Photovault 0.5.0

RELEASE NOTES

This is release 0.5.0 of Photovault, a cross-platform Java based image archiving application for photographers. 0.5.0 improves color adjustment possibilities, adds XML export for image metadata and fixes several importat bugs.

MAIN CHANGES IN PHOTOVAULT 0.5.0

New features

  • New color curve tool that makes it possible to adjust colors of all images, not just raw image files as in 0.4.0
  • New tool for adjusting saturation of images
  • New tool for deleting photos from database
  • Import/export metadata stored in Photovault database in XML format. In this first version of the feature, Photovault just exports the whole content of database, but in future this framework can be extended to allow more controlled exchange of image data.
  • Improved support for MacOS X. Photovault 0.5.0 adjusts is user interface to be closer to look and feel of native MacOS applications. Also a native installer for Mac is provided.
  • Significant speed improvements when changing raw conversion or color settings. This comes with price in image loading time - this can take somewhat longer than earlier.
  • Reorganized toolbars for better clarity and new keyboard accelerators for most used functions.
  • The window for viewing individual images has the same controls & menus as main window
  • When opening multiple images to new window, Photovault no longer opens separate windows for each. Instead, it opens only 1 window with all the images visible as thumbnails in preview pane.
  • Discontinued support for Java 1.4.

Bug fixes

  • #107 Inconsistent logic for deciding whether a file is raw image
  • #108 Error in limiting crop bounds
  • #112 Thumbnail creator thread can go into infinite loop if thumbnail creation is unsuccesful
  • #120 Crop action not disabled if preview pane is hidden

For full list of changes, see http://www.photovault.org/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/query?status=closed&milestone=0.5.0

BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY

Photovault 0.5.0 requires Java SE 5 or newer. It will not work anymore with Java 1.4.

Version 0.5.0 adds new structures to database to support the new features (color adjustment). If you open a database created with earlier version of Photovault, the program converts the database automatically to new format. The new database structure is backwards compatible with older versions starting from 0.2.0. However, the earlier versions cannot display raw images at all or color adjustments of other images. It is still possible to edit meta data and see icons of these photos correctly.

If you have used custom ICC profile for raw conversion in 0.4.0 you may notice that you get different colors in 0.5.0. This is an intentional compatibility break. ICC profiles in 0.4.0 were broken and should not be used.

Starting from 0.4.0, Photovault configuration file format has changed. The new config file is saved in <HOME_DIRECTORY>/.photovault/photovault_config.xml by default. If this file is not found Photovault will search for the old configuration file named photovault.xml in the same directory. If that file exists it will use information in the file to create the new configuration file. The old confugration file is preserved to allow usage of older versions, however, the old file is not updated with changes in configuration.

SUPPORTED OPERATING SYSTEMS

Photovault has been tested in Linux, Windows XP and MacOS X 10.4. It should work in all environments supported by Java SE. However, raw conversion support works out-of-the-box only in the environments mentioned above. It is possible to use raw conversion in other architectures by supplying your own dcraw executable.

REQUIRED SOFTWARE

Photovault needs Sun Java 5 or newer and Java Advanced Imaging libraries to work. You can download both from Sun web site.

Photovault can use either Apache Derby or MySQL as metadata store. Derby is included in this release; if you want to use MySQL instead you need to download it from www.mysql.com.

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

Briefly:

  • Install Photovault
  • Start Photovault and set database name & directory as the program asks for them

See PhotovaultInstall for full installation instructions.

KNOWN ISSUES

  • Problems when viewing some indexed color PNG files. This is due to a bug in Sun's Java implementation
  • Some unit test cases do not pass due to unimplemented features and errors in Apache OJB version used in Photovault.

FEEDBACK & SUPPORT

For feedback and support please send e-mail to pvault-users@… or directly to author (harri@…)