Using XATSHOW also as ARCHIVE

[info_xatcom]

Hello Darwin

>I hate to whine before the feature is even out
Its ok, I'm used to it ;-)

.... and of course its the best time to as It could be changed!

>- but I have my files
>named uniquely so that they can always be indentified no matter where
>they are located (YYYY-MM-000).
>
>Why do they need to be renamed?
Three reasons:

We are limited to 8.3 filenames
Renaming preserves the order of the images
If an image is used twice or two images have the same name it avoids a clash.

I am considering including say RENAME.BAT which would rename the pictures back
to their original file name if copied onto disk first.

>Will they retain all EXIF and ITPC data? (ie - a simple file system copy
>will not remove this data - any type of jpg re-save might.)
Yes, although currently time/date not preserved (this might change!)

>Will full archive versions be supported in the PC Slide show as well?
Hmmmm, I haven't included a .xats file yet, only the pictures, so I guess not
yet.

Chris.

[info_xatcom]

Hello robin

>Will that include animations?
Only if they are pre converted to VCD MPEG1. You can use a freeware package like
TMPGEnc http://www.tmpgenc.com/ to do this.

MPEG1 support is rather basic at the moment but useful nevertheless ...

>I have pictures that I added animations to
>and saved as a jpg.

I don't follow, jpegs can't be animations ...

Chris.

[info_xatcom]

Hello Michael

>it would be good to
>have an idea whether the total package can still be burned on one
>CD. E.g. before creating the CD image file give an indication of how
>much of total CD capacity will be used....

We have no graph yet, but we do warn if the size is going to be big so you can
choose not to proceed if its too big to fit on a CD. (There is a bug that is
fixed in the next release of this)

The professional Edition allows you to include a file called FILES.ZIP that can
of course include anything you want on the CD, efficiently packaged and with
long filenames. Indeed Me and XP can browse zip files ...

Chris.

[robingarr324]

My mistake. It was a gif. that I saved it in. Used Cool 3D to create it.

robin

Why not use a self-extracting ZIP file? Then the zip could be 8.3, the
names inside could be long names. Also, there would be a significant
amount of compression saving some disk space.

There is a good free self-extractor maker called sfxmaker at
http://sfxmaker.cjb.net/.

Even if this option was only available if I had the right utilities
installed (infozip is a freeware command line zipper, same with
powerarchiver and WinZip has a command line addon for registered users)
- it would be very useful. Maybe I type in the zip file and
self-extractor maker command lines as part of configuration.

D.
_________________________________
Darwin Sanoy
Principal Consultant / Instructor
DesktopEngineer.com
WindowsInstallerTraining.com




Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2003 2:06 AM

Hello Darwin

>I hate to whine before the feature is even out
Its ok, I'm used to it ;-)

.... and of course its the best time to as It could be changed!

>- but I have my files
>named uniquely so that they can always be indentified no matter where
>they are located (YYYY-MM-000).
>
>Why do they need to be renamed?
Three reasons:

We are limited to 8.3 filenames
Renaming preserves the order of the images
If an image is used twice or two images have the same name it avoids a
clash.

I am considering including say RENAME.BAT which would rename the
pictures back
to their original file name if copied onto disk first.

>Will they retain all EXIF and ITPC data? (ie - a simple file system
copy
>will not remove this data - any type of jpg re-save might.)
Yes, although currently time/date not preserved (this might change!)

>Will full archive versions be supported in the PC Slide show as well?
Hmmmm, I haven't included a .xats file yet, only the pictures, so I
guess not
yet.

Chris.

[info_xatcom]

Hello

>Why not use a self-extracting ZIP file?

You can do this with the pro edition. You can add a file called SETUP.EXE which
could be a self extracting .exe file.

Chris.

Thanks, I didn't remember that. However, I am looking for something
that automatically builds and thought that a self-extractor not only
overcomes the short filename problem but adds compression.

D.

_________________________________
Darwin Sanoy
Principal Consultant / Instructor
DesktopEngineer.com
WindowsInstallerTraining.com




Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2003 3:37 PM

Hello

>Why not use a self-extracting ZIP file?

You can do this with the pro edition. You can add a file called
SETUP.EXE which
could be a self extracting .exe file.

Chris.

Just wanted to drop another note on archival copies.

I currently name my pictures as such "yyyy-mm-###" and then in the slide
show I overlay the file name so that when the pictures are being watched
and someone things "I would love to have that one printed!" they can
copy down the number. However, if they attempt to find the image in the
archive it won't match.

So on the reasons for renaming:

*) We are limited to 8.3 filenames: If you did a self-extracting zip
archive you could overcome the long file name limitation and get
compression.

*) Renaming preserves the order of the images: I am not sure the
preserving the order of the images is that important for archiving for
most folks. If order is important then maybe the could also include the
PC slide show and extract from it to determine image order.

*) If an image is used twice or two images have the same name it avoids
a clash: For archiving purposes, just include one copy of the original -
it just seems like lots of extra disk space to include more than one.

I think perhaps if you do the archive before building the slide show you
could easily extract the needed info before doing an internal renaming,
etc.

Just begging for a much more user friendly archive for the grandparents
- and for me since archived images correlate to my real image names.
Another reason I am looking for renaming is off-site backup - if the
XATSHOW archive is all I have left of my photos, then the simple
sequence number naming across all achive CDs would be a huge mess to
figure out.

Thanks,
D.

_________________________________
Darwin Sanoy
Principal Consultant / Instructor
DesktopEngineer.com
WindowsInstallerTraining.com




Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2003 2:06 AM

Hello Darwin

>I hate to whine before the feature is even out
Its ok, I'm used to it ;-)

.... and of course its the best time to as It could be changed!

>- but I have my files
>named uniquely so that they can always be indentified no matter where
>they are located (YYYY-MM-000).
>
>Why do they need to be renamed?
Three reasons:

We are limited to 8.3 filenames
Renaming preserves the order of the images
If an image is used twice or two images have the same name it avoids a
clash.

I am considering including say RENAME.BAT which would rename the
pictures back
to their original file name if copied onto disk first.

>Will they retain all EXIF and ITPC data? (ie - a simple file system
copy
>will not remove this data - any type of jpg re-save might.)
Yes, although currently time/date not preserved (this might change!)

>Will full archive versions be supported in the PC Slide show as well?
Hmmmm, I haven't included a .xats file yet, only the pictures, so I
guess not
yet.

Chris.