updateThumbnails is a software that helps to maintain updated local thumbnails in large trees of photos and images.
updateThumbnails is a software tool designed specifically to address the need of keeping local thumbnails in large photo trees up to date. As digital photography continues to advance and people accumulate a massive collection of pictures, a better way of browsing and sorting these photos is needed. In addition, photos are shared through NFS and SAMBA over private networks, which adds a layer of complexity. In this case, there is a need for thumbnails, which are part of the directories where the photos are located. The solution is updateThumbnails, a tool that is created to manage these thumbnails.
updateThumbnails is built to run on Linux, but it should also be compatible with other UNIX platforms as long as the packages updateThumbnails depends on are available. Key features of updateThumbnails include storing thumbnails of photos in a dot directory, storing thumbnails for different applications and sizes, supporting XV thumbnails, supporting generation of GNOME local thumbnails as used by GQview, only generating thumbnails when the original image has changed, and removing thumbnails where the original file no longer exists.
Installation of updateThumbnails is relatively straightforward. Simply download the tar ball, extract it, and start the installation as root. Usage, on the other hand, involves creating a dot file in your home directory named .updateThumbnails.rc. This file contains various parameters that updateThumbnails will use to do its work. For example, THUMBNAILS holds a list of names that updateThumbnails should process. For each of these names, a subdirectory will be created where the directory name is this name in lower case, preceded by a dot.
The file also contains other parameters such as screen resolution dimensions, thumb resolution dimensions, xvpics resolution dimensions, JPG quality settings, file extensions to scan, and directories to scan. For each of the named thumbnails in THUMBNAILS, a definition of the width and height must be done so that updateThumbnails will know the dimensions of the thumbnails. Note that the thumbnails in THUMBNAILS should be arranged from largest to smallest thumbnail dimensions since updateThumbnails will generate a thumbnail from the next larger thumbnail before the original image is used. This gives a dramatic speed-up of the thumbnail processing.
In summary, updateThumbnails is a versatile tool designed to help manage large collections of photos and images. It is easy to install and use, and it includes features that make it incredibly useful for fine-tuning thumbnail settings. If you are looking for a convenient way to manage thumbnails in large photo trees, then updateThumbnails is a tool worth considering.
updateThumbnails is built to run on Linux, but it should also be compatible with other UNIX platforms as long as the packages updateThumbnails depends on are available. Key features of updateThumbnails include storing thumbnails of photos in a dot directory, storing thumbnails for different applications and sizes, supporting XV thumbnails, supporting generation of GNOME local thumbnails as used by GQview, only generating thumbnails when the original image has changed, and removing thumbnails where the original file no longer exists.
Installation of updateThumbnails is relatively straightforward. Simply download the tar ball, extract it, and start the installation as root. Usage, on the other hand, involves creating a dot file in your home directory named .updateThumbnails.rc. This file contains various parameters that updateThumbnails will use to do its work. For example, THUMBNAILS holds a list of names that updateThumbnails should process. For each of these names, a subdirectory will be created where the directory name is this name in lower case, preceded by a dot.
The file also contains other parameters such as screen resolution dimensions, thumb resolution dimensions, xvpics resolution dimensions, JPG quality settings, file extensions to scan, and directories to scan. For each of the named thumbnails in THUMBNAILS, a definition of the width and height must be done so that updateThumbnails will know the dimensions of the thumbnails. Note that the thumbnails in THUMBNAILS should be arranged from largest to smallest thumbnail dimensions since updateThumbnails will generate a thumbnail from the next larger thumbnail before the original image is used. This gives a dramatic speed-up of the thumbnail processing.
In summary, updateThumbnails is a versatile tool designed to help manage large collections of photos and images. It is easy to install and use, and it includes features that make it incredibly useful for fine-tuning thumbnail settings. If you are looking for a convenient way to manage thumbnails in large photo trees, then updateThumbnails is a tool worth considering.
What's New
Version 1.1: N/A