jAlbum/Preferences

These are the program settings. These settings will change the behaviour of the program and will be applied to all album projects. OSV OSV......

General

• Language: Use this to set the applications interface to your preferred language, changes take place immediately. jAlbum is translated to many different languages but note that the skin settings might not be translated since the interface for the skin settings is created by the skin developers.
• Look and feel: The default is to match your computer’s operating system but can be changed to Alloy, Metal, Nimbus or CDE/Motif.
• Number of Threads: Determines how many images and slide pages that will be processed simultaneously. This will normally default to using the same number of processor cores as your computer has. For example a single processor with four cores, that has dual threading, will allow eight threads to be used at the same time. This just means that jAlbum can process your projects faster the more threads that are supported. Read more about this here.
• Logging level: This controls the level of diagnostic/error reporting that is reported to the user. An error or warning is indicated in the bottom right of the application window by a yellow triangle, clicking on that icon will open the system console log, showing the details of the problem. This is probably best set to Warning, unless requested by jAlbum to change it for specific debug information or you are developing a skin.
• Check for updates: If selected the application will check the jAlbum server for updates. If you want to keep the application at a specific version, say to avoid updating to a major release requiring a new license then turn this setting off.
• Show warning dialogs: If selected then any problems encountered during operation of the application will be reported by a pop-up dialog box.
• Display thumbnails in file chooser: When adding files the application will try to use a native file chooser, but if one is not supported then a Java file chooser is used. Selecting this setting will show thumbnail images in the Java file chooser window.
• Remember last window position and size: If selected the application will open in the same position and at the same window size as used in the previous session. It does not apply to skin settings windows.
• Save backups of album projects: This creates a backup file of the settings used for a project, it does not create a backup of the project’s contents. The default name for the project’s settings file is jalbum-settings.jap. The default location for the file is specified in the Album preferences under My Albums location.
• Show tip of the day: If selected a usage tip will be presented when the application is run for the first time each day.
• Use jAlbum’s integrated browser: If selected then the integrated browser is made available for previewing the album within jAlbum. This can save time especially when experimenting with skin settings.
• Close progress dialog when done: When you make an album from a project jAlbum will show its progress as it generates pages, images, videos etc. If you want this progress dialog box to close when the album build is complete then select this setting. Note, if ‘Use jAlbum’s integrated browser’ is selected then this setting is inactive.

Album

• When adding files: Decides what jAlbum is doing when you are adding new files to the program, the options are ask, copy or link. Ask is the default state. Copy will make a copy of the file being added whilst Link will just keep a reference, indicated by a small curved arrow in the lower left of the thumbnail, to the original file. Ask will prompt you to decide whether to copy or link each time a file is added. Linking has the advantage of saving space since there is no need to duplicate the file. Copying means that you can have your original images stored on remote/ removable discs, that do not need to be present when making the album. You can read more about copying and linking here.
• "My Albums" location: Click on the folder icon and then navigate to the folder on your computer that you want to hold your jAlbum projects. For example, you could use a subfolder within your Pictures Folder, /Users/user name/Pictures/jAlbum. Whenever you select ‘New Album Project...’ from the File menu, then a new folder, named as your Album name, is created in the ‘My Albums location’.
• Illegal characters: Illegal characters are those that are not allowed in file or folder names, generally these will be characters that your operating system does not allow, or are not valid in URLs. If you want to add specific characters just add them to the end of the default set.

You can’t use those characters in file names within jAlbum, but if you add files that have such characters they will have a small yellow warning triangle, to alert you that they should not be used, see figure to the right.

• Clean old output files on make all: This setting will remove files that are no longer required with the current configuration, maybe because of a change to the settings or a change of skin. Copies of any included ‘Original’ images will only be deleted if not required and the output directory is a subdirectory of the image directory.
• Synchronise output directory: If selected then changes within jAlbum’s explore window pane will be reflected immediately in the output directory. For example, deleting a folder from the explore window pane will remove the equivalent folder in the output directory.
• Cache thumbnails: Caches are used to save time by not having to reprocess things, if selected a cache of thumbnails will be created to speed up operations.
• Video support: This will allow jAlbum to use ffmpeg to reprocess videos to a standard mp4 format. The Advanced tab has a list of supported video formats. Turn this setting off if you don’t want jAlbum to reprocess your videos. Note, how videos are supported varies on a skin by skin basis, not all skins support videos.
• Allow local flash preview: This allows videos in your ‘My albums’ location to be played using Flash technology within the jAlbum application.
• Keep track of files copied from memory cards: If selected jAlbum will store a small database file on each memory card so that it can track which images have already been used with jAlbum. The database file is called jalbum-copied-files.db, it is created when a card is inserted with jAlbum running and a file is copied from the camera’s image directory.

Skins

• Use layout hints: This applies to skins that supply a hints.jap file with recommended settings, for example the rows and columns as set in Settings, Pages, Thumbnail layout.
• Restore previous settings: This applies to skins that supply a hints.jap file and when ‘Use layout hints’ is selected. This ensures that if you have changed the rows and columns, and then change to another skin, with a hint for rows and columns, the values you set are used and not those supplied with the hints.jap of the newly selected skin.

Image editing

• Write xmp metadata to files: This will write comments etc. to the images in your project. Before writing though it will read any existing metadata and then write out the new data, ensuring existing information remains.

Publishing

• After publishing: Deicides what jAlbum shall do after the album has been published, you can open published album or do nothing. open published album is the default setting.
• Include high-res images for print and backup: A folder called hi-res will be included in the uploaded album containing all images in high resolution.
• Include the lifeboat file: Includes a zip file in the uploaded album containing a back-up of your album settings.
• Max simultaneous transfers: This setting is set to 8 by default. If you for example get memory problems it might be a good idea to try and lower it to 4.

Advanced

• Use zip streaming when available: Speeds up the transferring by transferring the whole album as one compressed file.

Paranoia

• Encrypt manifest file: Prevents album viewers from inspecting the manifest file and in that way list your published files.

Advanced

• Web proxy settings: You can configure the proxy host and port.
• Compatibility mode: Can make older skins work, but it requires more RAM memory.
• Attempt to use native file dialogs:
• Unify image color model to RGB or ABGR:
• Supported video formats: A list of the supported video formats, the list can be edited.