File browsing application? tags and descriptions

Kawe

Hello everyone. I've been looking for a specific application for a while but I haven't been able to find what I want.

Basically I want an application that can do the following:
- Browse files normally like you would do in windows explorer (thumbnails and all the good stuff you get)
- Be able to put tags and descriptions on the files.. and browse/search files based on these things
- Run this with multiple clients.. i.e. so the files are on a file server (linux) and you can browse in with your windows clients and browse the files with the tags and descriptions shared.

I'm sure there must be some kind of software out there for big projects that handles where you put files and stuff.

If there's any better way of organizing files then I am all ears

renderhjs

I assume you have a image browser in mind, because browsing anything else usually does not need anything better as the classic explorer from windows with its list view.

As for image browsers the one that come to my mind
- acdsee classic or acdsee pro (the regular acdsee is bloatware)
- xnview (opensource and free)
- google picasa

I dont know about the whole linux stuff but I think that irrelevant anyway since most applications store the meta informations (like tags, rating, color,...) in a smal database anyway.

Vitor

Hijacking your thread a abit mate, but just to quick ask something related if you don't mind

What was the app that allow you to hide all the UI and just showed the image, with no bars, frames...? I just have a screen so you can tell ..

renderhjs

acdsee or xnview? - in booth you can customize the GUI and remove any element - or simply hit middle mouse button to go to full screen (or ctrl + f).

Kawe

oh, Im not just thinking about an image browser. I mean it could be used for other things.. video and audio among other things. text files could also probably use it.

but yeah.. basically I want a windows explorer but with tags and descriptions for certain folders (so I can control what things show up in tag searches).

renderhjs

then I would rather recommend picasa
http://picasa.google.com/
because it has been optimized for tagging and indexing whereas applications such as acdsee and xnview are more optimized (or were) for rapid image viewing. Picasa should be able to display images and videos and probably other formats as well.

picasa runs on XP/Vista and Linux as well so it might be what you are after. Regarding networks you might want to read this:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Picasa/thread?tid=228619edaf4978de&hl=en

arshlevon

3d photo browser from moo tools is cool for 3d models and images, you can tag and organize things pretty easily too, even make your own custom albums.

Kawe

thanks, I'll check them out

greuh

I have been increasingly disappointed with acdsee and it's "growth" since version pre-3.
To the point where I am considering starting using the windows image thingy from windows 7 instead at home.

I tried cooliris, but the fact that it's integrated into a browser bothers me, I'd like to look at images without having to deal with all the internet integration bs.

Is picasa really worth it?

renderhjs

picasa is from google, its very nasty at indexing private data and slipping through lots of privacy issues. It most likely comes with aggressive auto update services as well that run with each windows start. So on a very personal side I probably wouldn't install it on a personal computer because I don't trust the software enough - always fearing that I cant proper uninstall it.

But on the other hand its really impressive performing - I tried it once and its really super fast (faster than anything you know from ms or windows) at finding indexed stuff. And if you are all about finding stuff you don't know where you archived it into then picasa might be the thing for you.


And yes acdsee since version 4 or 5 has become very buggy and bloated - its the same issue. Once you install it you get to much crap on your system like some consumer image editor (removing red eyes 'n stuff), internet services (like printing, galleries,...) well and lots of other shit no professional person would ever want to install on his computer.
There is also a ACDsee pro (version 2.0 now I guess) which is a relaunch of the ACDsee in a more dark theme with less consumer crap but still to bloated. Its sadly not anymore a quick image viewer

You can try however Xnview, its free does not need to be installed (can be simply extracted, though install packages for less experienced users are available as well). Xnview clones pretty well the early ACDsee behaviour - just some settings have to be tweaked at first (like the scroll wheel) but thats quickly changed.

I made you some screenshots how my configuration looks like:




it even supports image conversion in combination with scripts or image transformations (e.g resize, convert color tables,...) and some very neat batch renaming

swytch

I like irfanview (free at www.irfanview.com). It has IPTC and EXIF tagging/searching.

But, does anyone know a way to have it immediately go to full screen when double clicking an image to open it? It always opens the image in interface mode.

greuh

thanks for the screenshots

they got us Acdsee pro 2 at work, but as you say it's still the same old bowl of piss that acdsee became over the years.
The one thing that keeps me at it is the awesome batch fileformat converting acdsee offers (edit: and the non destructive 90 degrees rotation of jpegs).

I guess I'll give xnview a try at home, it's been years since the last time I used it so maybe it's more along what I am looking for now.

swytch

I like IrfanView www.irfanview.com It has EXIF and IPTC tagging and searching, but unfortunately is not native to Linux (will run in an emulator). The big thing I don't like about IrfanView is that the thumbnail browser and the file list browser are separate from each other. It also seems slower than ACDSee to load following/previous images while in fullscreen mode.

renderhjs

I never tried irfanView because I always thought that the logo and interface were butt-ugly (Russian programmers art at its best)

but lots of casual people I know liked it in the past, it also seems to come with lots of scripts and support of such.