Photo Mechanic 4.5 Public Beta for Mac OS X and Windows

[roysmyth]

Also found that on a Mac, keyboard shortcut to close the open window does not work.

Also there is only the green button available at top left.  No amber or red.

It's a modal dialog.  Modal dialogs do not, in general, have close boxes nor minimize buttons.  If you could minimize the IPTC dialogs into the Dock then you would find it really hard to use the rest of Photo Mechanic: every time you clicked on some other UI element, the computer would 'beep' at you.

Hitting the 'Escape' key will cancel the dialog.

-Kirk

Hi Kirk,

It doesn't matter if the widows are modal or not, Mac users expect that command-W will close a window and, if there are buttons at the top left of a window, they expect a working red one that will close the window. No Mac user naturally presses escape to close a window. No one is asking for modal dialogs to be minimized.

The windows in PM are inconsistent. Some have buttons, some don't. Some respond to command-W, some don't. It is a waste of time and annoying. I could go on about ease of use being more important than features... but I won't.

The other night a photojournalist who is a big fan of PM asked me what I thought of 4.5. I said it had a lot of good improvements. He said yes, but command-W doesn't work and I have to keep remembering to press a non-standard key.

The Mac is mostly elegant and easy to use. Let's keep it that way.

[JAS Photo]

Kirk -
Win XP Pro SP2, 1gb RAM - PM 4.5 Beta
I seem to be having a problem with the folder selection in Navigator on the left side of the contact window. My cursor seem to bounce and end up in unexpected places. if I delete a folder 1. it's not always the folder I intended to delete (BAD, Very BAD) even if it deletes the correct folder Sometimes the cursor will ends up far from the folder I deleted. OK it's been happening for a half hour -  now as I try to explain exactly what happens - it's not happening. Well the delete part is still happening - PM asks "are you sure you want to delete" the folder below the one I want to delete but occasionally a folder 8-12 folders away. This is very repeatable - on my system anyway.
Thanks for an otherwise great update.
Joe

[Kirk Baker]

Roy,

Also found that on a Mac, keyboard shortcut to close the open window does not work.

Also there is only the green button available at top left.  No amber or red.

It's a modal dialog.  Modal dialogs do not, in general, have close boxes nor minimize buttons.  If you could minimize the IPTC dialogs into the Dock then you would find it really hard to use the rest of Photo Mechanic: every time you clicked on some other UI element, the computer would 'beep' at you.

Hitting the 'Escape' key will cancel the dialog.

It doesn't matter if the widows are modal or not, Mac users expect that command-W will close a window and, if there are buttons at the top left of a window, they expect a working red one that will close the window. No Mac user naturally presses escape to close a window. No one is asking for modal dialogs to be minimized.

The windows in PM are inconsistent. Some have buttons, some don't. Some respond to command-W, some don't. It is a waste of time and annoying. I could go on about ease of use being more important than features... but I won't.

The other night a photojournalist who is a big fan of PM asked me what I thought of 4.5. I said it had a lot of good improvements. He said yes, but command-W doesn't work and I have to keep remembering to press a non-standard key.

The Mac is mostly elegant and easy to use. Let's keep it that way.

From Apple's own Human Interface Guidelines:

"Esc (Escape)
The Esc (Escape) key basically means “let me out of here.” It has specific meanings in certain contexts. The user can press Esc in the following situations:

In a dialog, instead of clicking Cancel
To stop an operation in progress (such as printing), instead of pressing Command-period
To cancel renaming a file or an item in a list
To cancel a drag in progress

Pressing Esc should never cause the user to back out of an operation that would require extensive time or work to reenter. When the user presses Esc during a lengthy operation, display a confirmation dialog to be sure that the key wasn’t pressed accidentally."

Now, when dealing with a Modal window what would one expect to happen when they press Command-W?  Should it Cancel the dialog?  Should it OK the dialog?

Escape has been used to cancel modal dialogs for a long time now.  Like for nearly 20 years.  I think the Apple IIgs ADB keyboard was the first to have the escape key, and the Mac II was the first Macintosh to have an escape key.  The Mac II was introduced in 1987.  A version of System 6 introduced the concept of using the Esc key to Cancel modal dialogs.  System 7, 8 and 9 definitely had the press Esc to Cancel.  Command-. (period) was also used to Cancel dialogs.

That said, it is quite obvious to me that you and others would benefit by having Command-W close various modal dialogs in Photo Mechanic.  But what should Command-W do besides close the window?  Should it Cancel or OK the dialog?

-Kirk

[Kirk Baker]

Joe,

Win XP Pro SP2, 1gb RAM - PM 4.5 Beta

I seem to be having a problem with the folder selection in Navigator on the left side of the contact window. My cursor seem to bounce and end up in unexpected places. if I delete a folder 1. it's not always the folder I intended to delete (BAD, Very BAD) even if it deletes the correct folder Sometimes the cursor will ends up far from the folder I deleted. OK it's been happening for a half hour -  now as I try to explain exactly what happens - it's not happening. Well the delete part is still happening - PM asks "are you sure you want to delete" the folder below the one I want to delete but occasionally a folder 8-12 folders away. This is very repeatable - on my system anyway.

When you say that your cursor is bouncing around, are you talking about your mouse cursor, or are you using the keyboard to move around in the Navigator?

-Kirk

[daveh]

Hi Kirk,

Command-w normally closes a window and cancels contents does it not?

Maybe I am being lazy as when I see a pulsating blue button, I assume that hitting return activates that particular button.

I think I need to get off my fat bottom and learn some new shortcuts.  In the example above command-return would activate the pulsating button. ("OK" in most cases.)

It's like ftp-ing a file I used to use command-u, I now find 'u' on it's own does the trick.  Sending a file to edit in PS used to be click on edit icon in preview, I now find just pressing 'e' does the trick.

I appologise for any hasty posts.  I must learn to be more open minded to new ways of doing things.

Thanks for a truly great program.

[SamFrost]

It's like ftp-ing a file I used to use command-u, I now find 'u' on it's own does the trick.  Sending a file to edit in PS used to be click on edit icon in preview, I now find just pressing 'e' does the trick.

That has always been the case in Preview mode or if you have a single image selected in a contact sheet - you don't need the Command key to access the function.

[daveh]

I'm leaning slowly 

[JAS Photo]

Joe,


Quote from: jasphoto on March 22, 2007, 10:13:31 PM
Win XP Pro SP2, 1gb RAM - PM 4.5 Beta

I seem to be having a problem with the folder selection in Navigator on the left side of the contact window. My cursor seem to bounce and end up in unexpected places. if I delete a folder 1. it's not always the folder I intended to delete (BAD, Very BAD) even if it deletes the correct folder Sometimes the cursor will ends up far from the folder I deleted. OK it's been happening for a half hour -  now as I try to explain exactly what happens - it's not happening. Well the delete part is still happening - PM asks "are you sure you want to delete" the folder below the one I want to delete but occasionally a folder 8-12 folders away. This is very repeatable - on my system anyway.

When you say that your cursor is bouncing around, are you talking about your mouse cursor, or are you using the keyboard to move around in the Navigator?

-Kirk

The Mouse cursor - what's a keyboard ?

[SamFrost]

I'm having problems with the Export to HTML in 4.5Beta failing and causing PM to hang.  I'm using the SimpleViewer template, and after a few tests I think it's happening if I change the colour of the background away from the default black.  After clicking OK I get the spinning beach ball and need to Force Quit PM.

While on the subject of the SimpleViewer template, would it be possible to have checkboxes for the generation of header and footer?  I usually want just the main gallery by itself, as at www.samfrostphotos.com, and leaving the header and footer fields blank leaves the page unbalanced.

[Kirk Baker]

Sam,

I'm having problems with the Export to HTML in 4.5Beta failing and causing PM to hang.  I'm using the SimpleViewer template, and after a few tests I think it's happening if I change the colour of the background away from the default black.  After clicking OK I get the spinning beach ball and need to Force Quit PM.

Did you perhaps leave the color palette open when you clicked Export?  Did you get to pick the destination folder?  Or did it hang before that?

While on the subject of the SimpleViewer template, would it be possible to have checkboxes for the generation of header and footer?  I usually want just the main gallery by itself, as at www.samfrostphotos.com, and leaving the header and footer fields blank leaves the page unbalanced.

How about I change it so that if those fields are entirely blank that they are omitted?

-Kirk

[roysmyth]

Suggestions for closing and/or escaping windows, Mac OS X

IPTC info window
 - add red button
 - make cmnd-w operational
 - both have the effect of cancel.

Keywords and Structured Keywords windows
 - add color to the buttons

HTML Exporter window
 - add red button
 - make cmnd-w operational
 - both have the effect of close

XML export window
 - add red button with effect of cancel

Update IPTC/XMP, Mask/Unmask and Extract JPEG Previews windows
 - make escape operational

[SamFrost]

Sam,

I'm having problems with the Export to HTML in 4.5Beta failing and causing PM to hang.  I'm using the SimpleViewer template, and after a few tests I think it's happening if I change the colour of the background away from the default black.  After clicking OK I get the spinning beach ball and need to Force Quit PM.

Did you perhaps leave the color palette open when you clicked Export?  Did you get to pick the destination folder?  Or did it hang before that?

The hang happens when clicking 'Open' after navigating to the destination folder.  I've just played around with various settings again, and leaving the color palette open or closing it makes no difference.  However it seems picking a color works, but picking a grayscale (using the grayscale slider) causes it to hang.

While on the subject of the SimpleViewer template, would it be possible to have checkboxes for the generation of header and footer?  I usually want just the main gallery by itself, as at www.samfrostphotos.com, and leaving the header and footer fields blank leaves the page unbalanced.

How about I change it so that if those fields are entirely blank that they are omitted?

-Kirk

That would be ideal

[Kirk Baker]

Suggestions for closing and/or escaping windows, Mac OS X

IPTC info window
 - add red button
 - make cmnd-w operational
 - both have the effect of cancel.

Will look into it.

Keywords and Structured Keywords windows
 - add color to the buttons

I can't.  Utility windows don't show colors in the buttons until you mouse over them.  That's Apple's issue.

]HTML Exporter window
 - add red button
 - make cmnd-w operational
 - both have the effect of close

Will look into it.

XML export window
 - add red button with effect of cancel

I can't.  The save file dialog is Apple's dialog.  They use the same convention that I do in that modal dialogs do not have a close button.  While I do have control over my own dialogs, I do not have that level of control over Apple's dialogs.

Update IPTC/XMP, Mask/Unmask and Extract JPEG Previews windows
 - make escape operational

Done.

-Kirk

[ANewman]

4.5 much speedier than 4.3.3 on my MacBook Pro Intel Duo.

But I want to echo an earlier request to be able to display a customizeable IPTC information page. As one that does a lot of wire service work, I don't want to have to scroll down to very common fields like city, state, country. The current version lets me inspect all of the salient fields without scrolling and if I'm setting up a half-dozen photos or so, that's an important consideration.

[marta]

Thanks for the great job.

Some comments:

- Although the ingestion is not altering the size of Raw files anymore, PM still appears to do some alteration in the Raw files since the "modification date" assumes the same value as the "creation date" (and the ingestion date). The simple copy using windows explorer does not alter the "modification date", which reflects the data when the picture was taken. It would be nice if PM ingestion didn't touch the Raw files whatsoever.

- Would be great to have GPS metadata fields.

- There's still no option to "not embed" the ICC profile when Photo Mechanic edit a picture (crop or resize) during the upload process. The lack of this option is really causing some problems with the space color conversion made by PhotoShelter.


Best regards,
Marta