Pixie Version 1.0 Alpha2 is available (04/03/2001)
Pixie (formerly ImageForge) is an image management system for KDE2. Originally designed as a more sophisticated replacement for image viewers such as xv and Electric Eyes, it has grown into a entire system for easily managing large amounts of images. Almost all extended features are dynamically loaded as you use them, so Pixie is an ideal KDE/Qt solution for both those who need a fast and small image viewer and those who need sophisticated image management.
Feature Overview:
* Persistant thumbnail image manager with 4 different sizes and multiple sorting modes, full file management support (move, copy, rename, etc...), and interoperability with the KDE file manager - Konqueror. Plugin based and dynamically loaded as used.
* Over 30 image effects and enhancements, all efficently handled via the plugin architecture so if you don't use them and are only browsing images no overhead is incurred. Also, most effects can be applied either image wide or to the selection rectangle. This is in addition to the built-in modifications such as contrast, dim, etc...
* "Hotlist" support, which allows you to select frequently used folders and have them easily accessed in the thumbnail manager for both drag and dropping files and switching to them with a single click.
* Extensive color editing for both image-wide and individual colors in HSV, RGB, and dual RGB component modes. Individual color editing is supported on non-paletted (many color) images. Also plugin based.
* Zoom'ed window support for both accurate mouse selection and color lookup. Now you can quickly find that web color value :)
* Can play animated GIFs.
* Internet transparency.
New! Pixie Version 1.0 Alpha2 is available!
Changes between Pixie 1.0alpha1 and alpha2
* Over 30 new configurable keybindings and keyboard naviagation features. A list of current keyboard accelerators is available here.
* Basic skin support. You can select images for the thumbnail manager background, image frames, and custom colors. You also can now shut off image frames (useful if you do a lot of D'nd). Some screenshots are available here.
* Rotating an image by 90, 180, and 270 degrees has been added to the "Edit" menu.
* The "Take a Screenshot" dialog now has a configurable delay.
* Only displaying image and folder files in the thumbnail manager has been fixed.
* Startup speed increase and kdeinit support.
* Splitter positions in the thumbnail manager are now saved between sessions.
* The vertical splitter of the thumbnail manager can now be moved completely over to the left, hiding the hotlist/directory tree and preview completely and only showing thumbnails.
* The hotlist and directory tree tab selection is saved between sessions.
* Small thumbnail reload speed increase.
* Warns users when an invalid filename or URL is supplied on the command line.
* Images with no thumbnail use the default icon instead of an empty button.
* Many various bugfixes.
New! Pixie Version 1.0 Alpha1 is available!
Changes between Pixie in KDE2.1 and Pixie 1.0alpha1
* The thumbnail manager is now blazingly fast when loading existing thumbnails. Bascially, I went from loading all the thumbnails in a directory at once (the way most thumbnail viewers handle things) to loading them on demand. This decreases the amount of time used when entering a directory with several thousand images from a matter of minutes to a mere matter of seconds. The speed improvement here alone would justify a new release, and makes Pixie a viable solution when dealing with thousands of thumbnails - something important to both people with digital cameras and web designers.
* View modes have been added. Different users like different UI's for their image managers, so you can now select between different user interface modes. In this alpha, XV style (the image gets it's own scalable window, and controls are accessed via the filelist window), and KView style (the image is placed in a scrollable area along with the controls), are supported. A File Manager style is in the works that provides a directory tree to the left of the image that should be ready by 1.0.
* Directories now support more file manager operations.
* Directories automatically detect changes in the filesystem. Most importantly, this means deleteing, moving, or copying files in the thumbnail manager now gives more consistent reloading.
* The directory tree now supports D'nd.
* File properties are now managed via dialogs provided by the more powerful ones in the KDE libraries.
* There is a new command line option, -thumbnail (or -t), that automatically loads the thumbnail manager plugin when Pixie starts.
* A new thumbnail size, Huge, has been added.
* The folder path input in the thumbnail manager can now accept wildcards and filenames instead of just paths.
* The image preview window now supports zooming.
* Lots of other bugfixes and little features I forgot >:)
Known bugs in this beta
* The load on demand feature of the thumbnail manager sometimes goes nuts and loads a lot of thumbnails it doesn't need yet.
* The individual color editor is buggy and being replaced.
Requirements
* Qt, and the KDE 2.1 libraries. KDE2.0 libs may work if your compiling, but this is untested.
TODO before 1.0
* More keyboard controls.
* Bugfixing.
* HTML export of thumbnails. This will be done as a separate application that can generate a variety of thumbnail'ed HTML pages using either the thumbnails made by Pixie or Konqueror.
* New editor for individual colors that integrates the color selector from KDE's color editing dialog. I should also make it optional to view the results from changing image-wide color settings in realtime.
* File manager view type, with a directory tree to the left of the image.
* Update the webpage, along with all my other ones ;P
Downloading and installing
Currently, only source code is available. If you want to contribute a package for your favorite distribution, please feel free to do so! Remember, this replaces the Pixie in KDE2.1's kdegraphics package, so you'll have to resolve any conflicts if your making a package...
To download the new version of Pixie, click here!
In order to compile Pixie, simply do the following (as a user who has permissions to install software in the KDE directory):
tar zxvf Pixie-1.0a2.tgz
cd pixie
make -f Makefile.cvs
./configure
make install
Find out more about Pixie:
Click to learn more about Pixie's thumbnail image
management system.
Click to learn more about Pixie's many image effects.
Where can I get it?
A stable version is included in the KDE2.1 "kdegraphics" package.
The development version, which includes many new but untested features, is available
here.
For fun checkout the bloggerssuck site a friend emailed me about.