[Robotica]

XBMC Frodo is great news for XBMC picture users. Many bugs have been fixed and many improvements are made. Last one are python screensavers, which allow for music and screensaver to play at the same time. Also, the new python screeensaver addon is much better than the EDEN-Photo screensaver ever was. Let's see what other python devs will bring in the future.

Still there annoying bugs / small improvements:

1. Controlling the slideshow with a keyboard (and MCE remote):
   Start, Stop and pause don't work since they are not mapped in keyboard.xml (see available mappings)
   (see other bugreports: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=95657 and http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...pid1138418))
   Also in keymap XML we have MyMusicFiles and MyVideoFiles section but nothing for Picture Files to map keys specific to Picture Files browsing.
   
2. Inconsistency between "show single picture" and slideshow **
   Scaling different between show single picture and slideshow (Bug report and another one(including test set))
   
3. Last quick wins are:
   memleak in slideshow: See Problem
   SMB and password troubles: http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/11858 (solution is in the ticket)
   
4. Sortmethod "on date" doesn't work. It would be better to use the EXIF date to sort the listings.
   
5. Context-menu mess: See my proposal, this cleanup PR and this PR with better context menu items.
   
6. Better picture information screen: Now, the picture information screen (press 'o' to see xx.xml) is used to show available meta information in the file view mode. This dialogue opens transparant over the picture. Most ITC information is not that interesting (but since a while a lot more (and better) data is available). Now here lies some work for skinners to give the most usefull information top-down in this screen.
   
7. File viewer improvements
   
8. For plasma panel users, it'll be really safe to have an option for changing vertical black bars when displaying non 16:9 pictures, from black to 50% grey. I don't know if that could be done easily, and even it this could be set for 4:3 videos as well.
   
9. Auto refresh
   

Some feature request to discuss:

• Support for EXIF-writing: To save picture orientation, to allow Addons to write to the database (i.e. to support star rating)
  
• Picture library: Database
  
• Hook-up additional tech: better UPNP support, Playlist func., JSON Support (i.e. store mime type, see also: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...pid1285820)
  
• Use image filter, Lanczos3, in picture viewer/slideshow
  
• Music integration: Best is to use slideshow as music vizualisation and music osd and controls accessible from within picture slideshow (if activated) (also see: Ticket 1 and have a look at the built-in screensaver slideshow addon
  *Slideshow effetcs: Picturerama (see 1:23 of this video)
  
• Apple-style screensaver: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=125978
  - fireplace and aquarium visuals via addons: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=169129
  

Question:
** Is viewing a single picture with the picture viewer using the buildin slideshow to display images or is this a seperate viewer?

GSOC 2012 picture player improvement

Improved Picture Player - Medium difficulty - Write a new picture/slideshow engine to be more like a normal player (see DVDPlayer and PAPlayer as examples). Ideal would be to utilize the existing GUIImage code to handle loading of images, and the animation engine for transistion effects (pan/zoom/rotate, etc.)

For skinners:
SlideShow.xml >>> A lot more and better meta data is available. It would make sense if this info is top-down available and set on/off via settings.
Same goes for the picture information screen (mentioned in the post above).
When browser through picture folders, it would make sense to see some folder statistics (like this).
And "Recently added" for pictures like some skins have should be nice to have.
Is an overlay an good solution?


Known issues:

• Video files in listing: Problem
  
• Due to old libs, RAW file format support is a little buggy in some scenario's. Now, the image factory is in, it should be easier to add newer libraw.
  

Also, (recursive) slideshows always loops. Should this be an option if someone want it to stop after going through all photos once.

I will also have a look at the pictures WIKI.

[silgar99]

It seems good news for XBMC picture users indeed, and maybe we'll be able to get rid of Windows MCE at last.

I'll like to use XBMC in Linux, and getting rid of Windows on my Zbox HTPC. But I got thousands of pictures, manually tagged for rating, people, travels, places... and my portfolio keeps growing. XBMC Eden allows fast thumbnail browsing but basic features when in picture mode, while WMCE allows picture information display on demand, searching and sorting by rating, by date, by tags, by folder... and even allowing for writing EXIF ratings on the fly by jut pushing the 1 to 5 keys. And that's a great feature from WMCE worth to be copied. When you want to show pictures from a trip or a place to your family or friends, you just sort pictures by rate inside a folder, or by the tag for the place, and you just start a slide-show. It will be really, really nice having such features on XBMC. Then the XBMC picture mode will rock, absolutely.

And as a PDP owner, there's another feature I'll like to see one day implemented on XBMC, and that's slide-show related too. For plasma panel users, it'll be really safe to have an option for changing vertical black bars when displaying non 16:9 pictures, from black to 50% grey. I don't know if that could be done easily, and even it this could be set for 4:3 videos as well. I don't know if that feature has been requested before. But for PDP owners, that's another feature for keeping WMCE just for slide-shows while waiting similar implementation arrives to XBMC.

Thank you very much for all developers and people involved in this GREAT project, and please, please kept the good work. We users are in big debt for all the joy we get from this software!

[Robotica]

thanks for your input.
Added your plasma request to the list. The Exif-writing already was in there.

[narvatu]

my huge photo collection is actually managed with google picasa.
Is possible now, or in near future import to xbmc database the tags (persons, orientation, location...) saved in local picasa database?
Other user managed their collections with other soft (lightroom, acdsee...). Is possible some kind of script-addon to import to xbmc such databases?

[Robotica]

my huge photo collection is actually managed with google picasa.
Is possible now, or in near future import to xbmc database the tags (persons, orientation, location...) saved in local picasa database?
Other user managed their collections with other soft (lightroom, acdsee...). Is possible some kind of script-addon to import to xbmc such databases?

There is an addon: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=83499 but it is not (yet) possible to import into XBMC database, as there is none.

[User 46219]

I've been playing with Frodo and the Image handling improvements are great! Along with others I'd love to see the ability to save orientation - doing so would make XBMC the best way of reading comics on my tablet. I know it's not the main intention, but with android support coming along it'd be nice to add yet another app that XBMC can replace (any comic reader).

[Robotica]

I've been playing with Frodo and the Image handling improvements are great! Along with others I'd love to see the ability to save orientation - doing so would make XBMC the best way of reading comics on my tablet. I know it's not the main intention, but with android support coming along it'd be nice to add yet another app that XBMC can replace (any comic reader).

Yes saving orientation is a much wanted feature. Maybe after Frodo, when the picture database gets into the core of XBMC, saving with another parser will go into mainline. Not just for comics and picture, but also for Addons to build upon.

ps. If you can confirm some bugs, that would be great.

[ulion]

two feature is needed:

1. Show picture by api. I mean in addon python code there is noway to show a picture after the addon got the picture url, currently have to use SlideShow(plugindir) call to a dummy plugin dir for a single picture url to do that. Or make the picture also work with SetResolvedUrl call like audio and video. Or make picture can be showed(played) by some player.play() call.
2. Support show animated GIF, just a minor feature, but lack for so many years, anyone just make it work? or any workaround?

[Robotica]

two feature is needed:

1. Show picture by api. I mean in addon python code there is noway to show a picture after the addon got the picture url, currently have to use SlideShow(plugindir) call to a dummy plugin dir for a single picture url to do that. Or make the picture also work with SetResolvedUrl call like audio and video. Or make picture can be showed(played) by some player.play() call.
2. Support show animated GIF, just a minor feature, but lack for so many years, anyone just make it work? or any workaround?

Thanks for your input:
1> The API extensions you mention are indeed needed to fully leverage XBMC's framework for pictures (Ronie posted valuable info).
2> I guess it isn't supported; The slideshow just plays the first frame. But FFMPEG 1.1 supports animated gif's. Besides animated weather icons and fanart, a user definied another use case for this:

Something I would like to see would be animated fanart/backgrounds. Many bluray discs have looping animated menu backgrounds with no audio in the form of ordinary .m2ts files. Copying such a file and renaming it to let's say "fanart.m2ts" and enabling skins to use these instead of ordinary fanart images when present would make some interesting designs possible.

[Robotica]

//edit

[mikebzh44]

Any way to acces EXIF informations when playing slideshow ?

For example, overlaying the EXIF comment on a picture :

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=154931

[sfontes]

Any way to acces EXIF informations when playing slideshow ?

For example, overlaying the EXIF comment on a picture :

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=154931

I added the following control to SlideShow.xml to display picture info during the slideshow:

Code:

        <control type="textbox" id="101">
            <posx>15</posx>
            <posy>600</posy>
            <width>800</width>
            <height>120</height>
            <font>font12</font>
            <align>left</align>
            <textcolor>C0FFFFFF</textcolor>
            <shadowcolor>C0000000</shadowcolor>
            <label>
            $INFO[slideshow.healine]
            $INFO[slideshow.caption]
            $INFO[slideshow.city,,$COMMA ]$INFO[slideshow.state,,$COMMA]$INFO[slideshow.country]
            $INFO[slideshow.exiftime]
            </label>
        </control>

My control is actually a little more complicated, it uses visibility tags to make sure there are no blank lines if some of the info doesn't exist, and bottom justifies everything, but that should get you started.

I got the slideshow.* INFO strings to use from this post: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...#pid211246

[mikebzh44]

Thanks a lot !!!

[CaptainKen]

Relatively new user to XBMC ... its great for movies and TV shows ... but lacking in picture and home movies browsing department.

Unlike movies and TV shows ... I have picures and home videos in thousands (if not in ten thousands) ... so far could not find any product out there that meets all my needs:
1. able to categorize the pictures (tag people, tag places, tag events, create custom tags)
2. able to share database ... i.e. multi user environment
3. has a decent front end viewer that i can put on set-top box and view picture on my TV by categories

XBMC is able to do above extremely welll for movies and TV shows ... i think partly because movies and TV shows are easily categorized and you can scrape that info from websites.

Not so for picures and home videos ... you cannot scrape info for them from websites ... the process for categorizing pictures is long/tedious process and requires good inerface to do so efficiently (i found ACDSee interface to work fine for me) . However, categorizing interface is not the best one for viewing (i dont want to put ACDSee interface as a front end for showing off my pictures to my friends/family ... its ugly, not easy to use for layman, and they can accedently delete or change categories ... plus acdsee is not a multi user environment)

What would be good is to have a central database for pictures ... interface for categorizing them (i think separate from XBMC as a back-end/administrator tool but multiuser capable ... like this whole family can help organizing photoes and home videos from their PC ... not XBMC boxes) ... and XNMC viewing support for categories created

So ideal workflow would be:

1. me and my family spending hours categorizing our pictures and home videos from our PCs and laptops

2. XBMC boxes show off our effort to our guest and friends on large TVs ... i.e. over simple to use XBMC interface - i can filter myself and my mates during my wedding (i am sure they are not interested to look at my relatives)

I like IDimager Photo Supreme, a prosumer program to create the metadata.

[Robotica]

Any way to acces EXIF informations when playing slideshow ?

For example, overlaying the EXIF comment on a picture :

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=154931

I added the following control to SlideShow.xml to display picture info during the slideshow:

Code:

        <control type="textbox" id="101">
            <posx>15</posx>
            <posy>600</posy>
            <width>800</width>
            <height>120</height>
            <font>font12</font>
            <align>left</align>
            <textcolor>C0FFFFFF</textcolor>
            <shadowcolor>C0000000</shadowcolor>
            <label>
            $INFO[slideshow.healine]
            $INFO[slideshow.caption]
            $INFO[slideshow.city,,$COMMA ]$INFO[slideshow.state,,$COMMA]$INFO[slideshow.country]
            $INFO[slideshow.exiftime]
            </label>
        </control>

My control is actually a little more complicated, it uses visibility tags to make sure there are no blank lines if some of the info doesn't exist, and bottom justifies everything, but that should get you started.

I got the slideshow.* INFO strings to use from this post: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...#pid211246

Still some troubles displaying slideshow. See https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/2294 (esspecially the mentioned ticket)