goes there. This should be enabled for the book, edit and organize panels as well.
3. The keywords should be a drawrer that you can open to the left or the right. I need more than just ten global ones, and would really want to have ones I can assign to certain folders locally (My texture photos need different categories than my family ones, and I need far more than ten altogether) Local keywords should be transferable from one folder to another (If I use the same keywords in my farmhouse folder as I do in my factory folder, I should be able to drag them enmass from one to the other. Likewise, I should be able to share local keywords amongst my family, friends and christmas folder.)
4. A method of putting customizabnle frames around photos in the edit panel would be neat and useful. Or a way of assigning frames to specific photos in the book panel would be nice, too. Actually, being able to do anything to the photos in the book panel would be nice.
5. The format for how to develop books needs to be public. Publically created book themes would be a neat way to slowly build an addiction to all those people new to photos.
6. You should be able to enter comments for multiple images (ie: old woood textures from the same place have to be selected seperately to enter the comments)
7. When making a book you should be able to select whether keywords are displayed, especially when creating a catalog. Right now you can only select titles, comments and page numbers.
8. And lastly (for now) my camera (and many others) saves important information about the photo, which is available in Graphic Converter. Being able to assign this information to a readable comment for the differnt photos would be extremely useful. Perhaps a 'show selection in comments' and a series of radio buttons to turn their visibility on or off. I am especially interested in seeing the f-stop and shutter speed, as well as the date the photo was taken (not necessarily the date they were added to iphoto.)
9. Oops... one more... if image capture is ever discontinued (and I don';t think it will be for the same reason 'address book' is separate from 'mail') there must be a way to save the photos in a separate folder. I download photos, and drag only the ones I want to archive internally into iphoto. All others get selected on a cd for that month (unless I have too much, then that month gets two cd's) Besides, sometimes you don't want project photos lying around your playing photos...
There. I have given this a lot of thought, and I am sure I have left something out.
Comments
I'd rather Apple concentrated on making more templates (like calendars and postcards), more useful photo-editing features (brightness, contrast, and color balance editors), more fun photo-editing features (stretching, "painting," or text/border/clipart add-ins), and even more iTools photo gallery border choices.. And scanner support. Most of which I'm already pretty sure they're working on.
The toolbar in the finder is customizable... just drag any old thing in there... So is the toolbar in preferences. It does seem to be an important part of OSX. None of the other iapps will require as much flexability as iPhoto will require. And who says the number of buttons won't increase with future updates... especially if people make applescripts...
Including a drawer for keywords may become a necessity, since eventually people will outgrow ten, especially if there is more than one user on the computer.. what are available now are global keywords... if you change them for one folder, they change everywhere. Drawers have been used in apple apps since Quicktime 3 (Perhaps it wasn't c alled a drawer... I think they called them 'wells'). Mail uses drawers.
This may eventually become a program like Bryce... full of features you had no idea were there until you discovered them. The nature of making anything intuitive is to anticipate what people will need and providing it where they would be most likely to find it.
I do like your idea of templates outside the book format. And for now, pixelenhance by Caffeine software does a lot of the adjustment things you mention... intuitively...
<strong>>For instance, no iApp has a "customizable" interface, because not only would it have to be a completely custom job, foreign to OS X and all other iApps, but it would also be pretty difficult to find a good way to make a customizable interface out of like.. 4 or 5 buttons/icons. It wouldn't even be worth it, IMHO.
The toolbar in the finder is customizable... just drag any old thing in there... So is the toolbar in preferences. It does seem to be an important part of OSX. None of the other iapps will require as much flexability as iPhoto will require. And who says the number of buttons won't increase with future updates... especially if people make applescripts...</strong><hr></blockquote>
You completely missed what I was trying to tell you... No iApp has any customizable toolbars. Yes, it's in the System Preferences, Finder, and other Aqua-type apps. But no iApps. It would REQUIRE either a complete retooling of the iPhoto interface, or a heavy modification to the way that the customizable toolbars work, including the drop-down sheet that accompanies it.
And for what? To re-arrange, like I said, 4 or 5 items at the moment? Maybe... 6 or 8 or even 10 in the future? Why not just add scroll-bars? It would be far too confusing to new users to have to customize the view, when they are going to want all of the features visable anyway. I'll be truthful; I've asked, heard, seen, and read the feedback of hundreds of Mac users, from pros to consumers, AppleInsiders to PC users, newbies to graphics gods, and not one of them has asked for something like this...
[quote]Originally posted by nosarious:
<strong>Including a drawer for keywords may become a necessity, since eventually people will outgrow ten, especially if there is more than one user on the computer.. what are available now are global keywords... if you change them for one folder, they change everywhere. Drawers have been used in apple apps since Quicktime 3 (Perhaps it wasn't c alled a drawer... I think they called them 'wells'). Mail uses drawers. </strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm all for more keywords, though at the moment I can't think of any more and I'm at 7 or 8. However, again, I don't think your ideas for implementation are very good at all. Have you used iPhoto at 800x600? There is NO ROOM for drawers! Not gonna happen! I also don't see why on earth Apple would use a drawer that goes on one whole side of the interface, when they could just add another column of little keyword buttons, or make some scrollbars to scroll to more keyword buttons. Or even make them smaller.
[quote]Originally posted by nosarious:
<strong>This may eventually become a program like Bryce... full of features you had no idea were there until you discovered them. The nature of making anything intuitive is to anticipate what people will need and providing it where they would be most likely to find it. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Bryce? Uh.. no. This is an app aimed at the majority of the 25 million Mac users out there, consumers, as well as the hundreds of millions of other regular people who aren't techies and don't just need a candy-fied Photoshop/Cumulus. You obviously have professional, or at least prosumer needs. I'll be surprised if Apple sacrifices ease of use for some of the (in my mind) unnecessary additions you're asking for. I hate to be rude, but you're just not who iPhoto was aimed at. Surely you can see how ridiculous these requests would be looked at, if Apple were aiming this at the consumer, 85-90% of the population, most of which are also dumber than dirt when it comes to digital photography. They don't want Bryce, and they wouldn't want the iPhoto you envision.
[quote]Originally posted by nosarious:
<strong>I do like your idea of templates outside the book format. And for now, pixelenhance by Caffeine software does a lot of the adjustment things you mention... intuitively...</strong><hr></blockquote>
I downloaded PixelNhance because of your other thread, and it is pretty nice. It'll save me a few trips to Photoshop on my pics. Nice, fast, works good.. Even the little preview window's bar is nifty, how it moves and rotates. The only downside is that it's a separate app, plus all of the icons are slightly crappy. Still, you can't beat free.
Would love to have that... seeing that OS X scanner support absolutely BLOWS right now
True... But I was actually responding to your comment about it being foriegn to OSX, which, I believe, is not true.
>foreign to OS X and all other iApps, but it would also be pretty difficult to find a good way to make a customizable interface out of like.. 4 or 5 buttons/icons. It wouldn't even be worth it, IMHO.
Expandability is the key to the future, donchyathink? Regardless of whether there is a need for it now... (4 or 5 buttons)
What I would really like now is the chance to set the size of photos when you create a web page. I thought there would be an opportunity to reset the resolution when they are uploaded, but no dice:
<a href="http://homepage.mac.com/nosemonger/PhotoAlbum3.html"; target="_blank">http://homepage.mac.com/nosemonger/PhotoAlbum3.html</a>;