JPO Java Picture Organizer
Start now! About JPO Introduction Features Screenshot Reviews Technical description User Guide Installing JPO Requirements Options Java Web Start Windows Installer Local Installation Source Installation Potential Problems The project Thanks Links Author License Changelog Bugs Potential Features Launched: 14.1.2003	Running Jpo for the first time If you have Windows and you have Jave installed all you need to do is click on the "Start now!" hyperlink at the top left of this page. Because I have not bought myself proper digital certificates you will get a warning screen. If you decide to trust me JPO should start up with an empty window. If it doesn't work, check out the Installation page. You are looking at a new, empty picture collection. This is not a lot of fun so let's add some pictures you already have. Adding Pictures that are already on your computer Most people put their digital pictures into a set of folders. You need to tell JPO to add these folders to it's collection. JPO will not modify your pictures; it will just add them to the collection index. Click on the File > Add Pictures menu option and a dialog window will pop up. Use this window to select the folder where the pictures you would like to add are stored. The options on the right can be important depending on how you have organised your picture folders. If you have many folders within your folders then the option "Recurse subdirectories" let's you control whether JPO should just look into the first directory you specified or whether it should look in the subfolders too. If you have subfolders then "Retain directory structure" controls whether all pictures are shown in one JPO group or if JPO creates sub-groups for each sub-folder. After you click the "Add" button, the pictures are indexed into the JPO collection. When this is done you should see the pictures in the fist of your added folders. Browsing your picture collection In the diagram with the yellow folders on the top left of the JPO window you may select which folder of pictures you would like to look at. Simply click on the group and the pictures of that group show on the right hand side. JPO will show the thumbnails side by side if there is enough space. Use the scrollbar on the right of the window to scroll down to further pictures in your collection. Notice that the navigation panel with the little yellow folders "unfolds" to show you the contents of a group. If you would like to see all thumbnails at once you can reduce the size at which they are shown with the slider next to the title of the group being shown. If you drag the slider to the left the pictures will shrink and more pictures can be shown in the window underneath. To view a picture in full resolution double click on an image. You could also right-click and choose "Show Picture" from the pop-up menu. To move to the next picture in the group use the arrow buttons at the bottom of the page. These are the silvery arrows. If you hove your mouse over the icon it will say "Next Picture". If the picture is on the side, use the blue "Rotate left" or "Rotate right" buttons to turn the picture by 90 degrees. This does not alter the image on disk; JPO just rotates the image in memory and remembers to rotate it every time you look at it going forward. Downloading Pictures from your Digital Camera Use the new wizard that I have not yet finished writing..... Reorganising your pictures Drag and drop You can easily reorder your pictures within a group by pointing the mouse at one picture and dragging it over another thumbnail. If you drop it then JPO will reorganise the thumbnails so that the picture you dropped is inserted at the place where you dropped it. You can move multiple pictures in a single go too. First you have to select all the pictures. You select pictures by doing a single left click on them. After you have selected the first thumbnail you need to hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard to select the next picture. If you don't hold the Ctrl key down the picture will be selecte but the first one will "unselect". Once you have selecte a set of pictures you can drag and drop them. You can also drop the pictures on a different group in the navigation panel. You can also select all the pictures under a rectangle. To do this, press down the mouse button on the white area outside the thumbnails and move the mouse keeping the mouse button pressed. You will see a rectancle appearing. When you release the mouse button all thumbnails underneath the rectancle will be selected. Using this this feature you can quickly rearrange pictures into different groups. Sorting the group Most digital cameras record the time the picture was taken. JPO can use this information to sort pictures chronologically. This is helpful, for instance, when you have been given the pictures of friends who were on the same trip. To see the time the picture was taken, right-click on a picture and select Properties. You will see the Creation Date & Time there. This comes off the "EXIF headers" the camera writes into the digital image. JPO lists these out on the left side of the window for the curious. If you forgot to adjust the timezone on you camera you could correct the time for each picture on this properties window. To sort a group of pictures by the creation date, close the Picture Properties window and right click on the little yellow folder icon in the navigation panel. The pop-up will show you a Sort option which expands to different sort fields JPO could sort by. Choose the option "Creation Time". Using the "Move" popup menu Often when you are reorganising pictures you have multiple groups your pictures will get sorted to. Perhaps you are weeding out a long day's shooting session and have created three folders: "Amazing Highlights", "Not so sure" and "Utter Rubbish". After you have dragged a picture to a different folder the move menu remembers the target folder. This makes it quite easy to move another picture to that folder. Point at the picture with the mouse, right-click on the image and pick the target folder off the move menu. This pop-up menu is also available in the full screen picutre viewer. Labelling your pictures After you have loaded an image JPO shows you the filename of the picture underneath the the image. Many people write a description of the picture into the filename. This works so-so beacuse you are not allowed to use all characters of the keyboard and most annoyingly, if the pictures are sorted by filename, they are no longer in oder. (Use the JPO sort to rearrange the pictures if that has happened to you.) In JPO you can simply change the description of your picture by clicking the mouse at it and starting to type. JPO will not rename the picture file on your disk and you are allowed all characters you can type. To change the name of a group you need to right-click the group and select "Rename". Be careful NOT to choose "Remove Node" as that gets rid of your node rather quickly. Since I have not added a warning nor an undo this is very annoying. Nedless to say, I do this all the time myself so it should be fixed. How to create a web-page from your pictures If you have a web-server somewhere to host your pictures you can use JPO to create all the files that need to go on that web-server for you. Start off by creating a group, sort the pictures into the desired sequence and label them carefully. Right-click on the yellow group icon and choose the "Export to HTML" option. Into the Target Directory field you need to specify a (preferably empty) directory where the web site files should be created. You can tweak the size of the images should be given. Consider carfully whether you want to export the high resolution pictures and whether to generate the zipfile for download of highres pictures. This can result in some pretty enormous data files which can take ages to upload to the web-server. When JPO have finished creating the web-site you can preview the site by going to the target directory and opening the index.htm file. You see the page as it would be show to someone viewing it from the web. If the page is in order you then need to follow the instructions you were given to upload the files to the webserver you are using. Last update to this page: 11.11.2007 Copyright 2007 by Richard Eigenmann, Zürich, Switzerland

JPO Java Picture Organizer

Start now!

About JPO
Introduction
Features
Screenshot
Reviews
Technical description

User Guide

Installing JPO
Requirements
Options
Java Web Start
Windows Installer
Local Installation
Source Installation
Potential Problems

The project
Thanks
Links
Author
License
Changelog
Bugs
Potential Features

Launched: 14.1.2003

Running Jpo for the first time

If you have Windows and you have Jave installed all you need to do is click on the "Start now!" hyperlink at the top left of this page. Because I have not bought myself proper digital certificates you will get a warning screen. If you decide to trust me JPO should start up with an empty window. If it doesn't work, check out the Installation page.

You are looking at a new, empty picture collection. This is not a lot of fun so let's add some pictures you already have.

Adding Pictures that are already on your computer

Most people put their digital pictures into a set of folders. You need to tell JPO to add these folders to it's collection. JPO will not modify your pictures; it will just add them to the collection index. Click on the File > Add Pictures menu option and a dialog window will pop up. Use this window to select the folder where the pictures you would like to add are stored.

The options on the right can be important depending on how you have organised your picture folders. If you have many folders within your folders then the option "Recurse subdirectories" let's you control whether JPO should just look into the first directory you specified or whether it should look in the subfolders too. If you have subfolders then "Retain directory structure" controls whether all pictures are shown in one JPO group or if JPO creates sub-groups for each sub-folder.

After you click the "Add" button, the pictures are indexed into the JPO collection. When this is done you should see the pictures in the fist of your added folders.

Browsing your picture collection

In the diagram with the yellow folders on the top left of the JPO window you may select which folder of pictures you would like to look at. Simply click on the group and the pictures of that group show on the right hand side. JPO will show the thumbnails side by side if there is enough space. Use the scrollbar on the right of the window to scroll down to further pictures in your collection.

Notice that the navigation panel with the little yellow folders "unfolds" to show you the contents of a group.

If you would like to see all thumbnails at once you can reduce the size at which they are shown with the slider next to the title of the group being shown. If you drag the slider to the left the pictures will shrink and more pictures can be shown in the window underneath.

To view a picture in full resolution double click on an image. You could also right-click and choose "Show Picture" from the pop-up menu.

To move to the next picture in the group use the arrow buttons at the bottom of the page. These are the silvery arrows. If you hove your mouse over the icon it will say "Next Picture". If the picture is on the side, use the blue "Rotate left" or "Rotate right" buttons to turn the picture by 90 degrees. This does not alter the image on disk; JPO just rotates the image in memory and remembers to rotate it every time you look at it going forward.

Downloading Pictures from your Digital Camera

Use the new wizard that I have not yet finished writing.....

Reorganising your pictures

Drag and drop

You can easily reorder your pictures within a group by pointing the mouse at one picture and dragging it over another thumbnail. If you drop it then JPO will reorganise the thumbnails so that the picture you dropped is inserted at the place where you dropped it. You can move multiple pictures in a single go too. First you have to select all the pictures. You select pictures by doing a single left click on them. After you have selected the first thumbnail you need to hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard to select the next picture. If you don't hold the Ctrl key down the picture will be selecte but the first one will "unselect". Once you have selecte a set of pictures you can drag and drop them. You can also drop the pictures on a different group in the navigation panel.

You can also select all the pictures under a rectangle. To do this, press down the mouse button on the white area outside the thumbnails and move the mouse keeping the mouse button pressed. You will see a rectancle appearing. When you release the mouse button all thumbnails underneath the rectancle will be selected. Using this this feature you can quickly rearrange pictures into different groups.

Sorting the group

Most digital cameras record the time the picture was taken. JPO can use this information to sort pictures chronologically. This is helpful, for instance, when you have been given the pictures of friends who were on the same trip.

To see the time the picture was taken, right-click on a picture and select Properties. You will see the Creation Date & Time there. This comes off the "EXIF headers" the camera writes into the digital image. JPO lists these out on the left side of the window for the curious. If you forgot to adjust the timezone on you camera you could correct the time for each picture on this properties window.

To sort a group of pictures by the creation date, close the Picture Properties window and right click on the little yellow folder icon in the navigation panel. The pop-up will show you a Sort option which expands to different sort fields JPO could sort by. Choose the option "Creation Time".

Using the "Move" popup menu

Often when you are reorganising pictures you have multiple groups your pictures will get sorted to. Perhaps you are weeding out a long day's shooting session and have created three folders: "Amazing Highlights", "Not so sure" and "Utter Rubbish". After you have dragged a picture to a different folder the move menu remembers the target folder. This makes it quite easy to move another picture to that folder. Point at the picture with the mouse, right-click on the image and pick the target folder off the move menu. This pop-up menu is also available in the full screen picutre viewer.

Labelling your pictures

After you have loaded an image JPO shows you the filename of the picture underneath the the image. Many people write a description of the picture into the filename. This works so-so beacuse you are not allowed to use all characters of the keyboard and most annoyingly, if the pictures are sorted by filename, they are no longer in oder. (Use the JPO sort to rearrange the pictures if that has happened to you.) In JPO you can simply change the description of your picture by clicking the mouse at it and starting to type. JPO will not rename the picture file on your disk and you are allowed all characters you can type.

To change the name of a group you need to right-click the group and select "Rename". Be careful NOT to choose "Remove Node" as that gets rid of your node rather quickly. Since I have not added a warning nor an undo this is very annoying. Nedless to say, I do this all the time myself so it should be fixed.

How to create a web-page from your pictures

If you have a web-server somewhere to host your pictures you can use JPO to create all the files that need to go on that web-server for you. Start off by creating a group, sort the pictures into the desired sequence and label them carefully.

Right-click on the yellow group icon and choose the "Export to HTML" option. Into the Target Directory field you need to specify a (preferably empty) directory where the web site files should be created. You can tweak the size of the images should be given. Consider carfully whether you want to export the high resolution pictures and whether to generate the zipfile for download of highres pictures. This can result in some pretty enormous data files which can take ages to upload to the web-server.

When JPO have finished creating the web-site you can preview the site by going to the target directory and opening the index.htm file. You see the page as it would be show to someone viewing it from the web. If the page is in order you then need to follow the instructions you were given to upload the files to the webserver you are using.

Last update to this page: 11.11.2007
Copyright 2007 by Richard Eigenmann, Zürich, Switzerland