Brief Documentation of the MegaloMedia™ Photo Album
Introduction
The MegaloMedia™ Digital Photo Album allows users to lay out and maintain collections of digital images and QuickTime™ Movies. Moreover, these elements can be painted over, captioned, annotated, and presented as sequences.
The program was developed over a period of several years and is not complete. If the program attracts interest (and shareware contributions), I will improve it and extend it. There are certainly bugs in it and there is no warranty. While bug reports are appreciated, I am presently unable to provide technical support, please do not attempt to telephone me.
I can be contacted at:
Jay Fenton
P.O. Box 5811
San Jose, CA 95150-5811
email: JayFenton@AOL.COM
The recommended shareware payment is $20.00 in U.S. Funds. To get a copy of the latest release of the program, send a check for $30.00.
Setup
The program uses QuickTime extensively so install that as well. When run the first time it creates a preferences folder within the system folder. If you copy a PhotoShop™ acquisition module plug-in into the preferences folder, it will appear in the Acquire sub-menu.
Put the Album and Viewer application at the same level in the folder hierarchy and the mechanism for "Save as Viewer" stand-alone applications will work.
Give the program as much memory as you can afford. The program caches photographs recently viewed in RAM, so the more RAM it has, the faster things will draw. The program is also limited to displaying images, which when compressed, fit within memory. Since the program needs much of its memory for other purposes, the maximum compressed image size will be a fraction of the allocated application memory size.
Image Acquisition
The program can import graphics from a variety of sources. The file import command reads files stored in PICT format, PICT resource file format, TIFF format, GIF format, EPSF preview format, PhotoCD™ Image Pac format, and QuickTime Movie format. It can scan images in using Adobe PhotoShop image acquisition plug-ins as well as digitize them using QuickTime video digitizer components.
Disk file based image sources can be brought in as groups. All of the files within a folder can be imported in sequence. Unless disabled, the computer attempts to lay the images out in a neat format that could be improved someday. Each image is captioned with the file name. Notice that the import dialog has an option for selecting normal size, thumbnail size, or for choosing a PhotoCD size. If compression is checked, then the image will be run through the selected QuickTime compression algorithm.
Scanner images are brought in one at a time and automatically positioned. They are compressed using the selected QuickTime compression algorithm. (QuickTime has an option for "No Compression").
Video images come in through the video import window. Video is grabbed continuously until the Grab button is pushed. Then you can press OK to accept the image, or press Run to start grabbing continuously again. When an image is grabbed, a subset can be selected by dragging a selection rectangle. Once accepted, the image is compressed and automatically placed on the layout.
Simple Image Manipulations
An image can be selected by clicking on it. It can be moved around by dragging it. If the option key is held down while dragging, the image will redraw constantly rather than use a ghost. If you drag from one album to another, it is copied over using "drag and drop".
When selected, "birdies", are drawn in the corners. These allow cropping of the image to take place. Holding the option key down while dragging on the birdie in the lower right hand corner resizes the photo.
A selected photo can be rotated or scaled using menu commands. You can change the contrast and brightness. All changes made to the image are not permanent, i.e. the original image is always saved unaltered, when it is needed it is read into memory and all the transformations are applied on a temporary basis for display.
Embellishing Your Photos
Selecting the "Standard Frames" sub-menu allows you to change the shape of the frame in which your photo appears. Moreover, you can install a custom picture frame by pasting one in from the scrapbook or copying it over from another photo. (A picture defining a custom frame is required to have a "hole" inside for the photo to show thru. This can be generated by using a program like SuperPaint™ that supports transparent backgrounds. The paint features described later will also produce such a picture).
"Adding a Caption" places a text box at the bottom of an image. This field can be typed into, cut, copied, pasted, and so on. The Text menu allows fonts, sizes, styles, etc., to change.
"Adding a Sound" brings up a Sound Input Manager dialog that allows you to digitize a comment about the image. This makes a button you can push to play back the comment. The comment will also play back during the side show if you show this image in it.
The Tools menu includes a text box creation tool. If you drag out a text box that overlaps an image, it will be added to that images group. All the text commands work. Note that it is possible to change the color and the shape of the box. By dragging on the birdie at the bottom center of the box you can route the leader-line of the comic balloon to wherever you want it to go. Most of the well-known comic book balloon styles are available.
Also in the tools menu are a set of simple painting tools. These tools paint onto a layer that is on top of the photograph. This means that changes do not happen to the photograph itself, rather they only affect the overlay layer. When you erase overlay layer bits, the original photo shows through. I call this "lottery ticket scratching mode."
The tool that looks like a TV set (or picture frame) lets you position a empty frame on the page. This lets you create template layouts without graphics in them. Later, you can select an empty frame and do an import operation that will insert the imported image into the frame. This feature is for making templates.
The Lasso and Rectangle Selector with the black interiors will automatically pick up bits from the underlying photograph and pull them up into the overlay layer. These are useful for retouching as well as for grabbing a subset of a photo to paste into some other application somewhere.
When you select a paint tool, other menus come up that allow you to change the foreground and background colors, line thickness, brush shape, and so on.
The Arrow is the normal selection arrow. The hand will do scrolling, or if used inside a frame, will pan around inside it.
One can zoom in on an area of the album by clicking the mouse on the point of interest while holding down the command key. This displays a "Fat Bits" enlargement on the right hand side of the screen. Clicking again with the command key down, this time in the enlarged area, causes the enlarged area to go away.
Album Pages
The album is organized as a collection of pages which are 10.5 inches wide and 8 inches tall. The grid lines, which can be turned on or off, show where the page boundaries are. The page number of the current page is shown in the lower left hand corner of the window. The buttons take you forward and backward through the pages of the document. New pages can be added, pages can be deleted, and albums can be combined together using menu commands. The upper limit is around 560 pages.
The background of each page can be changed using the menu, which brings up a selection dialog. The backgrounds are represented as pattern resources, and many more can be added to the program by those with artistic inclination.
Navigation is simplified by the overview window. This draws thumbnail views of the album layout. Clicking at a location jumps the underlying view over to it. Double clicking makes the overview go away. By pulling open the overview window with the scroll bars you can view many pages side-by-side.
Editing Operations
Images and groups of images can be cut, copied, and pasted to and from the clipboard, as well as dragged from one album to another. The default action for the copy command is to put onto the clipboard information that only the Photo Album program can understand. If instead, you want to move images or sounds out of the Album program so you can paste them into another program, hold down the Option key when you issue the copy command.
The Find and Find Again commands will do text searching of the visible captions.
Send to front and send to back change the relative order of objects on the screen.
When browsing around in an album, notice that some of the photographs will decompress in strips. While this is taking place, you will still be able to scroll around, do menu commands, and so on. It took two weekends to figure out how to get QuickTime to do this! Everytime QuickTime is updated, this feature breaks until I figure out what wierd changes they have made to the complex protocol that drives decompression components. If you upgrade beyond QuickTime 2.0 at some time in the future and image strip decompression fails, try removing the PFLG 128 resource using the resource editor.
Image Archive Operations
One can find out the resolution, size, format, etc., of an image by selecting it and choosing "Get info". Double clicking on an image with the shift key held down will also bring up this info window.
For a simple browser, select examine. This will give you a control bar for a QuickTime movie. You can also open a browser by double clicking on an album entry.
A QuickTime movie standing alone will have a button you can push to start playback. In this case the movie will play back in place.
Export will output the image in one of several ways. Output raw writes out the unaltered image to the file selected. Output decorated also puts out the paint overlay layer, text balloons, the framing, and so on. "Duplicate original file" follows the stored path name for the file, and makes a copy of that. This feature lets you build an "index album" of thumbnails which refers to a set of much larger originals.
The "Album Options" dialog has an entry that allows you to set a maximum display size for each entry in the album. This only applies at the time you import images. The image itself is stored at full resolution, it is scaled, however, to display within the limits requested. Using a small image size will produce thumbnails. The size options provided are carefully chosen to fit neatly within the page grid.
Slide Show Feature
If one selects "Slide Show…" without anything selected, the system will play back each image in left to right, top to bottom, page by page order in sequence. The timing between each slide can be controlled by an entry in the Album Options dialog. (Using 0 means wait until the mouse is clicked, clicking the mouse always steps to the next slide right away).
To create a more elaborate presentation, select the "New Slide Tray" menu entry. This makes a gray "Slide Tray" graphic. When you select this, you will see that it has an edit button and a show button on it. Pressing edit opens up a slide editing window.
When a new slide is created, all the album entrys that were selected at the time are automatically included in the presentation.
To put slides into the carousel, drag the graphic over and drop it on top of the slide tray. (There is no "gulp" animation yet). Keep dropping the images into the tray. Then press the tray's edit button and you will see the sequence laid out. (The program can be slow when opening a presentation for the first time.) Note that you can grab a slide and drag it over and drop it somewhere else in the sequence to rearrange the order. You can also drag a slide out of the sequence and lay it aside.
Double clicking on a slide brings up a transition selection dialog. This lets you set the background for the slide and the type of transition to use for bringing the slide onto the screen. Some transitions can be shown at different speeds so we have a pop-up for that. You can also cause the graphic in the slide to be horizontally and/or vertically offset. The delay time can be set.
When you select the "Play" button on a slide tray, that presentation will appear. Each image will be brought on using its transition, then the narration or QuickTime sequence will show, then the display time will pass, then the next slide will be brought in and prepared for display. Clicking the mouse skips past the delay time. Command-Period will stop the show.
Image Compression
The program can compress images using any of the QuickTime image compressors. The default is to use JPEG. Since massive images can take quite a long time to decompress, the program has an option for saving images off at "screen resolution" as well as "high resolution". When this option is turned on in the Album Options dialog, the system will keep two copies, one at the fast-to-decompress resolution (usually "Road Pizza" video at 72DPI), as well as at whatever higher resolution you are using. The recompress dialog lets you recompress the screen (or high resolution) versions of the images.
Saving and Opening
The program's Save and Open commands work as you would expect. However the SaveAs dialog includes an option to "Save As Viewer". This creates a stand-alone viewer application (which does not allow rearrangement and editing, but does allow most other manipulations.) If you want even fewer capabilities you can attack the Viewer prototype application with the resource editor.
Saving Comments with Your Photos
If you "option double-click" on an album entry, or select the Notation menu command, the computer will open up a sub-album page. Within this sub-album, you can place text and graphics which could serve as notes and annotations for your photograph. When this sub-album page is closed, these notes are remembered and can be retrieved when you open the image latter.
Printing
The program will print out album pages as requested. A PhotoGrade™ laser printer is recommended, as older laser printers can be slow. I have tested the program on several color printers and it seems to work. The default is to print pages sideways (landscape printing). If portrait printing is selected in the page setup command, the program will print two album pages per printer page, one on top of the other, scaled to fit.
Opening the Test Document
This version of the program has an option built-in that automatically generates a test document when you launch the program or use the New menu command with the keyboard shift key held down. A simple test document will appear on the screen with several predefined images. This feature was put in for the programmer to test the program with.
To disable this feature, and to make the application more compact, use a resource editor to remove the PICT resources for the graphics. The program will notice that they are missing and won't try and make a test document, instead you will get a normal blank album.
Hacking the Program
The program can be hacked in several potentially useful ways using a resource editor. Here are some of the things you can do:
Changing the menus for font size will add more font size possibilities.
Changing the colors will allow more text colors to be easily specified.
You can edit the menu of image scaling amounts and image size limits
The palette of backgrounds for the slides and album pages can have new patterns added.
The image display rectangle used by the video digitizer dialog can be resized to support diferent sized frame grabbers. To adjust, modify DITL 2001 for smaller screen sizes (<= 640*480) and 2016 for larger ones. Note that the VideoSpigot™ at present does not work well at the higher resolution.
One can remove menu commands in the Viewer to disable exporting images, printing, etc. If you have added or changed any background patterns, you should copy them to the Viewer's resource fork or they won't display properly.
