I just became aware of Solang, a project for a new photo manager written in C++.
Funnily enough, being the Mono war so intense these days, it has been immediately marked as a C++ port of F-Spot (a nice linkbait these days, I’d say), which is not.
This drew my interest, but – as far as I can see – there’s very little that Solang shares with F-Spot. Namely, the authors just grabbed (with permission) some of the F-Spot’s artwork.
The rationale behind the project is what follows:
Why solang? Well, I have a busted old laptop (a worn out HP NX6115 with 512 MB RAM) that aches and burns to manage my photo collection using the so called state-of-the-art foo written in the state-of-the-art bar language. So we thought, maybe re-inventing some wheels are not totally misplaced excursions of the mind. Besides I need to get something that runs on my ol’ buddy.
Also the README reads as follows:
Motivation for the project
————————–
The idea is to develop a free photo manager that will act as a front-end for
directory based local storage as well as remote photo-storage systems, as can
be said, on the “Cloud”. Basic editing support is also planned as well as a
small pipelaine for RAW processing. Please check the TODO file for more
details.Another motivation for this project is to break the performance charecteristics
of current popular photo management softwares and provide a fast and reliable
alternative that does not place humongous demands on user’s hardware resources
even to meet basic functionality.
Here are the current features
- Import and view photos from different directories
- Import photos from camera (PTP mode)
- Apply tag to photos during import
- Multiple tags can be applied during import or later on
- Drag drop searching using multiple tags, photo properties and/or dates
- Fast and efficient operation
Also, here’s the TODO file, which provides a basic roadmap:
Importers
* Create importers from web-services such as Flickr and Picasaweb
Storage
* Create front-ends for Web-Based photo storage systems such as
Flickr / Picasa
* Create storage systems that store and retrive data on removable
storage such as DVDs
* Improve directory storage to support configurable photo storage
path
* Modify importer dialog to allow for selection of storage system
as well as storage specific optionsExporter
* Exporter to directory
* Exporter to web-archive
* Exporter to Flickr
* Exporter to PicasaWeb etc.Application/Engine
* Add support for basic editing
- Resize
- Rotate
- Crop
* Improve the browser
- Add icon zoom in/out
- Add paginated view
* Add content type specific context menu
* Full non-searchable file details (Exif/XMP/ICMP) view
* Support for nested tags
* Support for map based tags
Does it run on Ubuntu ?
Not yet. It currently runs on a up-to-date Fedora 10+ installation and Debian Sid (with Gdl patch applied).
Conclusions
I didn’t had the chance to try it, but seems to me it can fill the gap for a fast photo management tool. And also providing a Mono-free alternative for Mono haters and Fedoras and alikes is pretty nice.
Further resources:
- Original announcement along with more screenshots.
- Project Homepage
- Download the tarball
Update: How to install Solang in Ubuntu.
hope you will post when it comes to Ubuntu
I like Intipunku more…
@dinu: I just did.
it’s included on Ubuntu Karmic repository, and in brainstorm to replace f-spot manager:
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/20569/
Congratulations! I was lloking for an app to replace f-spot and I think yours is the best at the moment… even better than intipunku for me… The only thing I miss is the possibility to delete a photo. Until then, I’ll go on using f-spot…
Thank you for this great application. I am using Fedora 11 with 2 GB of RAM and a dual core 64 bit processor. However all the so-called “state-of-the-art” photo managers like digikam and F-spot almost killed my machine while operating on my 50 000 pictures collection. I am very happy to see that Solang is very lightweight and efficient on managing my huge collection.
Thank you again. If you think that in anyway I can contribute to your project, i.e. donations, code-writing – well all I know is MATLAB and FORTRAN – or else, I would be really happy to help you.
Thank you for the great work.
If you’re looking for a FAST image organizer, there is really nothing better than DigiKam. I’ve 40.000 pictures (ok, less than Ekin, but still much!) and no other program than DigiKam could a) handle it, b) not try to move my files to some stupid place, and c) save the tags INSIDE the pictures so that if I ever change software (or put them on the web) the tags stay where they belong: inside the picture.
I hope Solang will become something like that in the future, because quite frankly, it kills my bones having to download so much KDE-stuff just to be able to use a usable image organizer. Had only DigiKam been more cross-desktop…
Ohwell, it runs fast on old hardware as well, guess it’s really just me jugding it too harshly on non-technical points.
It’s new homepage : http://projects.gnome.org/solang