Ansel, a photo organizer software for linux

Software
7

[quote=“m0g, post:5, topic:1017”]
Same with color management, I’m not familiar with it and will investigate it.
[/quote]It will probably be fairly problematic. Afaik electron is built on top of blink (the google chrome engine). So doing it right might mean adding color management to chrome which. :confused:

Still it sounds like a cool project and electron should make it fairly easy to extend and make pretty. :slight_smile:

Edit: Actually never mind the fixing all of chrome thing. It could probably be done just for the images.

8

I’ve just tried to start ansel but got this error:

$ ./ansel 
A JavaScript error occurred in the main process
Uncaught Exception:
Error: libraw.so.9: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I’ve installed all packages with:
$ sudo apt-get install libudev-dev libraw-dev

But I think I’ve a to new version:

$ locate libraw.so
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libraw.so.10
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libraw.so.10.0.0

Could could perhaps document the version you need?

9

Hi @Tobias,

can you tell me what linux distribution you are running?

Have you tried installing libraw9 or libraw10?

sudo apt-get install libraw9

or

sudo apt-get install libraw10

10

Hi,

I’m using Ubuntu 15.10 (latest) and it only has libraw10.

$ apt-cache search libraw
libiec61883-0 - an partial implementation of IEC 61883
libiec61883-dev - an partial implementation of IEC 61883
libraw-dev - raw image decoder library (development files)
libraw-doc - raw image decoder library (documentation)
libraw10 - raw image decoder library
libraw1394-11 - library for direct access to IEEE 1394 bus (aka FireWire)
libraw1394-11-dbg - debugging symbols for libraw1394-11
libraw1394-dev - library for direct access to IEEE 1394 bus - development files
libraw1394-doc - Reference manual and documentation about libraw1394
libraw1394-tools - library for direct access to IEEE 1394 bus (aka FireWire)
digikam - digital photo management application for KDE
libkdcraw-data - RAW picture decoding library -- data files
libkdcraw-dev - RAW picture decoding library -- development files
libkdcraw23 - RAW picture decoding library
libkdcraw23-dbg - RAW picture decoding library -- debugging symbols
libraw-bin - raw image decoder library (tools)
librcc-dev - Library for autoconvert codepages development files
darktable - Virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers
11

You need to install libraw10

12

I have libraw10 installed, you are lokking for libraw.so.9 and not libraw.so.10. Have a loook at the error message is posted.

13

Hey @Tobias,

I’ve poked around with Ubuntu 15.10 in a virtual machine.

Right now it seems I can’t compile the node.js libRaw bindings against the libRaw version shipped in Ubuntu Wily.

So for now, I can’t get Ansel to run on Ubuntu 15.10.

14

Hey @m0g,

thanks for the work. I hope you can find a solution. Perhaps you can add a build flag to disable the libraw functions. That would make Ansel less useful, but I could at least play with it.

15

Non-destructive infers that the original data will not be touched … If you are not using ‘sidecar’ XMP files how are you tagging?

16

Since you deliver a 60mb (I assume) statically compiled binary anyways, couldn’t you just statically link in libraw too?

17

@davidvj all the relevant information (including versioning) are stored in a SQLite database. In future releases, I want to be able to read the tag from the XMP as well as to write them.

@Jonas_Wagner I have been working on it in the past. But I couldn’t manage to get node-gyp to properly compile and link the library: GitHub - m0g/node-libraw at batteries

edit: typo

18

Regarding XMP and other metadata, check out the MWG Guidelines. Following those is critical, I think, for any management application.

19

Hi m0g,

I what ways will Ansel differ from the capabilities of DigiKam as a DAM, which is what I am using currently?

20

Hey @Gewitty,

Ansel is more thought as a replacement for Shotwell. I was just growing tired of all the crashing and the general slowness.

Considering Digikam I never really bothered to really try it. Maybe the UI is a bit confusing or it simply takes time to understand it.

The things I am really interested into, and that Ansel currently supports are versioning and diff view.

1366×744 377 KB

Another feature to come is collection (like in Lightroom), but I haven’t worked on it yet.

So both Shotwell & Lightroom are a source of inspiration.

But then honestly, the best way to make yourself an opinion is to try it.

For @asp and @davidvj, I have started working on the XMP tag import using exiv2

21

I agree that Shotwell is a bit unexciting. But take a close look at digiKam, which has many of the features you mention, including Light Table and diff view. I use this as the primary app for my workflow, with GIMP for heavyweight image manipulation. Between these two I get pretty much all the functionality I need, although I also use Hugin for panoramas and Luminance HDR when necessary.

Good luck with the development. I’ll certainly give it a go and keep an eye on progress.

22

@m0g Hello, any progress/changes?

1 Like
23

Still working on it.

Have you had the opportunity to try it?

24

Not yet. I’m not on Ubuntu, I’m on Arch Linux and I don’t know if it will work straight.

25

If you are familiar with node.js, I would suggest you build the app from the source.

26

I don’t even know what it is…