Ibatch

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FINAL INFOS WHICH DID NOT MAKE IT INTO THE PDF DOCS 
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- LoViewThumb from Simone"Tuxedo"Monsignori can fully replace internal
thumbnailviewer (iThumb) if needed.
- Batchlist can directly be created in LoViewThumb (Buttons for rotating and
adding to batchlist will available) !
- find install- and downloadinfos at the end of this file   

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WHAT IS THIS ?
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iBatch allows users to easily convert/rename/renumber/resize/rotate/manipulate a
bunch of pictures at once. The pictures to be processed
can be collected in a "Batchlist". In order to organize your batchlist ibatch
provides a "Viewer" and "Batchlistbrowser" tool.
A fast workflow is guaranteed even on slow systems. This is accomplished by
using preprocessed thumbnails/preview images 
or Exif embedded images for the "Viewer" or "Batchlistbrowser" tool. All
thumbnails will be kept in sync with their 
corresponding source directory. Before you start the "Viewer" tool, iBatch will
therefore check for existent thumbnails 
and add missing thumbnails from the given sourcedir.
Watermarks, Gammacorrection etc. is also available via FXPlugin System.

The whole program can be perfectly used for organizing/resizing digicam pics.
Furthermore it becomes handy, when you
have to convert whole image directories at once.

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FEATURES
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- convert/resize and rename/autonumber a "bunch" of pictures
- Exif based renaming (e.g. renaming by capture date...)
- use wildcards for renaming. (cameramodel, capturedate, sourcefilename,
resolution, autonumber)
- sourcedir/outputdir history for quick access to your favourite image
directories
- add/organize the "bunch" (pictures to be converted) easily with integrated
"Batchlistbrowser" and "Picviewer"
- for speed reasons pictures will be converted to preview thumbnails first.
  (iBatch checks wether thumbnail already exisits / had been converted before.
Therefore only creates thumbnails
   if necessary)
- Exif embedded thumbnails can also be used (about 200% speed increase)
- support for external thumbnail/picviewer (LowViewThumb will get iBatch
integration soon !)
- supported formats: jpg, bmp, ilbm, png
- resize image by percent or pixel (longest side/if necessary shorter side as
well)
- suitable scaling algos (linear, cubic and window) will be autoselected
- rotating images by 90° left or right
- sharpen images
- conversion profiles
- Easy GUI
- Plugin capability
- Comment Plugin (addcomment-plugin) - add text/Exifinfo to your images (e.g.
usable by Addhtml-Plugin...)
- Html Generator/Image Gallery Plugin (addhtml-plugin) included
- Workflowmanager Plugin (start one plugin after another automatically)
- Exifinfo.txt file will be created holding Exifinfos of original image
(original Exif Metainformation (especially Date !) 
   will be preserved throughout all conversion steps. Only image size will be
updated)
- FXPlugins e.g. Gamma, Watermark

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REMARKS ABOUT OLD iBATCH AREXX VERSION
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On Aminet/OS4depot you can also find an old Arexx based "iBatch" Version. The
features of old iBatch compared to 
iBatch_WZ are nearly the same. But iBatch was rewritten from scratch. This
means:
- it is not an ARexx Script anymore
- c:ImageConverter is not required anymore
- it is not an AWNPipe base GUI anymore. A Stormwizard Gui was chosen instead.
- considered to be more "robust"
- progress bar
- same executable runs on OS 3 upto OS 4.x
- support for locale.library
- Preferences File
- runs on small screen resolutions as well

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USAGE / SHORT
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Three steps are necessary to convert and eventually rotate selected pictures.

Step 1/Tab "1) directories"
Choose sourcedir and outdir. In your program path you can find empty
"../Input" and "../Output" directories. These are the default source and
outputdir.
If you choose not to select your own source- and outputdir, you can just use the
default options. If you do so, donnot forget to copy the pictures to be
converted into
"../Input".

Step 2/Tab "2) batchlist"
This is where you select the pictures to be converted (edit your "batchlist").
If you
want to add pictures to you batchlist press "MAKE/CHANGE BATCHLIST". iBatch will
then
create previewpics and start a "Viewer" (thumbnailviewer). In case you are not
satisfied with 
thumbnail qualitiy, switch of "Exif" button, this will create better thumbnails
for jpeg images.
Inside the thumbnailviewer you can select pictures / add them to your batchlist.

If pictures should be rotated by 90/-90 degrees  during processesing, 
press the corresponding buttons inside the thumbnailviewer.
The picture will not (!) be rotated until you press "START" (start final
conversion)
inside iBatch.
By pressing "show" you can browse your current batchlist ("Batchlistbrowser")

Step 3/Tab "3)conversion profile"
Choose your conversion options here. E.g. "Fast 640 - JPEG" converts all
selected pics
into jpeg files, resizes them into 640 Pixels x XXX Pixels. Pictures will be
autonumbered
and renamed to "Fast640-XXX", where XXX is a three digit number. It uses no
interpolation
and compression methods, therefore it is the fastest possibility to convert into
JPEG.
You can also define your own "conversion profiles" by pressing "new".
If you want to choose another rename method for the converted pics click on the
appropriate
cyclegadget. Press "START" to convert/resize/rotate/rename all pictures on your
batchlist.

All "Addhtml...." conversion profiles will automatically start addhtml-plugin in
order to create a
html website with your pics.

All "Extension...." conversion profiles will automatically start
extension-plugin (edit file extensions..)

All "Workflow..." conversion profiles will automatically start workflow-plugin
(string up plugins...)

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WHERE ARE THE THUMBNAILS/PREVIEWPICS STORED ??
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After processing your pics, the choosen Inputdir will hold a textfile called
"pairship.syn".
This textfile holds the path to the correspondig thumbnaildir. If you press
"MAKE/CHANGE BATCHLIST",
ibatch will only create/exif extract thumbnail/previewpics for pictures which
donnot already have a
corresponding thumbnail (=> "Sync").
Therefore iBatch can also handle the "syncpairship" of old ibatch Arexx Version.
But compared to old
ibatch Version, you can not define corresponding thumbnaildir yourself: If
ibatch cannot find a
"pairship.syn" file and the correspondig thumbnaildir, it will check for a
thumbnaildir inside your
given sourcedir, if ibatch cannot find it, a subdir called "thumbnails" will be
created. A "pairship.syn"
textfile will be created either way.

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CHANGELOG
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V 1.0 to V 1.1
- spanish language added
- italian language added
- after process plugin capability*
- option to autocreate thumbnaildir for outputdir as well

* plugins/external programs can automatically executed after processing.
Program-/pluginname to be used is stored/depend in/to conversion profile

V 1.1 to V 1.2
- Support for Exif embedded thumbnails (200% speed gain)
- Date based renaming options (Exif extracted capture date)
- Exifinfo.txt file will be created holding Exifinfos of original image 
   (original Exif Metainformation (especially Date !) will be preserved  
   throughout all conversion steps. Only image size will be updated)
- updated Picviewer (iThumb) shows Exif Metainformation
- updated addhtml-plugin in order to use #?.cmnt files (comment text files)
- addcomment-plugin creates #?.cmnt files (text file holding comments for each
picture)
- workflow-plugin (start one plugin after another automatically)
- list-plugin

V 1.2. to V 1.3
- jhead-capsule (write Exif Header into new image/create Exif Header for images)
- image2icon capsule (create thumbnail icons/info files for each image)

V 1.3 to V 1.4
- new scaling engine:
fast: no interpolation will be used
good and fast: upscaling=linear interpolation, downscaling = window
interpolation (usually near 100% results for photos)
quality: always cubic (bicubic), if needed lowpassfilter will be applied

- sharpen images
- not only longer image side can be used for scaling, also shorter side (non
proportional scaling)

- FXPlugins:
Gamma correction
add Watermark
Greyscale

- Use wildcards when renaming (use wildcards for renaming. (cameramodel,
capturedate, sourcefilename, resolution, autonumber)

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USING LOVIEW AS THUMBNAILVIEWER
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- Download: http://aminet.net/search?query=loview
- Start iBatch and select prefs... in Project menu
- choose LoViewThumb as external thumbnailviewer -> Save
- before you restart, open "..iBatch/ibatch.prefs with NotePad
- append "-dir" towards LoViewThumb path:

************ Change following lines:
-------------- thumbnail/filemanager program you are using
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Work-1:LoView/LoViewThumb

*********** into
-------------- thumbnail/filemanager program you are using
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Work-1:LoView/LoViewThumb -dir

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CREDITS
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- EXIF support was inspired from 
Simone"Tuxedo"Monsignori's Code example (Hollywood based)
- "Howto's" on coding and wizard.library from
Marco "Blackbird" Moering, Thilo "Der_Wanderer" Köhler, _bernd, BruZard
- Translations
Gianluca Girelli, Javiar de las Rivas, Tomasz Paul, Mike Brantley (correcting my
english here and there)
- Icons/Artwork
Martin "Mason" Merz, Thomas "tommysammy" Blatt

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FUTURE / SUPPORT
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Support is free: ibatch()web.de
Suggestions, translation always wellcome
Todo: Batchprintmode ala Windows (that will be hard !!)