FAQ for Mapivi (last update: 2016-08-16)

1. What should I do, if a dialog pops up saying: "Error in mapivi"
   "image "imageXX" doesn't exist at ..."?

   Press OK, and update the thumbnails by pressing <F5>.
   If there are still problems, exit Mapivi with <Ctrl-q>.
   This problem may occure, when you are working with Mapivi while it's
   still busy e.g. loading the thumbnails. 

2. What's about the memory size of pictures, when adding comments 
   and IPTC infos to pictures?

   It's like you would expect it: about one byte per char.
   Example: adding a comment of 30 chars to a 1MB picture will
   increase the file size about 0.03%.

3. How many comments are allowed in a JPEG picture?

   From the wrjpgcom man page:
     The JPEG standard allows "comment"  (COM)  blocks  to  occur
     within  a JPEG file.  Although the standard doesn't actually
     define what COM blocks are for, they are widely used to hold
     user-supplied  text strings.  This lets you add annotations,
     titles, index terms, etc  to  your  JPEG  files,  and  later
     retrieve them as text.  COM blocks do not interfere with the
     image stored in the JPEG file.  The maximum size  of  a  COM
     block  is  64K, but you can have as many of them as you like
     in one JPEG file.

4. How do I work with comments?

   Simply select a picture to comment and press <a>, enter the 
   comment an press Ctrl-x to close the dialog.
   Example: you have three pictures to comment, one with Tom and Tim,
            one with Tom and Peter and one with Tom and Linda.
            They were taken at Lucy's party.
            Here is what I would do: select all three pics, press
            <a>, enter "Lucy's Party Tom", press Ctrl-x. Now all
            pics have the comment "Lucy's Party Tom", now select
            the first one and add "Tim", the second and add "Peter",
            and so on ...

5. I've added several comments to my picture, I can see them with Mapivi,
   but not with my other tool. Why?

   Some viewer tools only support the first comment of a JPEG picture.
   You can use the join comments function of Mapivi to join all comments
   to one.

6. I can manipulate pictures with Mapivi, but why is there no "Save"
   or "Save as"?

   When manipulating pictures (image-processing), Mapivi serves as a
   frontend to the ImageMagick tools.
   The manipulation is done directly on the file, so there is no need
   to save.
   But there is also no undo, so better keep the option "Create backup
   of original picture" enabled.
   You can also force a backup with the menu File->Make backup.
   If there is already a backup, Mapivi will ask you to overwrite it.
   The backup of file.jpg will always be named: file-bak.jpg.
   If you delete file.jpg and there is a backup named file-bak.jpg,
   Mapivi will ask to rename the backup file to the old file name.
   This is also done when renaming the original file.
   If a file has a backup file the string "[bak]" is shown in the size
   column of the thumnail table.
 
7. What's the picture rating (IPTC urgency tag) for?

   The urgency is an IPTC field to specify the importance of a picture.
   The urgency may be used as a search or sort criteria.
   I use it to seperate the really good and important pictures from
   the rest.
   That's my reflection: My grandma has about 5 photo albums of her
   whole life, that number of pictures can be viewed in some hours.
   Since I own a digital camera the number of photos I take is
   exploding (even if I really try hard to sort out about the
   half of them). So when I keep on taking so much photos I never
   will have the time to look at them, when I am older.
   That's where the urgency tag comes into play, I simply mark the
   best or most important pictures with a high priority.
   Later I can choose a view to see only the best pictures of
   e.g. my children.
   This can be done in the search dialog by selecting the proper
   urgency and e.g. the Name of the person to search for in the
   pattern field.

8. How can I get the Mapivi Icon under MS Windows?

   Use the MapiviIcon32.ico (this is located in the directory pics of
   your mapivi packet) in the properties dialog of the windows
   explorer.

9. How do I open a directory not accessible with the dirtree on the left?
   (This may happen when running Mapivi under MS Windows)

   Press <o>, or use the menu File->open directory.

10.Is it recommended to do image manipulation with pictures in JPEG format?

   Usually image manipulations should be done with a image manipulation
   programm, like The GIMP or Photoshop.
   They support lossless image formats (like XCF or PNG).

   The disadvantage of JPEG is the fact, that every time you save
   a JPEG picture it has to be compressed again. This compression is
   NOT lossless, so with every step your picture quality gets worser
   and worser.

   It may be appropriate to use JPEG for some basic image manipulation
   like the functions provided by Mapivi if the source and the target
   format is JPEG anyway.
   Mapivi tries to support the manipulation of JPEG files as much as
   possible by lossless operations (rotation, cropping, adding of
   comments and IPTC infos) and lossy one-step-manipulations. 
   It's e.g. possible to apply several filters and color adjustments
   to a picture while adding a border. So there is just one
   recompression to the picture. This should produce the same results
   like manipulating the picture with the GIMP and then saving it as
   a JPEG file. 
   If it's necessary to do several steps, set the quality to 95% (more
   just increases the file size, not the quality).

11. How to compare details on two similar pictures

    Switch the autozoom option of (menu: Options->Window->auto zoom) or
    open the pictures and press <z> to zoom to 100% for each. Click on
    the thumbnail of the first and than on the thumbnail of the second
    picture. Now you are able to move the picture in the canvas, when
    you switch back to the other picture you will see the same part
    (e.g. the lower right corner) of this picture.
    Another possibilty is to build a difference picture of two pictures.
    This can be done using the menu "Extra->build difference picture".
	You can toggle the display between selected pictures using 
	<Shift-S>.

12. What the meaning of all the special info in the thumbnail table?

    Let's start with the EXIF column:

     [s]    the EXIF info has been saved to an extra file
            use the menu to restore it back
     [t]    there is an EXIF thumbnail embedded in the picture
            this is optional (press <t> to view the thumbnail)
     date   the date and time the picture was taken
     18mm   the focal length of the lens
     (27mm) the focal length of the lens in 35mm film equivalent
     F2.8   the aperture
     1/60s  the exposure time
     ISO100 the ISO speed rating
     +0.3   the exposure bias value

    the size coloum:

     [bak]     the file has a backup (e.g. file-bak.jpg)
     1143kB    the file size in kB (1kB = 1KiB = 1024 Byte)
     2048x1536 the picture size in pixels
     3.15MP    the amount of pixels in mega pixels (1MP = 1000000 pixel)
     2.69 b/p  the bits per pixel value (kind of quality value)
     [3:4]     the aspect ratio
     date      the file date

    the rest should be obvious, I hope.

13. Panic! Where is my backup file?

    A backup file (named e.g. pic-bak.jpg) is only created, when the
    "Create backup" button was selected.
    If the backup is not shown directly after a conversation, please
    press <F5> to update the thumbnail table.
    Hint: If a picture has a backup this string: [bak] is shown in the 
    size coloum. 

14. I've rotated my pictures manually, but the rotate flag is wrong now.
    What should I do?

    Clear the rotate flag (see menu Edit->Rotate->Clear rotate flag).

15. I've rotated my pictures, but the EXIF thumbnail is still in the
    old wrong possision. What should I do?

    There are two possibilities:
    a) lossless 
    Press <Ctrl-o> to open the options dialog, go to the Thumbnails pad
    and deselect "Rotate EXIF thumbnail when rotating picture".
    Now rotate the picture to match the EXIF thumbnail (press <T> to see
    the EXIF thumbnail). Now select "Rotate EXIF thumbnail when rotating
    picture" in the dialog noted above and rotate the picture again.

    b) fast
    Just build a new EXIF thumbnail (see menu Edit->EXIF info->(re)build
    thumbnail)

16. I want to save a copy of a picture in the same directory, with a
    different name (Save As ...). How to do this with Mapivi?

    Select the picture (e.g. pic1.jpg), use the menu: File->make backup.
    A new file named pic1-bak.jpg will be created, select this picture and
    press <r> (or use the menu: File->rename) and rename the picture to the
    new name.
    
17. If I resize the Mapivi window the pictures do not resize. What's wrong?

    Nothing is wrong, zooming is slow, so Mapivi just rezooms on user
    request. Press <U> (Shift-u) above the picture and it will be reloaded
    and zoomed to the new canvas size. This is also needed to update the
	display after you processed a picture in e.g. GIMP.
    You may also try <f> (fit picture in canvas) or <z> (display in original
    size = 100%).

18. Mapivi is great! Why is it free?

    Because I like and use a lot of free open source software myself and
    Mapivi is my contribution back to the community.

19. How can I reuse the saved EXIF infos or IPTC templates from the pre
    0.7.0 Mapivi versions?

    The only way is to use an old Mapivi version, restore the EXIF infos
    to the pictures and apply the IPTC templates to certain pictures.
	Quit the old Mapivi version.
    Then start the new Mapivi version (>= 0.7.0) and save the EXIF infos
    (if needed) and the IPTC templates again.

20. How to use hierachical keywords and categories?

    If there is no tree visible in the "edit keywords" or "edit categories"
    dialog, follow these steps.
    Quit Mapivi, use a file manager or the shell, change to directory
    ~/.maprogs/mapivi/ and rename file keywords to keywords.old and file
    categories to categories.old
    Then restart Mapivi, open menu: Edit->IPTC Info->edit keywords ... and
    you will see an example keyword tree.
    You may edit this tree using the context menu (press the right mouse
    button to open it).
    A double click on a keyword will insert it in the IPTC info of all
    selected pictures when "Add" mode is selected.

21. Is it possible to search for pictures stored on an external media
    (e.g. CD, DVD, USB-Stick, external HD)?

    Yes, of course, if Mapivi knows about them.
    Follow this procedure:
    1. Insert the media
    2. Press F7 in main window (directory tree will show up)
    3. Select media root folder (e.g. /media/dvd for UNIX or D:\ for 
       Windows) in Mapivi directory tree
    4. Select Mapivi menu: Search->build database ...
       to add the pictures stored on the external media to the Mapivi
       search database

    Hints:
    - As Mapivi will just show the path to the picture (e.g.
      /media/dvd/pic1.jpg or D:\pic1.jpg) it is recommended to use a
      CD/DVD folder structure with unambiguous naming e.g. dates like
      2005/200510/20051026_Party/
      this will help you to find the right CD/DVD
    - If you didn't use Mapivi for deleting the pictures you should
      select Mapivi menu: Search->clean database ...
      to update the Mapivi search database

22. When I find pictures stored on external media (e.g. CD, DVD,
    USB-Stick, external HD no thumbnails are shown.
    Can this be changed?
    or:
    Is it possible to show the thumbnails of pictures
    stored on an external media in the search dialog?

    Yes, it is possible. Follow these steps:
    1. Insert the media
    2. Press F7 in main window (directory tree will show up)
    3. Select media root folder (e.g. /media/dvd for UNIX or D:\ for 
       Windows) in Mapivi directory tree
    4. Select Mapivi menu: Extra->build thumbs in all sub directories ...
       Mapivi will store these thumbnails in a central folder if
       the media is not writable.
 
23. Does Mapivi store the thumbnails? Where are they stored?

    Yes, Mapivi tries to store all produced thumbnails.
    They are stored depending on the configuration in
    a) a sub folder of the current folder named .thumbs or
    b) in a central folder (for UNIX: ~/.maprogs/mapivi/thumbDB/)

24. What is the dotted line in the menu for?

    When you select the dotted line you will get a so called tear-of
    menu. The menu will become a new window and you may place it
    anywhere on your desktop. This is very handy if you need some
    functions several times.