I've got a pile of scanned family slides in various directories.
They need to be further subdivided and catagorized so here's my scenario:
1: I have directory 'A' full of jpgs.
2: I make a few (3-5) suitable sub-directories in that directory.
(eg: "pets" "cars" "ski_trip" etcetera)
3: Is there a program that will display a thumbnail of a jpg (or any size, I guess) and list the subdirectories somewhere on the screen,
1 - pets
2 - cars
3 - ski trip
Then display a pic, ask me for a # and move the jpg to that corresponding sub-dir
(maybe with a prompt) with <CR>/<SPC> to just leave it where it is. Q or ESC to quit.
So that's one way.
Another way might be a program to go through and let me 'tag' the pics of interest (just one topic) and when at
the end move all the tagged pics to the sub-dir of choice. But this way would require (possibly) lots of passes through the source dir picking out a category each time...not the end of the world, of course.
Was I clear enough? Any suggestions?
Pureheart in Aptos
This is not a horrible or urgent problem. A typical directory that I want
to split up might have 300 entries.
Pureheart in Aptos, CA
I would use xv (by John Bradley) for that. It used to be in most Linux distros, but does not seem to be anymore. More information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)
At Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:16:08 -0000 (UTC) pH <wNOSPAMp@gmail.org> wrote:
I've got a pile of scanned family slides in various directories.
They need to be further subdivided and catagorized so here's my scenario:
1: I have directory 'A' full of jpgs.
2: I make a few (3-5) suitable sub-directories in that directory.
(eg: "pets" "cars" "ski_trip" etcetera)
3: Is there a program that will display a thumbnail of a jpg (or any size, I >> guess) and list the subdirectories somewhere on the screen,
1 - pets
2 - cars
3 - ski trip
Then display a pic, ask me for a # and move the jpg to that corresponding sub-dir
(maybe with a prompt) with <CR>/<SPC> to just leave it where it is. Q or >> ESC to quit.
So that's one way.
Another way might be a program to go through and let me 'tag' the pics of
interest (just one topic) and when at
the end move all the tagged pics to the sub-dir of choice. But this way
would require (possibly) lots of passes through the source dir picking out a >> category each time...not the end of the world, of course.
Was I clear enough? Any suggestions?
Pureheart in Aptos
This is not a horrible or urgent problem. A typical directory that I want >> to split up might have 300 entries.
Pureheart in Aptos, CA
Here's a thought, though - if a group of photos was taken in the
same time frame (e.g. that ski trip), you could bring them up
in a file manager (e.g. thunar). The camera probably assigned
them a consecutive block of file names; if not, and the date
stamps are intact, you could sort the list by date to group
the files together. That makes it easy to select a single
block of photos to cut and paste.
On 2025-06-23, Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> wrote:
I would use xv (by John Bradley) for that. It used to be in most Linux
distros, but does not seem to be anymore. More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)
I remember xv (and used it and loved it). I had wondered where it went.
The little swimming fish time-passing sprite was cool.
Thanks for the tip.
I've got a pile of scanned family slides in various directories.
They need to be further subdivided and catagorized so here's my
scenario:
1: I have directory 'A' full of jpgs.
2: I make a few (3-5) suitable sub-directories in that directory.
(eg: "pets" "cars" "ski_trip" etcetera)
3: Is there a program that will display a thumbnail of a jpg (or any
size, I guess) and list the subdirectories somewhere on the screen,
1 - pets 2 - cars 3 - ski trip
Then display a pic, ask me for a # and move the jpg to that
corresponding sub-dir (maybe with a prompt) with <CR>/<SPC> to just
leave it where it is. Q or ESC to quit.
On 2025-06-23, Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> wrote:
I would use xv (by John Bradley) for that. It used to be in most Linux distros, but does not seem to be anymore. More information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)
I remember xv (and used it and loved it). I had wondered where it went.
The little swimming fish time-passing sprite was cool.
Thanks for the tip.
pH
At Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:16:08 -0000 (UTC) pH <wNOSPAMp@gmail.org> wrote:
I've got a pile of scanned family slides in various directories.
They need to be further subdivided and catagorized so here's my scenario: >>
1: I have directory 'A' full of jpgs.
2: I make a few (3-5) suitable sub-directories in that directory.
(eg: "pets" "cars" "ski_trip" etcetera)
3: Is there a program that will display a thumbnail of a jpg (or any size, I
guess) and list the subdirectories somewhere on the screen,
1 - pets
2 - cars
3 - ski trip
Then display a pic, ask me for a # and move the jpg to that corresponding sub-dir
(maybe with a prompt) with <CR>/<SPC> to just leave it where it is. Q or
ESC to quit.
So that's one way.
Another way might be a program to go through and let me 'tag' the pics of >> interest (just one topic) and when at
the end move all the tagged pics to the sub-dir of choice. But this way >> would require (possibly) lots of passes through the source dir picking out a
category each time...not the end of the world, of course.
Was I clear enough? Any suggestions?
Pureheart in Aptos
This is not a horrible or urgent problem. A typical directory that I want >> to split up might have 300 entries.
Pureheart in Aptos, CA
I've got a pile of scanned family slides in various directories.
They need to be further subdivided and catagorized so here's my scenario:
1: I have directory 'A' full of jpgs.
2: I make a few (3-5) suitable sub-directories in that directory.
(eg: "pets" "cars" "ski_trip" etcetera)
3: Is there a program that will display a thumbnail of a jpg (or any size, I guess) and list the subdirectories somewhere on the screen,
1 - pets
2 - cars
3 - ski trip
I've got a pile of scanned family slides in various directories.
They need to be further subdivided and catagorized so here's my scenario:
1: I have directory 'A' full of jpgs.
2: I make a few (3-5) suitable sub-directories in that directory.
(eg: "pets" "cars" "ski_trip" etcetera)
3: Is there a program that will display a thumbnail of a jpg (or any size, I guess) and list the subdirectories somewhere on the screen,
1 - pets
2 - cars
3 - ski trip
Then display a pic, ask me for a # and move the jpg to that corresponding sub-dir
(maybe with a prompt) with <CR>/<SPC> to just leave it where it is. Q or ESC to quit.
So that's one way.
Another way might be a program to go through and let me 'tag' the pics of interest (just one topic) and when at
the end move all the tagged pics to the sub-dir of choice. But this way would require (possibly) lots of passes through the source dir picking out a category each time...not the end of the world, of course.
Was I clear enough? Any suggestions?
Pureheart in Aptos
This is not a horrible or urgent problem. A typical directory that I want
to split up might have 300 entries.
Here's a thought, though - if a group of photos was taken in the same
time frame (e.g. that ski trip), you could bring them up in a file
manager (e.g. thunar). The camera probably assigned them a consecutive
block of file names; if not, and the date stamps are intact, you could
sort the list by date to group the files together. That makes it easy
to select a single block of photos to cut and paste.
I've got a pile of scanned family slides in various directories.
They need to be further subdivided and catagorized so here's my scenario:
1: I have directory 'A' full of jpgs.
2: I make a few (3-5) suitable sub-directories in that directory.
(eg: "pets" "cars" "ski_trip" etcetera)
3: Is there a program that will display a thumbnail of a jpg (or any size, I guess) and list the subdirectories somewhere on the screen,
1 - pets
2 - cars
3 - ski trip
On 2025-06-23, pH <wNOSPAMp@gmail.org> wrote:
On 2025-06-23, Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> wrote:
I would use xv (by John Bradley) for that. It used to be in most Linux
distros, but does not seem to be anymore. More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)
I remember xv (and used it and loved it). I had wondered where it went.
The little swimming fish time-passing sprite was cool.
Thanks for the tip.
I still use xv whenever possible. Apparently, though, I never
tapped its full potential.
Unfortunately, xv cannot display progressive JPEGs,
making it useless for a growing percentage of pictures.
Here's a thought, though - if a group of photos was taken in the
same time frame (e.g. that ski trip), you could bring them up
in a file manager (e.g. thunar). The camera probably assigned
them a consecutive block of file names; if not, and the date
stamps are intact, you could sort the list by date to group
the files together. That makes it easy to select a single
block of photos to cut and paste.
On Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:16:08 -0000 (UTC), pH wrote:
I've got a pile of scanned family slides in various directories.
They need to be further subdivided and catagorized so here's my
scenario:
1: I have directory 'A' full of jpgs.
2: I make a few (3-5) suitable sub-directories in that directory.
(eg: "pets" "cars" "ski_trip" etcetera)
3: Is there a program that will display a thumbnail of a jpg (or any
size, I guess) and list the subdirectories somewhere on the screen,
1 - pets 2 - cars 3 - ski trip
Then display a pic, ask me for a # and move the jpg to that
corresponding sub-dir (maybe with a prompt) with <CR>/<SPC> to just
leave it where it is. Q or ESC to quit.
I wrote a script <https://bitbucket.org/ldo17/SortPictures> mainly for
my own use, for quickly sorting through images in the way that you
mention, among many others. It’s not really GUI-based: you launch it
from the command line, and specify custom keystrokes for the actions
you want to perform, e.g. to sort images from the “unsorted” directory into others:
SortPictures --move=c:cars/ --move=p:pets/ --move=s:ski\ trip/ unsorted/
Then press “c”, ”p” or “s” as appropriate for each picture, or of course you can leave it unsorted and go to the next one.
pH <wNOSPAMp@gmail.org> writes:
I've got a pile of scanned family slides in various directories.
They need to be further subdivided and catagorized so here's my scenario:
1: I have directory 'A' full of jpgs.
2: I make a few (3-5) suitable sub-directories in that directory.
(eg: "pets" "cars" "ski_trip" etcetera)
3: Is there a program that will display a thumbnail of a jpg (or any size, I >> guess) and list the subdirectories somewhere on the screen,
1 - pets
2 - cars
3 - ski trip
That seems like it could be done easily in an ordinary GUI file
manager. Make the preview size big enough that you can easily see what’s
in each picture, and drag images to the appropriate subdirectory.
Photo management applications usually have tagging systems of some sort,
but I don’t have any specific recommendations that run under Linux.
In comp.os.linux.misc, pH <wNOSPAMp@gmail.org> wrote:
I've got a pile of scanned family slides in various directories.
They need to be further subdivided and catagorized so here's my scenario:
1: I have directory 'A' full of jpgs.
2: I make a few (3-5) suitable sub-directories in that directory.
(eg: "pets" "cars" "ski_trip" etcetera)
3: Is there a program that will display a thumbnail of a jpg (or any size, I >> guess) and list the subdirectories somewhere on the screen,
1 - pets
2 - cars
3 - ski trip
I use `feh` for such purposes. You can assign "actions" to the numbers
(0, 1, 2, 3 ..) so that when you view images you can hit a number and
run an action with the filename. Critically, it does not list the
actions anywhere so you might want to use a notepad.
I document my use here: https://qaz.wtf/qz/blosxom/2020/03/22/new-logos
For your case something like:
mkdir pets cars ski-trip
feh --action1 "mv '%f' pets/" \
--action2 "mv '%f' cars/" \
--action3 "mv '%f' ski-trip/" \
--scale-down \
--cycle-once *.jpg
I've been using feh since 1999 or so[*] and find it the most useful image viewer. Documentation is via man page, `feh --help` will only tell
you "See 'man feh'"
[*] It has long had a feature to view images specified by URL. It also
has a feature to reload an image after a certain amount of time. I
vividly remember using it to periodically reload the some news
website's (probably CNN) map of states called for Bush or Gore that
fateful Tuesday in November 2000. I just didn't want to keep the
whole webpage open.
Elijah
------
has various "${noun}sort" feh themes
...I tend to think command-liney since I'm a CP/M fan at heart....but
Linux is okay, too, don't get me wrong.
On 2025-06-23, Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:
I use `feh` for such purposes. You can assign "actions" to the numbers
(0, 1, 2, 3 ..) so that when you view images you can hit a number and
run an action with the filename. Critically, it does not list the
actions anywhere so you might want to use a notepad.
I document my use here: https://qaz.wtf/qz/blosxom/2020/03/22/new-logos
For your case something like:
mkdir pets cars ski-trip
feh --action1 "mv '%f' pets/" \
--action2 "mv '%f' cars/" \
--action3 "mv '%f' ski-trip/" \
--scale-down \
--cycle-once *.jpg
This looks very promising. Hopefully I can add a "do nothing" case, too. I'll read up on it.
pH
On Tue, 24 Jun 2025 02:47:40 -0000 (UTC), pH wrote:
...I tend to think command-liney since I'm a CP/M fan at heart....but
Linux is okay, too, don't get me wrong.
Unfortunately Linux doesn’t have those drive letters that CP/M fans know and love.
MS-DOS copied them, though, and Windows still uses them to this day. You might be more at home over there.
On Tue, 24 Jun 2025 02:47:40 -0000 (UTC), pH wrote:
...I tend to think command-liney since I'm a CP/M fan at heart....but
Linux is okay, too, don't get me wrong.
Unfortunately Linux doesn’t have those drive letters that CP/M fans know and love.
MS-DOS copied them, though, and Windows still uses them to this day. You might be more at home over there.
On 2025-06-24, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Tue, 24 Jun 2025 02:47:40 -0000 (UTC), pH wrote:
...I tend to think command-liney since I'm a CP/M fan at heart....but
Linux is okay, too, don't get me wrong.
Unfortunately Linux doesn’t have those drive letters that CP/M fans know >> and love.
MS-DOS copied them, though, and Windows still uses them to this day. You
might be more at home over there.
What's so great about drive letters? /mnt/driveF works well...
The do-nothing case is just feh's standard "go to next image" action (spacebar or right arrow are the defaults for "go to next image").
There's also a delete file option. You can use it to
delete an entry from a playlist or delete a file off the disk.
You can kind of FAKE 'drive letters' in -ix, but
it's still not quite the same. M$ introduced an 'improvement' years
back where you could only have a shared/named drive from ONE IP
address. Had to make fixes for that, lots and lots of aliases. Nasty.
On Tue, 24 Jun 2025 01:13:52 -0400, c186282 wrote:
You can kind of FAKE 'drive letters' in -ix, but
it's still not quite the same. M$ introduced an 'improvement' years
back where you could only have a shared/named drive from ONE IP
address. Had to make fixes for that, lots and lots of aliases. Nasty.
There is the weird thing Cygwin does with drive letters. I don't think
it's the same as the WSL /mnt/c convention.
On 6/24/25 2:42 AM, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 24 Jun 2025 01:13:52 -0400, c186282 wrote:
You can kind of FAKE 'drive letters' in -ix, but
it's still not quite the same. M$ introduced an 'improvement'
years back where you could only have a shared/named drive from ONE
IP address. Had to make fixes for that, lots and lots of aliases.
Nasty.
There is the weird thing Cygwin does with drive letters. I don't think
it's the same as the WSL /mnt/c convention.
Don't CARE who did it or WHY ... looks like M$ is trying to
freeze-out the -ix server universe.
Just HATE 'em.
On 6/24/25 12:52 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-06-24, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Tue, 24 Jun 2025 02:47:40 -0000 (UTC), pH wrote:
...I tend to think command-liney since I'm a CP/M fan at heart....but
Linux is okay, too, don't get me wrong.
Unfortunately Linux doesn’t have those drive letters that CP/M fans know >>> and love.
MS-DOS copied them, though, and Windows still uses them to this day. You >>> might be more at home over there.
What's so great about drive letters? /mnt/driveF works well...
Um ... NO.
Long long office experience here. The rank and
file can RELATE to drive letters, but NOT anything
more abstract.
But much of the rank and file do not even know where their files are
stored (they don't understand nested directories, and have no idea of
"the path to the file". Which is why you find many with every file in "documents" (one level, no subdirectories) or every file on "desktop" (because then they get a big icon that they can remember is "near the
top right corner".
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
On 6/24/25 12:52 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-06-24, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Tue, 24 Jun 2025 02:47:40 -0000 (UTC), pH wrote:
...I tend to think command-liney since I'm a CP/M fan at heart....but >>>>> Linux is okay, too, don't get me wrong.
Unfortunately Linux doesn’t have those drive letters that CP/M fans know >>>> and love.
MS-DOS copied them, though, and Windows still uses them to this day. You >>>> might be more at home over there.
What's so great about drive letters? /mnt/driveF works well...
Um ... NO.
Long long office experience here. The rank and
file can RELATE to drive letters, but NOT anything
more abstract.
The rank and file might have been able to relate, a little, back when
their machine had a floppy disk, and it was A: that one used to access
the disk. And only then to the extent that "to use this floppy disk
here, insert it into this slot labeled A:".
But much of the rank and file do not even know where their files are
stored (they don't understand nested directories, and have no idea of
"the path to the file". Which is why you find many with every file in "documents" (one level, no subdirectories) or every file on "desktop" (because then they get a big icon that they can remember is "near the
top right corner".
On Tue, 24 Jun 2025 20:38:35 -0000 (UTC), Rich wrote:
But much of the rank and file do not even know where their files are
stored (they don't understand nested directories, and have no idea of
"the path to the file". Which is why you find many with every file in
"documents" (one level, no subdirectories) or every file on "desktop"
(because then they get a big icon that they can remember is "near the
top right corner".
I can't always find the files. I understand the motivation but sticking everything in C:\Users\foobar\wherever and making most of the tree
invisible by default was a "Don't worry your pretty little head. You don't need to know." move.
Then you have frameworks like Angular or dotnet. I first started using VS Code to navigate the levels and twisty little passages.
On 6/24/25 4:38 PM, Rich wrote:
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
On 6/24/25 12:52 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-06-24, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Tue, 24 Jun 2025 02:47:40 -0000 (UTC), pH wrote:
...I tend to think command-liney since I'm a CP/M fan at heart....but >>>>>> Linux is okay, too, don't get me wrong.
Unfortunately Linux doesn’t have those drive letters that CP/M fans know
and love.
MS-DOS copied them, though, and Windows still uses them to this day. You >>>>> might be more at home over there.
What's so great about drive letters? /mnt/driveF works well...
Um ... NO.
Long long office experience here. The rank and
file can RELATE to drive letters, but NOT anything
more abstract.
The rank and file might have been able to relate, a little, back when
their machine had a floppy disk, and it was A: that one used to access
the disk. And only then to the extent that "to use this floppy disk
here, insert it into this slot labeled A:".
But much of the rank and file do not even know where their files are
stored (they don't understand nested directories, and have no idea of
"the path to the file". Which is why you find many with every file in
"documents" (one level, no subdirectories) or every file on "desktop"
(because then they get a big icon that they can remember is "near the
top right corner".
Trust me, they do NOT understand ANYTHING about
storage or devices anymore. Bank you head against
it all you want - you will see NO success.
I've got a pile of scanned family slides in various directories.
They need to be further subdivided and catagorized so here's my scenario:
1: I have directory 'A' full of jpgs.
2: I make a few (3-5) suitable sub-directories in that directory.
(eg: "pets" "cars" "ski_trip" etcetera)
3: Is there a program that will display a thumbnail of a jpg (or any size, I >guess) and list the subdirectories somewhere on the screen,
1 - pets
2 - cars
3 - ski trip
Then display a pic, ask me for a # and move the jpg to that corresponding sub-dir
(maybe with a prompt) with <CR>/<SPC> to just leave it where it is. Q or >ESC to quit.
So that's one way.
Another way might be a program to go through and let me 'tag' the pics of >interest (just one topic) and when at
the end move all the tagged pics to the sub-dir of choice. But this way >would require (possibly) lots of passes through the source dir picking out a >category each time...not the end of the world, of course.
Was I clear enough? Any suggestions?
Pureheart in Aptos
This is not a horrible or urgent problem. A typical directory that I want
to split up might have 300 entries.
Pureheart in Aptos, CA
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
On 6/24/25 4:38 PM, Rich wrote:
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
On 6/24/25 12:52 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2025-06-24, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Tue, 24 Jun 2025 02:47:40 -0000 (UTC), pH wrote:
...I tend to think command-liney since I'm a CP/M fan at heart....but >>>>>>> Linux is okay, too, don't get me wrong.
Unfortunately Linux doesn’t have those drive letters that CP/M fans know
and love.
MS-DOS copied them, though, and Windows still uses them to this day. You >>>>>> might be more at home over there.
What's so great about drive letters? /mnt/driveF works well...
Um ... NO.
Long long office experience here. The rank and
file can RELATE to drive letters, but NOT anything
more abstract.
The rank and file might have been able to relate, a little, back when
their machine had a floppy disk, and it was A: that one used to access
the disk. And only then to the extent that "to use this floppy disk
here, insert it into this slot labeled A:".
But much of the rank and file do not even know where their files are
stored (they don't understand nested directories, and have no idea of
"the path to the file". Which is why you find many with every file in
"documents" (one level, no subdirectories) or every file on "desktop"
(because then they get a big icon that they can remember is "near the
top right corner".
Trust me, they do NOT understand ANYTHING about
storage or devices anymore. Bank you head against
it all you want - you will see NO success.
Indeed. In fact, there are those who use "computers" (provided by $job) daily, where if you shift the icons by 1cm in any direction, they
become lost and unable to function.
They 'learned' to click on "this spot" on the screen, and if the button
that was there moves away (only a small amount is needed) they become
unable to locate it until the new location is pointed out by someone
else.
Ah ... "users" :-)
Had an otherwise intelligent gal - she re-wrote the
whole yearly budget spreadsheet - but she was death
with GUIs and too often dragged whole deep folders
or even once the entire contents of the drive she
usually used off "somewhere". Was using SAMBA and
had to extend the auto-trash wipe time for her out
to over a month because of the inevitable "have
you seen my payroll folder ?" question :-)
I refuse to use drag-and-drop. It's too dangerous, even for experienced users. One slip of the finger on the mouse button you're dragging, and
it's time for
$ find ~ -print | grep <myfilename>
On Sat, 28 Jun 2025 14:07:22 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I refuse to use drag-and-drop. It's too dangerous, even for experienced
users. One slip of the finger on the mouse button you're dragging, and
it's time for
$ find ~ -print | grep <myfilename>
In my case, it would just end up on the desktop. (What? You don't have an entire virtual desktop dedicated to things like your email client?)
I don't use drag-n-drop because I don't use any file manager I can drag
from.
In comp.os.linux.misc, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
In my case, it would just end up on the desktop. (What? You don't have
an entire virtual desktop dedicated to things like your email client?)
Nope. Why would I need a virtual desktop for mailx?
pH <wNOSPAMp@gmail.org> writes:
I've got a pile of scanned family slides in various directories.
They need to be further subdivided and catagorized so here's my scenario:
1: I have directory 'A' full of jpgs.
2: I make a few (3-5) suitable sub-directories in that directory.
(eg: "pets" "cars" "ski_trip" etcetera)
3: Is there a program that will display a thumbnail of a jpg (or any size, I >> guess) and list the subdirectories somewhere on the screen,
1 - pets
2 - cars
3 - ski trip
That seems like it could be done easily in an ordinary GUI file
manager. Make the preview size big enough that you can easily see what’s
in each picture, and drag images to the appropriate subdirectory.
Photo management applications usually have tagging systems of some sort,
but I don’t have any specific recommendations that run under Linux.
Well, I use one, "shotwell". The photos are internally sorted into directories, ~/Pictures/year/month or ~/Pictures/year/month/days. But
each photo has assigned "tags", like "pets", "cars", "ski_trips", etc.
Any number of them. Thus, I can click on any tag and see all the photos
that were assigned that tag.
What I would really like is compound searching.
Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> [EtB]:
What I would really like is compound searching.
Does your program add its photo tags/dates to a database (e.g. sqlite)?
Can you query its database with other (generic) tools?
Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> [EtB]:
What I would really like is compound searching.Does your program add its photo tags/dates to a database (e.g. sqlite)?
Can you query its database with other (generic) tools?
My program uses mysql. But (a) I'm not great at writing sql and (b) one
of the largest pain points is loading data into it.
In comp.os.linux.misc, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
Well, I use one, "shotwell". The photos are internally sorted into
directories, ~/Pictures/year/month or ~/Pictures/year/month/days. But
each photo has assigned "tags", like "pets", "cars", "ski_trips", etc.
Any number of them. Thus, I can click on any tag and see all the photos
that were assigned that tag.
Being able to tag and search tags is table stakes for a photo manager
for me. Other table stakes include: do not rename files, including
directory structure. The filename and path is important metadata.
What I would really like is compound searching.
tag and tag (nephew and zoo)
tag and date range (Oregon and March 2009)
tag and not tag (food and not restaurant)
tag and camera (camera might be phone model)
fine grained time search (eg, found a particular nephew and zoo photo,
what did I take in the ten minutes before and after)
tag and geo-data (birds near 33.3 N 118.3 W)
I get some of these with F-Stop Gallery (paid "pro" version) on my
Android phone. I have a home-grown tool that works, too, but is not
nearly as polished and easy to use as I'd like.
Elijah
------
birds near 33.3 N 118.3 W and not seagull and June 2018
In comp.os.linux.misc, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
Well, I use one, "shotwell". The photos are internally sorted into
directories, ~/Pictures/year/month or ~/Pictures/year/month/days. But
each photo has assigned "tags", like "pets", "cars", "ski_trips", etc.
Any number of them. Thus, I can click on any tag and see all the photos
that were assigned that tag.
Being able to tag and search tags is table stakes for a photo manager
for me. Other table stakes include: do not rename files, including
directory structure. The filename and path is important metadata.
What I would really like is compound searching.
tag and tag (nephew and zoo)
tag and date range (Oregon and March 2009)
tag and not tag (food and not restaurant)
tag and camera (camera might be phone model)
fine grained time search (eg, found a particular nephew and zoo photo,
what did I take in the ten minutes before and after)
tag and geo-data (birds near 33.3 N 118.3 W)
I get some of these with F-Stop Gallery (paid "pro" version) on my
Android phone. I have a home-grown tool that works, too, but is not
nearly as polished and easy to use as I'd like.
Elijah
------
birds near 33.3 N 118.3 W and not seagull and June 2018
The posters requirements seem to have evolved.
First off, he just wanted the photos kind of
equitably distributed between multiple dir
trees for rapid access. For THAT I suggested
ordinary hashing procedures.
I'm disappointed that there are easily a dozen photo management tools
and still there are so many gaps in features.
I once looked into "infinitely-indexed DBs".
They can work - but likely 90% of the stuff
on disk will be the indexes. 40 years ago that
was totally ridiculous. NOW however ... ???
In comp.os.linux.misc, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
On Sat, 28 Jun 2025 14:07:22 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I refuse to use drag-and-drop. It's too dangerous, even for experienced >>> users. One slip of the finger on the mouse button you're dragging, and
it's time for
$ find ~ -print | grep <myfilename>
Valid, but I'd probably go with:
find ~ -name \*myfilename\*
I don't use drag-n-drop because I don't use any file manager I can drag
from.
In my case, it would just end up on the desktop. (What? You don't have an
entire virtual desktop dedicated to things like your email client?)
Nope. Why would I need a virtual desktop for mailx? I don't have a
"desktop" I have a root window blissfully free of icons. If only I could convince XDG aware programs that "Desktop" is not a place.
$ grep -i desktop ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/.empty"
$ (cd ; du .empty)
4 .empty
$
Elijah
------
does a lot of command line file management on his phone, too
Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote at 03:41 this Sunday (GMT):
does a lot of command line file management on his phone, tooDo you use xscreensaver to set the root window?
In comp.os.linux.misc,
candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote at 03:41 this Sunday (GMT): >>> does a lot of command line file management on his phone, too
Do you use xscreensaver to set the root window?
No. I don't run any x... programs on my phone. I do image resizing and
video file management with Termux, though.
Also, I tend to set a background on my phone when it is new and never
change it again, so not really useful to install special software for.
Elijah
------
has sometimes had two or three backgrounds over the life a phone
Oh, cool! Your phone offers a terminal?
Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> writes:
I would use xv (by John Bradley) for that. It used to be in most Linux
distros, but does not seem to be anymore. More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)
I use XV once in a while, but on my 5K monitor it's a real struggle to
read the text. I took a look at the source, everything is placed by
pixel. It didn't look easy to fix.
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> writes:
I would use xv (by John Bradley) for that. It used to be in most Linux
distros, but does not seem to be anymore. More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)
I use XV once in a while, but on my 5K monitor it's a real struggle to
read the text. I took a look at the source, everything is placed by
pixel. It didn't look easy to fix.
xv is an ancient program. I am not surprised that it wasnt written
with today's resolutions and screen sizes in mind.
The reason why it is not in the Linux distros is that it isnt free
(neither as in beer, not as in speech). The cited wikipedia entry
doesnt mention a license change, so I am not sure WHY it EVER was in
"most Linux distros".
Are there even that many distros which only include FLOSS?
On 2025-07-15, Marc Haber wrote:
The reason why it is not in the Linux distros is that it isnt free
(neither as in beer, not as in speech). The cited wikipedia entry
doesnt mention a license change, so I am not sure WHY it EVER was in
"most Linux distros".
Are there even that many distros which only include FLOSS?
The reason why it is not in the Linux distros is that it isnt freeIt's in Slackware and has been for a long time. I've seen VMS versions
(neither as in beer, not as in speech). The cited wikipedia entry
doesnt mention a license change, so I am not sure WHY it EVER was in
"most Linux distros".
xv is an ancient program. I am not surprised that it wasnt written
with today's resolutions and screen sizes in mind.
Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> writes:
I would use xv (by John Bradley) for that. It used to be in most Linux
distros, but does not seem to be anymore. More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)
I use XV once in a while, but on my 5K monitor it's a real struggle to
read the text. I took a look at the source, everything is placed by
pixel. It didn't look easy to fix.
so I am not sure WHY it EVER was in "most Linux distros".
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote at 20:57 this Monday (GMT):
Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> writes:
I would use xv (by John Bradley) for that. It used to be in most Linux
distros, but does not seem to be anymore. More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)
I use XV once in a while, but on my 5K monitor it's a real struggle to
read the text. I took a look at the source, everything is placed by
pixel. It didn't look easy to fix.
Well, someone rewrite it into sxiv, then nsxiv. Nsxiv is pretty good, I
use it daily.
Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam1118@zugschl.us> wrote:
so I am not sure WHY it EVER was in "most Linux distros".I believe at the time (early 90s) xv was the only good
image viewer that worked.
Slackware 15.0 moved it to the "extra" directory. That
usually means its days are numbered.
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> writes:
I would use xv (by John Bradley) for that. It used to be in most Linux
distros, but does not seem to be anymore. More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)
I use XV once in a while, but on my 5K monitor it's a real struggle to
read the text. I took a look at the source, everything is placed by
pixel. It didn't look easy to fix.
xv is an ancient program. I am not surprised that it wasnt written
with today's resolutions and screen sizes in mind.
The reason why it is not in the Linux distros is that it isnt free
(neither as in beer, not as in speech). The cited wikipedia entry
doesnt mention a license change, so I am not sure WHY it EVER was in
"most Linux distros".
... the licence doesn’t allowed to distribute modified binaries. Exactly why that’s a problem isn’t directly stated ...
Well, someone rewrite it into sxiv, then nsxiv.
... only went back to xv for fast cropping (open, crop, save, and
quit is faster than gnu imp chugging through all the plugins during
startup.)
On Tue, 15 Jul 2025 23:25:05 -0000 (UTC), Eli the Bearded wrote:
... only went back to xv for fast cropping (open, crop, save, andJust timed the startup of GIMP 3.0.4 on my main machine. Took 3 seconds.
quit is faster than gnu imp chugging through all the plugins during startup.)
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote at 20:57 this Monday (GMT):
Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> writes:
I would use xv (by John Bradley) for that. It used to be in most Linux
distros, but does not seem to be anymore. More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)
I use XV once in a while, but on my 5K monitor it's a real struggle to
read the text. I took a look at the source, everything is placed by
pixel. It didn't look easy to fix.
Well, someone rewrite it into sxiv, then nsxiv. Nsxiv is pretty good, I
use it daily.
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote at 20:57 this Monday (GMT):
Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> writes:
I would use xv (by John Bradley) for that. It used to be in most Linux
distros, but does not seem to be anymore. More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)
I use XV once in a while, but on my 5K monitor it's a real struggle to
read the text. I took a look at the source, everything is placed by
pixel. It didn't look easy to fix.
Well, someone rewrite it into sxiv, then nsxiv. Nsxiv is pretty good, I
use it daily.
On Tue, 15 Jul 2025 08:35:42 +0100, Nuno Silva wrote:
Are there even that many distros which only include FLOSS?
A quick search on Distrowatch returns 6 entries.
On 2025-07-15 21:10, candycanearter07 wrote:
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote at 20:57 this Monday (GMT):
Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> writes:
I would use xv (by John Bradley) for that. It used to be in most Linux >>>> distros, but does not seem to be anymore. More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)
I use XV once in a while, but on my 5K monitor it's a real struggle to
read the text. I took a look at the source, everything is placed by
pixel. It didn't look easy to fix.
Well, someone rewrite it into sxiv, then nsxiv. Nsxiv is pretty good, I
use it daily.
I just looked on openSUSE. sxiv is available and I installed it (comes
from https://github.com/muennich/sxiv). License is "GPL-2.0-only". nsxiv
is not available anywhere (ib openSUSE).
On 2025-07-15, candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote at 20:57 this Monday (GMT):
Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> writes:
I would use xv (by John Bradley) for that. It used to be in most Linux >>>> distros, but does not seem to be anymore. More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)
I use XV once in a while, but on my 5K monitor it's a real struggle to
read the text. I took a look at the source, everything is placed by
pixel. It didn't look easy to fix.
Well, someone rewrite it into sxiv, then nsxiv. Nsxiv is pretty good, I
use it daily.
Thanks for the tip. I've downloaded nxsiv and it looks like a
good replacement for xv. Yes, it handles progressive JPEGs.
Late 90s I replaced it with feh, and only went back to xv
for fast cropping (open, crop, save, and quit is faster than gnu
imp chugging through all the plugins during startup.)
On 2025-07-16, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2025-07-15 21:10, candycanearter07 wrote:
Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote at 20:57 this Monday (GMT):
Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> writes:
I would use xv (by John Bradley) for that. It used to be in most Linux >>>>> distros, but does not seem to be anymore. More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)
I use XV once in a while, but on my 5K monitor it's a real struggle to >>>> read the text. I took a look at the source, everything is placed by
pixel. It didn't look easy to fix.
Well, someone rewrite it into sxiv, then nsxiv. Nsxiv is pretty good, I
use it daily.
I just looked on openSUSE. sxiv is available and I installed it (comes
from https://github.com/muennich/sxiv). License is "GPL-2.0-only". nsxiv
is not available anywhere (ib openSUSE).
Under Debian, however, it's as simple as
$ sudo apt install nsxiv
Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:
Late 90s I replaced it with feh, and only went back to xvUse 'mtpaint' for these quick cropping jobs.
for fast cropping (open, crop, save, and quit is faster than gnu
imp chugging through all the plugins during startup.)
It's fast (and light).
xv is an ancient program.
The reason why it is not in the Linux distros is that it isnt free
(neither as in beer, not as in speech). The cited wikipedia entry
doesnt mention a license change, so I am not sure WHY it EVER was in
"most Linux distros".
Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam1118@zugschl.us> a écrit :
The reason why it is not in the Linux distros is that it isnt free
(neither as in beer, not as in speech). The cited wikipedia entry
doesnt mention a license change, so I am not sure WHY it EVER was in
"most Linux distros".
But I'm really surpris with that.
For it being brought with most Linux distro is easy to understand, at
the beginning, there was not that much choice, so including it in the
distro was an obvious choice.
But, for it being nor free, neither as beer nor as speech is much
surprising.
In the old time, free as speech wasn't a subject as it is Today, so
there was no issue at the time to include it.
But, the free as beer is more surprising. I never paid anything
particular for it. So, if it wasn't as free as a beer at the time, my
first slackware distro was just illegal, and that's really surprising.
Last time I used it I noticed it performed poorly for my cropping needs.
In particular, for images larger than the screen, it would scale them
down to fit on the screen, crop *that* version and save the scaled
version when I wanted the unscaled one saved.
On 2025-07-15, Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam1118@zugschl.us> wrote:
xv is an ancient program. I am not surprised that it wasnt written
with today's resolutions and screen sizes in mind.
Still, if you're just displaying pictures it can display high-resolution photos on a modern screen just fine. It's delightfully simple and fast, making it quite attractive to a KISS type like me. The one drawback is
that it can't handle progressive JPEGs, which are becoming increasingly common - so I often have to fall back to another utility. Ristretto
does a good job of displaying things, but it doesn't feel nearly as
nice as xv. For example, sometimes it wraps around to the first photo
when you reach the end of a wild-card list, and sometimes it doesn't;
I'd rather it didn't so you know right away when you've seen everything.
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