Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Mike's Software => Qimage Ultimate => Topic started by: admin on August 10, 2015, 11:07:54 PM



Title: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: admin on August 10, 2015, 11:07:54 PM
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u

v2016.110   Aug 10, 2015

Priority: High

v2016.110 is a major user-interface update that supports high DPI displays, making the UI easier to navigate on all displays including 4K monitors!

Mike


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: Terry-M on August 11, 2015, 09:22:02 AM
Yet another rapid response by Mike to the needs of a user reported issue.  8)
http://ddisoftware.com/tech/qimage-ultimate/qimage-ultimate-text-size-too-small/ (http://ddisoftware.com/tech/qimage-ultimate/qimage-ultimate-text-size-too-small/)
QU is now ready for you all to buy those high res monitors, but beware, other programs may not yet be ready.

I don't have a high res monitor as such but an Eizo 22" with a resolution of 1920x1200, the same as that for a 24" monitor. This means the new feature is useful for me and when set to 125%, visibility of text is very much better.
Some of you may not be aware that the thumbnail text font can be adjusted independently, see Edit-Preferences. I have also reduced the size down from 10 to 8 which gives more room for long file names.

Terry


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: Fred A on August 11, 2015, 09:44:10 AM
Quote
Some of you may not be aware that the thumbnail text font can be adjusted independently, see Edit-Preferences. I have also reduced the size down from 10 to 8 which gives more room for long file names.

Terry
Besides, Terry's good ideas,
See screen snaps for where to make adjustments.

One teensy other addition to 110, is visible  dot on the selected images from FSSS (Full screen slide Show)
That would be the collection if "selected".

Fred


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: Terry-M on August 11, 2015, 10:19:09 AM
Quote
One teensy other addition to 110, is visible  dot on the selected images from FSSS (Full screen slide Show)
The dot Fred refers to is on the bottom right hand corner of the full screen view of the selected image.
See screen shot attached.
Terry


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: Fred A on August 11, 2015, 12:57:33 PM
Quote
v2016.110 is a major user-interface update that supports high DPI displays, making the UI easier to navigate on all displays including 4K monitors!

I know the new version 110 has been out for over 12 hours, and there's not ONE comment from any of you: You like it;you don't like it; it looks great.... or I'm annoyed that I just spent a lot of money for new eye glasses, and I really didn't need to get them had I known Qimage was going to look this good.
Perhaps you don't appreciate the scope of the upgrade. It covers all resolutions from 800 x 600 to 4K. I run a 1920 x 1040. One click to choose what looks best for me.... bazinga!
Check the internet and you will see what's coming,.  5120 x 2880  etc etc... and now your Qimage will look perfect on any of them. Just a tick of the mouse to select the magnification for you.

Fred


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: admin on August 11, 2015, 01:25:20 PM
Thanks Terry and Fred.  I don't always have time to elaborate on the goodies and often there's not enough "room" to do justice to them in the release notes so it's nice to do that here.

One "Extra" in 2016.110
There's one little behind-the-scenes tidbit that I didn't mention in the release notes.  I changed the way files are sent to QU from other programs.  Previously, if you dragged images to QU or used "Send To" from another program, QU would open with the selected images in the queue.  That works well if you want to print the selected photos but some users report that they don't always want to print.  Sometimes they just want to view the selected images full screen, send via email, see other images in the same folder, or perform other operations.  So now in 110, QU opens in the folder that contains the files you sent with those images selected in the thumbnails.  From that point, you can decide what to do with them: add to the queue, send via email, spacebar to view full screen and decide on a batch, etc.  At times, you may even be in a folder using file explorer and you just want to open that folder in QU to browse thumbs or full screen.  So now you can select one image in the folder and use "Send To", "Qimage Ultimate" and QU opens in that folder with the selected file(s) marked in the thumbs.  You can even highlight a folder and use "Send To", "Qimage Ultimate" and QU will simply open that folder in the thumbnails.  Many users will find this method more convenient than the old way which opens the images in the queue with no real indication of where they came from or other images that might be in the same folder.

About High DPI Aware
2016.110 is the result of 7 straight 14-16 hour days getting QU ready for high res monitors.  Making QU high DPI aware is a task that has been high on our list since the initial release of the 2016 edition because 1920x1080 is quickly becoming the "least common denominator" for monitor resolution.  People are now moving up to Quad HD (2560x1440) and 4K (3840x2160) monitors and while Windows 10 is ready for the task, most software applications are not there yet.  We're now ahead of the curve with 1016.110 so I thought I'd share some background on high DPI aware and what is means to Windows applications.

Windows XP Through Windows 7
Windows XP through Windows 7 handle scaling in the simplest possible way, by increasing system font sizes and system icons only.  So when you set your display properties to 125% or 150%, Windows only scales system fonts and system icons like your desktop icons by the amount chosen.  This resulted in all sorts of problems with Windows apps because if the app is marked as "high DPI aware" in it's manifest (header in the executable file), the application reads (or should read) the scaling factor and increase the size of each open window in the app and subsequently increase the size of the fonts on that window.  This created a myriad of problems with various apps like text labels overlapping controls, controls being off the edge of the window, and so on.  I'm sure we've all seen that behavior in various apps as very few developers took the time to do it right.  If, on the other hand, the app identifies itself as non high DPI aware, the app does nothing and Windows does the scaling in a similar fashion but with Windows not knowing how to scale buttons, the icons on the buttons, etc. this result is often worse.  Enter Windows 8 and 10 to "solve" these problems.

Windows 8/10
Windows 8 and 10 employ a clever trick for scaling applications that mark themselves as non high DPI aware.  If a developer doesn't want to go to the trouble (and believe me, it's a lot of work) to do proper scaling inside the app and they mark their app as non high DPI aware thinking Windows will handle the scaling for them, Windows actually "fakes" the screen resolution sent to the app by making the screen look lower resolution, forcing the app to render lower resolution windows.  Windows itself then takes the lower resolution windows and scales them up to your screen resolution.  For example, if you are running 4K monitor and you have your display properties set to 200% scaling, non high DPI aware apps will be told that the screen size is 1920 x 1080 and the app will behave as if it has a 1920 x 1080 screen.  The windows in that app are all rendered at 1920 x 1080 and Windows scales them up to the full 3840 x 2160.  This takes care of the problem with overlapping and misplaced controls but it creates other problems: blurry windows, blurry text, and blurry controls because the entire window is being upsampled by 2x.  Let's take a moment to contemplate what that means for non high DPI aware apps.  In an application like Qimage Ultimate where you want to view and edit your photos in your monitor's full 4K glory, this type of scaling means that every image you view on your screen will be 1/4 resolution because the app is rendering a 1920 x 1080 image and Windows is then scaling it up by 2x!  So this is clearly not what we want in an image/photo based app.  The new Windows scaling routines, while they make apps "usable" by properly scaling all windows and dialogs, are not built to actually make use of your monitor's actual resolution.

High DPI, Doing it Right!
For an application to truly make use of all those extra pixels, it must declare itself high DPI aware so that Windows doesn't do any (internal) scaling and the app must take care of the scaling internally.  As above, an app that is non high DPI aware on a 4K monitor with display scaling set to 200% will render a 10 point font and Windows (8 and 10) will then scale the entire UI up by 2x, making the font appear to be a 20 point font.  But the font was still rendered at 10 points and is then upsampled to 20 points, making the font look pixelated or blurry.  To do the job right, the application must mark itself as high DPI aware so that Windows itself does no internal scaling of components, and then the application can read the actual screen resolution or scaling factor and then produce an actual 20 point font on its controls and windows!  Doing this, the font is rendered at full resolution.

But there's a lot more to it than just rendering fonts at a scaling factor and increasing window size.  Buttons on windows are graphic controls and can be scaled appropriately but often, a certain text font doesn't have an integer multiple when scaled, so if you're not meticulous with what you are doing, some text on a window may overlap other controls like buttons or be too small to align properly.  In addition, you can increase the size of a button on a window to 200%, but what about it's icon?  You don't want a big button with a (still) tiny icon.  In Qimage Ultimate 2015.110, we've taken the time to write a special icon resampling method that can resample all icons and menu images to the proper scaling factor, transparent mask included, so that the icons scale with near perfect precision.  And what if a user wants a scaling factor for your app that is a little different from what they are using in Windows?  Often, users are forced to pick a "non optimal" scaling factor in their display properties because they know some apps that they frequently use will not behave properly at higher scaling.  So in Qimage Ultimate, we provide a user override that allows the user to pick a size anywhere from 100% to 250%.  This presents new developer-challenges because it allows users to pick scaling factors that may make controls gargantuan on some monitors... but they still have to work.  Some users may have impaired vision and would choose a much larger scaling factor for instance.

All in all, for a major application, it can be hundreds of hours of work but the results speak for themselves.  We are happy that Qimage Ultimate 2016.110 is one of the few applications that will make full use of your high res monitor!

Mike


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: Fred A on August 11, 2015, 01:37:24 PM
BRAVO!


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: dschuh on August 11, 2015, 04:46:56 PM
BRAVO!

I couldn't agree more.  I may not have a 4K monitor now but it's nice to know the feature is there, and the "extra" feature is nice to have as well.  Thanks Mike for taking the time to implement these features.

Thanks,

Dave


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: njtrout on August 11, 2015, 05:36:32 PM
(Even though I get the message, an update email was sent to me)


I am getting a message while trying to upgrade from inside QU 2016.109 to .110 that

"Unable to establish a connection with the registration verification server. Please try again later."

Tried a couple of time and am getting the same message.

Thanks in advance,
Andy


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: admin on August 11, 2015, 07:58:47 PM
Even though we've tested on a variety of monitors and resolutions to be sure everything is perfect at all sizes, if anyone finds any anomalies on their particular setup, feel free to reply here and post a screen shot showing the portion of the window in question.  It's not possible to test every setup and all resolutions so if any minor perturbations appear under various setups, I'd like to see.  Also, include your monitor's resolution and your current setting for Windows display size (100%, 125%, 150%, etc.) along with your choice for UI Size in QU's Edit, Preferences.

Thanks,
Mike


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: Popparazzi on August 12, 2015, 07:11:50 AM
A big thank you Miike you just blow all the other companies out of the water,just amazing the way you listen and act so quickly to your users needs,for me Qimage is way ahead of the pack when it comes to printing.


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: BrianPrice on August 12, 2015, 08:31:34 AM
Quote
Even though we've tested on a variety of monitors and resolutions to be sure everything is perfect at all sizes, if anyone finds any anomalies on their particular setup, feel free to reply here and post a screen shot showing the portion of the window in question.

Mike
I have a 24" 1920x1200 monitor set to 117%. When I upgraded everything looked the same except the font size of the thumbnail filenames was larger - it was set at 10point (pic QI1). I reduced it to 8 point which was perfect for me (pic QI2), but it occurred to me that people with longer filenames may need the option of smaller font sizes.
The QI UI size is 125%.

Keep up the good work.

Brian



Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: admin on August 12, 2015, 12:11:51 PM
Quote
Even though we've tested on a variety of monitors and resolutions to be sure everything is perfect at all sizes, if anyone finds any anomalies on their particular setup, feel free to reply here and post a screen shot showing the portion of the window in question.

Mike
I have a 24" 1920x1200 monitor set to 117%. When I upgraded everything looked the same except the font size of the thumbnail filenames was larger - it was set at 10point (pic QI1). I reduced it to 8 point which was perfect for me (pic QI2), but it occurred to me that people with longer filenames may need the option of smaller font sizes.
The QI UI size is 125%.

Keep up the good work.

Brian



Brian,

Thanks for the feedback.  I'd like to get as much feedback as possible so it is appreciated.  A couple points here.  First, you may not have noticed because everything does "look the same" in general, but even on a 1920x1080 display (a hint smaller than yours), the whole UI is 125% larger by default.  At 125%, buttons, checkboxes, icons on buttons, the menu items on right click menus, icons on right click menus, etc. are all 125% compared to the previous version (109).  It's a bit subtle going "up" to 125% but if you switch back to 100% and restart, you'll notice the smaller size immediately (it'll look like 109).  Second point is: you can set the thumbnail font smaller if you like.  The thumbnail font is scaled like the rest of the UI so even though 8 might be the smallest in the list when you are selecting thumbnail font size, you can go lower.  Just type "6" or some other lower number in the size box and you can make it as small as you like.

Regards,
Mike


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: BrianPrice on August 12, 2015, 02:46:57 PM
Thanks, Mike

Brian


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: Fred A on August 12, 2015, 06:20:03 PM
Terry sent me an interesting question in an Email.
I do not have an answer.
Perhaps someone on here does?

"Does anyone know if Adobe have picked up on high res screens, LR, PS etc.?"

Fred


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: BrianPrice on August 12, 2015, 07:11:00 PM
Fred
I believe the latest Versions of Photoshop have a 200% option.

Brian


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: Fred A on August 12, 2015, 07:16:04 PM
Quote
I believe the latest Versions of Photoshop have a 200% option.

Thanks, Brian.. does that bleed into Light Room?
That doesn't sound too comfortable as it is a big jump.
Q goes, 100, 125, 150, 200, and XXL 250%

OK Good information
Fred


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: Fred A on August 12, 2015, 07:58:07 PM
Quote
I believe the latest Versions of Photoshop have a 200% option.

Gee whiz.,
I just did some googling and 8.1 windows is mentioned with an ability to cope with  a few what PS calls Hi Rez3200 x 1800.
The article (referencing W 8.1) gives a whole menu of things to adjust in windows to cope with higher resolution.... changing icon fonts, menu fonts, etc...  Seems like I just went through that
So I would like to see somewhere where they offer something.

Fred


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: Winfried on August 12, 2015, 09:13:09 PM
Sorry, but  I have to spoil the party...
This "extra" feature (change in handling the drag-and-drop) is quite stupid.
It breaks my workflow and make is useless as to tool to print.
Believe my or not. For me Qimage is an excellent printing tool. To organise photos, to develop Raws or to edit photos there exists many other tools that do the job equal or even better. Maybe they are a bit more pricy. ok.
I use a dedicated Digital Asset Management tool (and Qimage is no DAM). Since the drag-and-drop functionally is spoiled, my printing workflow does not work anymore.
I do not want the folder opened in Qimage. I don't need the thumbnail building. I do not need these non-standard ratings.
I just want/need  that photos are passed to the queue by drag-and-drop.
So please rethink your change. It was not a good decision.
I will revert to an older version an see whether Qimage will become a usefull printing tool again.

regards
Winfried


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: admin on August 13, 2015, 01:26:26 AM
Sorry, but  I have to spoil the party...
This "extra" feature (change in handling the drag-and-drop) is quite stupid.
It breaks my workflow and make is useless as to tool to print.
Believe my or not. For me Qimage is an excellent printing tool. To organise photos, to develop Raws or to edit photos there exists many other tools that do the job equal or even better. Maybe they are a bit more pricy. ok.
I use a dedicated Digital Asset Management tool (and Qimage is no DAM). Since the drag-and-drop functionally is spoiled, my printing workflow does not work anymore.
I do not want the folder opened in Qimage. I don't need the thumbnail building. I do not need these non-standard ratings.
I just want/need  that photos are passed to the queue by drag-and-drop.
So please rethink your change. It was not a good decision.
I will revert to an older version an see whether Qimage will become a usefull printing tool again.

regards
Winfried

(https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQzAU3FzzZxdM_hMfAw2xWg-87m_gg_sZ2FRHzv3r_jEFwOJPYa)


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: Fred A on August 13, 2015, 12:19:47 PM
Quote
Digital asset management (DAM) consists of management tasks and decisions surrounding the ingestion, annotation, cataloguing, storage, retrieval and distribution of digital assets.[1]

That's quote #1
A lot of mumbo jumbo.   
"Ingestion". I think that means taking in stuff and absorbing into the system.
"Annotation" I think that means naming or renaming the ingested information.
"Cataloguing"  That sounds a lot like putting in proper folders, and storing the folders and prints by category

So let's assume that you have no idea what you bought in Qimage/It seems that way.
You can keep DAM and when you need it, just right click in the thumbs, and tick Send to Editor.

Qimage does it all!   All three of the above categories.
That quote is From Wiki pedia in case you feel like reading the whole thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_asset_management

I have searched the web using google to find the "PRICE"  Can't find it. So must assume it is so costly that thy are ashamed.

Nevertheless, Mike is sweet guy. He fixed 111 for you so  people have a choice.

Fred


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: Terry-M on August 13, 2015, 01:39:07 PM
Quote
This "extra" feature (change in handling the drag-and-drop) is quite stupid.
It breaks my workflow and make is useless as to tool to print.
It is not "stupid", in fact very logical.
Regarding work flow, the old method for me was not as good as the new. I nearly always wanted the folder open, the normal way of using QU.
Re,
Quote
I do not need these non-standard ratings.
What is standard?  ??? As far as I know there's no such thing as standard ratings in any image program or database.  ::)
Also, thumb building is no big deal, it puts the image you are working on in context, unless one's folder structure is a mess.
Terry


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: Cadencia on August 13, 2015, 03:56:13 PM
Just installed 2016.110.  My hardware is Del XPS15 with 15inch monitor res 3840x2088.  The pixels are TINY, and on windows 8.1, setting the system magnification to 200% gives a useable effect - big enough to read, but sill get enough things on the screen side by side to be useful.
The UI changes in 2016.110 means that QI is also now useable on this PC at full res.
There remain one or two issues, most concerned with vertical headroom.  I have attached a screenshotwith the UI set at 200%.  I have one at 250% UI for comparison, but can't load it here because of size restriction..
  • The title bar seems to enlarge just enough to hold the Qimage version, but not the same size as other 'unskinned' windows - so the buttons to minimize, restore, maximize, close etc at the right hand end are still minute as a target for clicking.
  • The window which describes the skin and font in use clips the font at the top.
  • The window that describes the paper in the printer and its resolution is too small.
  • The window that displays the heading "Job Properties" is too small.
  • The description "[Template]" needs attention.

2016.110 is a great start.  Microsoft sure haven't made this easy!


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: admin on August 13, 2015, 04:44:00 PM
Just installed 2016.110.  My hardware is Del XPS15 with 15inch monitor res 3840x2088.  The pixels are TINY, and on windows 8.1, setting the system magnification to 200% gives a useable effect - big enough to read, but sill get enough things on the screen side by side to be useful.
The UI changes in 2016.110 means that QI is also now useable on this PC at full res.
There remain one or two issues, most concerned with vertical headroom.  I have attached a screenshotwith the UI set at 200%.  I have one at 250% UI for comparison, but can't load it here because of size restriction..
  • The title bar seems to enlarge just enough to hold the Qimage version, but not the same size as other 'unskinned' windows - so the buttons to minimize, restore, maximize, close etc at the right hand end are still minute as a target for clicking.
  • The window which describes the skin and font in use clips the font at the top.
  • The window that describes the paper in the printer and its resolution is too small.
  • The window that displays the heading "Job Properties" is too small.
  • The description "[Template]" needs attention.

2016.110 is a great start.  Microsoft sure haven't made this easy!


Thanks for the feedback.  2016.111 should take care of those issues.  There was one more layer of Windows scaling that I had to turn off: Windows was still scaling a few things that I had already scaled.

Regards,
Mike


Title: Re: v2016.110 issues/comments
Post by: spiritman on May 22, 2016, 08:10:18 PM
Well I am so happy to have QU back on my 4k monitors 4 total (not all at 4k)! I just have one more request Mike. The upper right hand corner the minimize - full screen - or close x is so tiny I can't hardly see it so I have trouble with closing QU in minimizing it. I use a scaling option of 225 so with your new improvements and using the large UI size all else is great! Can you help me again?