Catalogue-A positive Suggestion

[leebaylin]

I did not want to join what I see as a very negative post on this subject so I am starting this new thread.  Camera Bits has always had supportive and open communication with its customers and I see this latest post as a continuation of the same.

However, you may be losing sight of the fact that you have two very distinct customer bases-- professional journalists--  AP, SI, NYT and the like -- that need a multi user, fully functional product that keeps track of many shooters in many places doing a variety of things, and all of the rest of us pro and am who would be happy with a single user product..

The catalog product I saw at Photo Expo in New York in the fall is what the rest of us want and need, and it appeared pretty much ready to go back then.  Why not release an individual product as an add on to PM for us in the individual market, and then go on to devote whatever attention you large-multi-users needs?  Everybody wins.

[ostonica]

I posted this in the other thread, but it is along the same lines as Lee's suggestion so I moved it here.
The title of the thread I started was strong, but not intended to be negative. But I like this Subject heading better in hindsight.

No.  We're not going in that direction.  It is in an editorial direction.  Not pixel editing like Photoshop or any other pixel editing application.  We have no plans to do what those other apps do.

This sounds as though the changes are to meet the multiuser needs of a big customer like AP. That product would need a powerful database server MS SQL Server or Oracle. But surely that would be a very different product from the single user version that most of us need and which was presumably good enough to show to customers last Fall.  I am no businessman, but it seems that you are trying to meet the needs of two very different kinds of customers in a single product, a virtually impossible programming task.

I would again, plead with you to reconsider this change in direction and consider two versions of the Catalog program, one for single users and one for multiusers.

Jim Swift

[boltoch]

Just to add my small voice of support to this thread. I'm strictly amateur/hobbyist, desperately in need of a quality, single user, product. Like many others I do my editing in a stand alone product (I use Capture One - but don't get me started on Media Pro), all I need is a solid DAM program without the need to edit images. PM fits nicely into my workflow, just need something to retrieve my stuff. A product that dovetails with PM would be superb - one happy bunny.

[Bill Kelly]

I would again, plead with you to reconsider this change in direction and consider two versions of the Catalog program, one for single users and one for multiusers.

As the lead developer of the catalog module, I'd like to convey that the concerns expressed in these posts are being taken seriously. Our priority will be to release a simplified but reliable and useable beta of the catalog system as soon as we possibly can.

This will be my top priority following the PM5 release.

I apologize for the delay.

-Bill

[ostonica]

Thank you so much, Bill, for this news. As someone else said in another post, the disappointment was never with the people involved, just the earlier news about the delay.

Jim Swift

[Photo_op]

As the lead developer of the catalog module, I'd like to convey that the concerns expressed in these posts are being taken seriously. Our priority will be to release a simplified but reliable and useable beta of the catalog system as soon as we possibly can.

This will be my top priority following the PM5 release.

-Bill

I cannot help but ask, "Simplified" from WHAT? In trying to do damage control you guys keep digging as the hole gets deeper. When did releasing "a reliable and useable beta" become a priority; this week? My suggestion (FWIW and not much at that), limit the number of employees making comments on the situation. It doesn't help when employees have to translate for the President.

[leebaylin]

Bill Kelly:

Thanks.

lee baylin

[Bill Kelly]

When did releasing "a reliable and useable beta" become a priority; this week?

It had previously been our assumption that the software would need to be reasonably feature-complete before it would make sense to release a public beta.  (And although a multi-user version of the software has been in private beta for some time, it is rather special-purpose in its current form.)

However, recent posts on this forum have alerted us to the possibility that releasing a simpler but usable beta sooner, rather than a more feature-complete beta later, may be preferable.

I cannot help but ask, "Simplified" from WHAT? 

In order to accelerate the beta release, we might for example:

- disable the multi-user LAN / WAN functionality
- include only the text-based catalog search language, without its accompanying graphical interface
- omit the hierarchical keyword / collections organizer panel
- omit working with offline (archived) image sets
- omit word-stemming logic in the full-text search for non-English locales (sounds like a no-brainer, but complicates future catalog compatibility)
- omit handling of numeric inequalities in the search language (e.g. FocalLength < 20.1)

Things like that.

Some of the above exists already, but in 'alpha' rather than 'beta' quality.  Thus, if our focus is to get a public beta out with the least further delay, the fastest path would be to disable some of these features for now.


What I think does need to be in place prior to a public beta, is a reasonably stable database schema (one could think of this as the catalog "file format".)

At present, there are a number of EXIF and IPTC fields remaining to be added, but there are also some planned structural changes related to providing fast searches on very large catalogs.

If we release a beta before these changes to the catalog format are implemented, then we increase our workload for future releases by needing to create a conversion mechanism to bring older catalogs up to date with newer versions.

This is part of what I mean by "usable" beta.  Usable to me means it's not acceptable to tell users they have to throw away their old catalogs when a newer beta is released.

My suggestion (FWIW and not much at that), limit the number of employees making comments on the situation. It doesn't help when employees have to translate for the President.

Noted.  There should be no question that Dennis calls the shots.  Hopefully my posts may provide an additional level of detail.


Regards,

Bill

[ralphdaily]

Bill, very helpful post.  But as for me, I'd rather wait and get something more feature complete to look at.  Don't want double work for you or me by putting out partial stuff that forever will need to be fixed in upgrades.  Important to use your resources efficiently. 

[ostonica]

In order to accelerate the beta release, we might for example:

- disable the multi-user LAN / WAN functionality
- include only the text-based catalog search language, without its accompanying graphical interface
- omit the hierarchical keyword / collections organizer panel
- omit working with offline (archived) image sets
- omit word-stemming logic in the full-text search for non-English locales (sounds like a no-brainer, but complicates future catalog compatibility)
- omit handling of numeric inequalities in the search language (e.g. FocalLength < 20.1)

Things like that.

Many thanks indeed for this considerable additional detail, Bill.

Could I ask how these omissions compare to what was in the demo version you showed at PhotoPlus last Fall. None of the omissions you listed would be a problem for me.

[boltoch]

Thanks Bill for the update, very much appreciated.

I'm all in favour of stable releases, fed up with software that falls over the moment it gets out in the real world. I appreciate, and understand, that you need to future proof early Beta releases. As for being 'feature rich', I am more than happy with something that is simple and works in the early stages (and perhaps from a development point of view it will help to know that the foundations are solid), and then follow an upgrade path as new features become available. Perhaps, just a suggestion, if the additional features are modular we can choose what we need as the software develops - amateur vs professional markets.

Thanks again. A software company that listens and communicates.

[Bill Kelly]

Could I ask how these omissions compare to what was in the demo version you showed at PhotoPlus last Fall. None of the omissions you listed would be a problem for me.

The PhotoPlus demo did have multi-user LAN/WAN capability enabled; though I don't know to what extent that functionality was demonstrated.

Factoring in the aforementioned omissions, the proposed beta would at a glance appear similar to what was shown at PhotoPlus.  However, differences would include more metadata being indexed, improved searchability of non-English character sets, more efficient display of large numbers of search results, tighter integration with Photo Mechanic in terms of synchronizing metadata edits within PM to the catalog, various performance improvements.


-Bill

[ostonica]

Many thanks, Bill, That sounds great. Really looking forward to the beta.

Jim

[Brendan]

are there any news about the CameraBits DAM solution? waiting for a very very long long time..

[Mick O (Camera Bits)]

Thank you for staying in touch.  We are working very hard on the product. When we have something to announce, we will do it here.   

-Mick