
Here you will find various tips about mapivi and picture processing (last update: 04.11.2006)

View a picture
Whenever you see a thumbnail of a picture (main window, search window, ...) you may use the middle mouse button to open it in a new window. Just click on the picture to close the window.
(If you use the middle mouse button in the directory tree a new window containing all pictures in thumbnail size will pop up.)

Functions/Menues
All functions of mapivi may be accessed via the menues. Some have also shortcuts (keys).
All menus start with a dotted line. If you select this line you are able to place and use the menu anywhere on the desktop.
A lot of the functions are also accessable via context menus: press the right mouse button while the mouse is e.g. on a thumbnail, picture or directory to activate it.
There is also a context menu other windows and frames e.g. in the right directory frame (also activated with the right mouse button). It contains a list of the most used directories (hotlist) and a list of the last used directories (history list).  
Release the right mouse button over a directory to open it.

Selection
To select one picture, simply click on it in the thumbnail frame.
To select several pictures, try one of this:
1. Press the left mouse button over a thumbnail and keep holding it down, now move up or down to select more pictures.
2. Click on one thumbnail, scroll up or down and press SHIFT and click again on a thumbnail -> all thumbnails between the two will also be selected.
3. Click on one thumbnail, press and hold the CTRL key and click on several other thumbnails, just the clicked thumbnails are selected.
4. Press CTRL-A to select all thumbnails and remove some of this selection by pressing CTRL and left mouse button together.
5. Use "select all backups" or "invert selection" from the context menu.
Most of the functions of Mapivi will work with a single selection as well with a selection set.

Layout
You can move the adjusters (the vertical lines with a blob at the lower end between the frames) with your mouse pointer (while pressing the left mouse button).
If drag is done with Shift button down, then the changes are made in "real time" so that text-flow effects can be seen.
Try the l-Key to toggle between some predefined layouts.
The keys F1 - F4 toggle some bars and info boxes.
The keys F6 - F10 can be used to switch to a certain predefined layout (I recommend F7 to choose a new directory, F8 to view the thumbnails with meta info and F9 to view the pictures with a small thumbnail column at the left.

Picture processing
Unlike other picture editors (like e.g. The GIMP) there is no "Save" or "Save as" function. That's because Mapivi manipulates the files directly, not just the copy of the picture in the RAM. So be careful and always use the "Create backup" option. So you have at least one Undo-Level. If you delete a picture and a backup file is available, Mapivi will ask to rename the backup file.

Picture compression and size
To take a picture with a digital camera I recommend to use this camera settings: JPEG higest resolution and best quality or RAW/TIFF format (RAW can not be displayed by mapivi, sorry!).
While processing the image with e.g. The GIMP I recomment using the lossless file format like XCF (which preserves layers and even undo information!) or TIFF if you have to save the results in-between. If your Input is JPEG, your Output is JPEG and you are going to edit the picture in one step there is no need to save it in a lossless format (like TIFF or PNG).
To archive a picture in JPEG format I am using 95% Quality (more just increases the file size, not the quality).
To present a picture on a web site or to send it via email use a resolution eqal or less than 1000x800 and a quality of about 80%. This should end up in a handy file size of less than 200kB.

PlugIns
Since mapivi V0.1.48 there is a simple PlugIns interface. A PlugIn is any executable program (written in C or Perl or ...) which can handle command line options. Mapivi will call the plugin with a list of all selected file names (all with full path) as arguments (hint: Mapivi versions < 0.7.5 used other arguments). The PlugIn will be accessible within mapivi if the executable is copied to the PlugIns directory in the mapivi config directory (usually: ~/.maprogs/mapivi/PlugIns). In this directory there also has to be another file with the same file name but the suffix ".txt". This is a simple ASCII file containing 4 informations needed from mapivi:
1. the file name of the PlugIn (string)
2. the menu entry text (string)
3. does mapivi need to update the displayed pictures after the execution (boolean)
4. a short description of the PlugIn (about 10-15 words) (string).
The informations have to be seperated with this string: " + " (space plus space).
This is an example:
filelist-plugin + write file list + 0 + this plugin will write the names of all selected pictures to a file

Table display
The symbol [s]   in the EXIF column means, that a backup of the picture EXIF data is stored.
The symbol [t]   in the EXIF column means, that an EXIF thumbnail is available
The symbol [bak] in the size column means, that a backup of the picture exists.
The symbol [x:y] in the size column means, that the aspect ratio of the picture is x/y.
MP  means mega pixels    - the resolution of the picture in mega pixel(width x height)
b/p means bit per pixel  - picture compression: a higher value means better quality

Working fast
Some examples:

Add keywords to several pictures:
  Select all pictures in a folder showing your dog (see Selection above)
  <Ctrl-k> - open keyword window, double click on your dogs name

Add a copyright notice to the comments of all pictures in the current directory:
  <Ctrl-a> - selects all pictures
  <a>      - add a comment
  <Ctrl-c> - insert copyright (or press the button or type it)
  <Ctrl-x> - close window and write the copyright info 

Rename the selected pictures according to their EXIF date
  picture P2011.JPG will be renamed to e.g. 20030612-120303.jpg
  <R> = <Shift-r> - rename to EXIF date
  <Return>        - accept the name format

Fullscreen mode
To toggle the fullscreen mode on and off use key <F11>.
To the get rid of the window border, open the options dialog <Ctrl-o>, go to the Advanced pad and enable "Remove the window border in fullscreen mode". Try it, it may not work on all operating systems and all window managers. If you discover some problems disable the option.

Drop me an email if something is not working as expected.

Martin Herrmann
