Fotoxx Change Log         https://kornelix.net
=================


2018 Sep. 16 v.18.07.2
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 • All Fotoxx menu functions were exercised using GCC -fsanitize=address.
   Several bugs were fixed that were serious enough to cause a crash. 
 • A blank line in the list of user-defined 'extra' metadata caused a crash.
 • Area copy/paste had a misleading user interface, making it hard to use.


2018 July 21 v.18.07.1
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Makefile and source code revisions to get past new GCC errors and warnings.
There were no functional changes or bug fixes.


2018 July 01 v.18.07  - changes from prior release 18.01 (January 2018)
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Functional Changes
 • Zonal Retinex is around 5x faster for large images and high zone count.
 • A single Blur menu now consolidates all six blur functions: normal blur, 
   radial blur, directed blur, graduated blur, paint blur, background blur.
 • Normal blur is around 3x faster and radius limit was raised from 200 to 999.
 • Radial Blur - new function: Blur is directed outwards from a chosen center.
 • Image Differences - new function: Subtract one image from another. These 
   can be variably offset, magnified, and edited for artistic effects. 
 • Copy Pixels: Image areas can be copied directly from a source to a target
   image via mouse 'painting'. Copy process can be scaled to fit the target.
 • Run Script: Apply a custom script to the current image file with one click.
   Works like an edit function - much faster than setting up a batch script.
 • Keyboard shortcuts can be defined for the common dialog completion buttons.
 • Trim/Rotate: If an image was leveled, a minor sharpen is done automatically.
 • Find Duplicate Images: This runs much faster for a huge image collection.
   Input can be all images or the current gallery (e.g. Search Images output).
 • Smart Erase: power lines or other long thin features can be more easily
   erased by clicking at intervals along the line. 
 • Search Images: 
      Date "null" can be used to find images having no photo date.
      BUSY indicator was added for long searches (non-indexed metadata).
      New option: retrieve all versions for images meeting search criteria.
      Wildcards can be used when searching metadata for matching text.
 • Slide Show: 
      The dialog for specifying image events was simplified.
      Duration for animated transitions and image zooms is specified directly 
      in seconds (instead of fiddling parameters by trial and error).
      New transition type: image 'disintegrates' to reveal new image.
 • Gallery view: more/less metadata is shown with bigger/smaller thumbnail size.
 • List view: now includes image pixel dimensions and file size in megabytes.
 • Paint Edits can now be used with: Color Mode, Shift Colors, Adjust RGB.
 • Batch Convert and Batch RAW: new options for output file type and bit depth.
 • Batch Delete/Trash: Deleted files are automatically purged from all albums.
   (formerly this was not done until the next time an album was opened).
 • Manage Albums: Rename option added (formerly you had to use a file manager).
 • The restriction on sorting albums was removed, but the output is a new
   album instead of replacing the input album. New name is 'oldname-sorted'.
 • New album function: Revert to current album or open last-used album.
 • Change Language: this setting is now preserved across Fotoxx sessions
   (previously reverted to user locale at next Fotoxx startup).
Technical Changes:
 • Menu popup help text: better positioning to avoid covering nearby menu.
 • Fotoxx home can more easily be moved to a new location. User settings and 
   customizations are preserved. Re-indexing of image files is not required.
 • Custom script files were relocated to <fotoxx-home>/custom_scripts.
 • Galleries are now limited to 25K images to avoid window manager lock-up.
   Image searches exceeding this limit are truncated with notification.
 • File size in megabytes added to the image index (effective after re-index).
   This is also shown in gallery view if zoom size is large enough to fit.
 • Many menu names were simplified and shortened for faster visual lookup.
   More commonly used menus were moved toward the top of the list. 
 • Because of the menu renaming, Keyboard shortcuts are reset to the defaults.
   Any custom shortcuts you have made must be redefined.
 • The [+] and [-] keys can no longer be used for rapid increment/decrement of
   a numeric widget setting. Use the up/down arrow keys instead.
Bug Fixes:
 • Show map locations for current gallery images: crashed if empty gallery.
 • Cosmetic flaw in custom [small] spin buttons (e.g. 0.1 showed as 0.100003). 
 • Restore lost keyboard shortcut for menu "File Save as New Version".
 • Video files with embedded quotes (") in file names would not play.
 • Index image files: rare failure to create a thumbnail (self-correcting).
 • Slide Show animated image transitions are smoother (minimum jitter).
 • Search Images: If search-to date is 'yyyy-mm', default correct 'dd' 28-31.
 • Favorites: stop spurious false error message "xxx.png file not found".
 • Batch Photo Date-Time: failed for image files having no EXIF date-time.
 • Preserving the current file/gallery/album across sessions failed if the 
   file/gallery/album file name had embedded blanks. 
 • Edit Metadata: if custom metadata items for image index were missing for
   a file being edited, useless error messages were added to the log file.
 • Crash in preload_thumbs() if galleries are switched 10+ times per second
   (e.g. using the arrow keys to race through months in the timeline report).
 • Crash if Measure Noise is used while the Denoise function is still working.
 • Crash if certain functions are used after starting fotoxx with no index.
 • Some scrollable reports did not scroll when using the KB up/down arrow keys
   to move the currently selected row beyond the top or bottom of the window.
 • The image function "Copy to Desktop" did not work for non-English locales.
 • The User Guide was audited and many errors and omissions were corrected.


2018 May 01 v.18.01.4
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The German translation was cleaned up by a real native German speaker.
Bugfix: Help > Quick Start showed English version for non-English locales.


2018 Feb 22 v.18.01.3
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Bugfix: Fast image rotate function was inadvertently called in the wrong place,
causing lower quality output image. Revert to high quality rotate function. 

 
2018 Jan 24 v.18.01.2
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The Italian translation was updated.
Bugfix: Removed cosmetic defect in the custom [small] spin buttons.


2018 Jan 02 v.18.01.1
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Bug Fix: Crash in metadata related functions if the default tag category 
'nocatg' had been deleted. 'nocatg' is now replaced automatically.


2018 Jan 01 v.18.01  - changes from prior release 17.08 (August 2017)
-------------------
Technical Changes:
 • The image index format was revised, requiring a new index initialization.
   This runs fast (up to 7000/min.) since new thumbnails are not needed.
 • Image Index initialization: work is now divided among 4 parallel threads. 
   On a computer with 4 processor cores and an SSD disk, indexing is about 
   3x faster (ca. 6000/min). There is no speedup for a spinning disk (1000/min). 
 • The maximum thread count for some functions was increased from 4 to 8, 
   to better utilize the newest processors from Intel and AMD.
 • Use of the shell 'find' command was mostly replaced with calls to glob().
   This is fail-safe against special characters in file names.
 • There is now an option to place the Fotoxx home directory wherever wanted.
   The file "/home/<user>/.fotoxx-home" may be used to set a custom location.
 • Font for gallery windows is 1 point less than the user setting for dialogs. 
 • Retained geocoordinate precision was improved (now within 1 meter).
 • Many GTK widgets were downsized by reducing unnecessary margin padding. 
   This can be revised or undone by editing the file "widgets.css".
 • The custom [small] spin button widget now spins increasingly faster when 
   the +/- key or up/down arrow key is held down more than 1 second. 
Functional Changes:
 • The image index may now include up to 20 user-defined metadata items
   (search speed for indexed metadata is >1000x faster than non-indexed).
 • The restriction on sorting a metadata report was removed.
 • Create > Pattern: GUI improvements and better responsiveness.
 • Updating Albums: GUI improvements to make it easier to update affected 
   albums after an image file is updated or a new version is created.
 • Play video: Keyboard commands revised: 'P' to play/stop/resume, 'Q' to quit.
 • New slide show transition: the next image swells up from the middle and 
   compresses the previous image out to the sides. 
 • Galleries retain both sort and scroll position within and across sessions.
   All galleries can be reset to 'file name ascending' order with one button.
 • Retouch-Combo: GUI improved for setting white balance and black point.
 • Retinex: new edit function to improve color and contrast for images with 
   extreme fog/haze or color cast (e.g. a scan of a 100 year-old photo).
   Retinex can also be used to add flair to most other images. 
 • Batch Photo Date/Time: new function to fix missing or wrong photo date/time,
   or shift the date/time a given amount (e.g. camera in wrong time zone).
 • Batch Geotags: Location and Country can be updated without changing existing 
   geocoordinates (e.g. rationalize chaotic names from the camera GPS).
 • Keyboard navigation: some search and select functions that output a list now 
   allow navigation of the list using the arrow, page and home/end keys. You can 
   also enter text to make the list scroll to the next entry with matching text.
 • KB shortcuts: most can be customized, most are now available in gallery view.
   The menu functions that can have shortcuts were expanded from 27 to 94.
 • Menu font and background colors can be set to match a 'theme' or personal
   taste (these are generated graphics and do not follow themes automatically).
 • Two batch RAW conversion functions were consolidated into one, with options.
 • Search Images: search by file mod date added (in addition to photo date).
 • View360 function: View a 360° panorama image (e.g. Google photosphere).
   Viewpoint can turn through 360° and wrap-around by dragging the mouse.
 • Manage Tags: stop auto-delete of unused tags. User must delete if unwanted.
 • Mosaic: made much faster by using parallel threads. Blend is now instant. 
 • KB shortcuts: make '+' key work as 'zoom-in' for any keyboard layout. 
 • Zonal Flatten: allow zone count = 1 (i.e. use the entire image distribtion).
 • Adjust HSL: use a sample spot of 3x3 pixels instead of one pixel.
 • Gallery view: use arrow keys to index current file and jump across galleries.
 • Revised menu names: Zonal Flatten > Flatten, Tone Mapping > Gradients,
   Flip Image > Mirror Image, Write Text > Add Text, Write Line > Add Line,
   Brightness Gradient > Brightness Ramp, Local Color > Zonal Colors.
Bug Fixes:
 • Panorama: PNG images with alpha channels were sometimes made invisible.
 • Possible lockup after a long image indexing process. Exiftool memory leak.
 • Brightness Ramp: direction line sometimes persisted after function exit.
 • Albums: stop removal of videos from album if 'ffmpeg' or 'totem' is missing.
 • All directories tree: possible crash if navigating via keyboard arrow keys.
 • Search Images metadata report: missing data for the first image in the list.
 • Search Images with metadata selection criteria: minor memory leak plugged.
 • Vertical Panorama: fine alignment via mouse caused image to partly disappear.
 • Favorites menu: stop crash if assigned menu name is a 'top' menu.
 • Favorites menu: stop movement of menu position if 'user settings' selected.
 • The interface to Raw Thereapee was updated for changes in Raw Therapee. 
 • Some keyboard shortcut keys were not working for non-English locales.
 • Spurious "kill active dialog" message if image-index [x] button is used.
 • Crash "max. dialogs exceeded" after 15 "Edit Brightness" done in a script.
 • Stop spurious log file diagnostic from thumbnail clicks: "f_open re-entry".
 • Batch Utilities: stop flashing of title bar with each file opened.
 • Crash "no thumbnail directory" needed a better diagnostic.
 • Image Index: RAW files were being omitted (auto updated when referenced).
 • Make all date/time input formats the same.
User Guide:
  The user guide was audited to fix many minor errors and omissions. 
  The images were all updated and some were enlarged for better visibility. 
  A clickable table of contents and a clickable topic index were added.
Wayland Note:
  Fotoxx works OK with Wayland/Xwayland with one exception: when an image is
  zoomed-in by clicking on a spot, the pointer no longer follows the spot but
  stays fixed. This is a known bug or omission (only user can move pointer).


