jAlbum 23 is here, listing a whopping 17 improvements and 15 bug fixes. As always you'll find the full list in our release notes. Here I'll try to give you an overview of the most notable improvements.
Performance
Don't you just hate it when software grows larger and slower over time? We do. Every now and then we therefore revisit the code to see whether it can be made more performant. It's mainly about two things: Doing less (repetitive) work, and doing more work at the same time. People aren't good at this, but computers should, especially if they have multi-core CPUs. You'll find that jAlbum 23 responds faster when opening projects and navigating folders due to better use of multiple CPU cores. We estimate around 30-50% improvement on a 4 core CPU (MacBook Pro 2015). The album making process has also been revisited to eliminate "warm up" costs when doing repetitive album builds: We now keep the script engine between album builds and also keep cached compiled copies of all scripts. We've also gained around 20% better album making performance due to better parallelism (updating a huge "Tiger" skin project). Finally, image filter processing is now also done in parallel to achieve better performance.
Improved image ordering
One guiding principle in user interface design is to not surprise the user. Here I have to admit that we've failed when it comes to image ordering, especially in relation to drag and drop. jAlbum hasn't always positioned newly dropped items exactly where you dropped them, and after a screen refresh, they might have been reordered to match the folder's sort order, but was this expected? Sometimes jAlbum will change the sort order, but was this expected? jAlbum 23 tries to behave in a more predicable manner and give you more control at the same time.
Before explaining further, let me just quickly explain how image ordering in jAlbum works: Historically, jAlbum provided one type of sort order for the whole album (by camera date, alphabetically etc). This is controlled under Settings->Pages and is referred to as "jAlbum ordering". Later, we added folder specific ordering. This ordering can either be in accordance to the global "jAlbum ordering" or something else, like "Camera date ordering". There's also "Custom ordering" which simply means "You decide by drag and drop". Folder specific ordering is controlled under View->Order by.
So what's new? Apart from fixing bugs, jAlbum now introduces two methods of dropping new files onto a folder. The first method, the "specific drop" positions the newly dropped files exactly where the caret so indicates. This also switches the sort order to "Custom ordering" in order to respect your choice. The switch will be hinted with an animated text so you shouldn't be surprised that the sort order changed. The second way of dropping positions the newly dropped files in accordance with the folder's current sort order. You'll get this behavior if you either drop files onto a folder (either in the folder tree or in the Explorer area) OR if you drop files into the margin area of the Explorer view. This mode is indicated by a "drop rectangle" appearing over the Explorer area instead of a caret. This is actually better explained by this short video. View it!
Specific location drop vs folder order drop
Last used tool
Among the new features of v23 I'd like to highlight the "Last used" tool. This little efficiency enhancer remembers the tool you last executed and binds it to the CTRL/CMD+L keyboard shortcut or Tools->Last tool menu. If you find yourself repeatedly executing a certain tool over a range of images, say straightening several images or adjusting the camera date of several images, then this is a time saver!
Bug fixes
Fixing bugs is as (if not more) important as introducing new features. v23 has over 15 fixes. The most notable one being support for Mac OS "Big Sur". I'm also particularly happy that we spotted an ancient bug that caused occasional script errors during album making, typically triggered by instantly making an album after switching skin, which happens if you keep jAlbum's preview window open while switching skin.
I hope you're eager to install jAlbum 23. We've arranged 30 new trial days to everyone so you have a good chance to evaluate it. Also remember that this is a free update to anyone who is on a current support & update plan (See Help->About). Download jAlbum 23 today!
Rog acum 2 luni
Thanks, David, for explicating. /Roger
David Ekholm acum 3 luni
@Rog: Continued:
3) For this to fully play out, get a core update to v23.0.2. Now you can add MP4 videos that have GPS coordinates embedded. jAlbum should now be able to extract these coordinates as variables. This means that you can show these coordinates, or perhaps show a pin on a Google Map next to these videos, just like you can with ordinary images
4) People who design customized web sites and use jAlbum might benefit from this as they can now include full or parts of html pages in the final album's res folder. I actually haven't thought much about specific applications for this. It was asked for in our user forum and there is a logic to not filter out certain file types under the "res" folder as we don't process pages within it anyway. We now simply respect the user's will and include whatever he puts in the "res" folder of his current project.
David Ekholm acum 3 luni
Hi Rog, Our forum is a better forum for Q&A, but I try to comment on your questions nevertheless:
1) The sort order change applies to the currently viewed folder if you see a caret between two thumbnails as you drop external files.
2) Story skin supports this. Story inlines the contents of web pages within their parent page. It also adds references to web pages in the navigation. When you hide them, I believe they are no longer present in the navigation, but still inlined (or vice versa, I might confuse matters. Just try)
Rog acum 3 luni
jAlbum just gets better and better. In particular, I like the improvement in speed. My large albums now build and re-build much faster. I do have some questions, which might be addressed by expanding on them in the release notes. Yes, I do read the "instructions!"
1. On drag and drop: does the automagical sort-order change apply to a whole folder or "sub" folders within an album?
2. What does hiding of web pages mean? Which skins support this feature?
3. What is the implication of "supports MP4 GPS coordinates?"
4. Of what benefit is "allows ordinary web pages to be put inside the "res" folder?"
Thanks for the great work. jAlbum is one of the very few applications that I spend my retirement dollars on.
/Roger