Anomalies with BBPro 1.4.2

[jimb]

I have been using BB Pro (version 1.4.2 currently installed) for a while, and have observed the following persistent problems:

In thumbnail view, select a range of images using Ctrl-A or Shift-Click. Now exclude an image in the middle of the range by Ctrl-Click. The keyboard shortcut for Edit IPTC -- Shift-Ctrl-I -- no longer works. It is also grayed out on the Edit menu. (Note that these symptoms also apply to Edit Comments and Edit Image, maybe more). The only way to invoke the IPTC editor is with the right-click context menu. Interestingly, once the context menu is opened, even if it is not used the grayed out items reappear and the shortcut key works. It seems I should be able to select a range of images, eliminate one or more form the range, and then just simply press the shortcut key, but I cannot do that.

"Image Order|Sort by image data" doesn't appear to work properly when IPTC Caption is selected. Images with empty caption fields are grouped together and displayed somewhere in the middle of the thumbnails, not at the beginning where I would expect them to show up based on a normal collating sequence.

HTML tokens, when used in the IPTC data template, are case-sensitive. E.g., when entering @filenoext@ in the object name field, that string is entered verbatim. When entering @fileNoExt@ the field is properly filled in. Why is it necessary for tokens to be case-sensitive? If this must be the case (please explain), can the "Show Token" button be added to the IPTC editor dialog (as it is elsewhere) to easily bring up the case-sensitive list? Seems that tokens not being case sensitive would overall be more usable.

An error during batch RAW conversion aborts the whole batch. Could there be an option to skip the file in error and continue with the batch? Although this technically isn't a bug, it does hinder the workflow when an error occurs during unattended processing of a large batch of RAW files.

Another usability issue--help is always on top. I have other applications using Windows help that don't show this behavior. Is there a change that can be made to prevent this annoyance?

All of these issues have been tested on two different computer systems.

Thanks for your help, and for a useful product.

[mcalthrop]

Some well noted points here - some of which I had noticed, but never got around to following up on this forum.

Matt

[Chris Breeze]

I have been using BB Pro (version 1.4.2 currently installed) for a while, and have observed the following persistent problems:

In thumbnail view, select a range of images using Ctrl-A or Shift-Click. Now exclude an image in the middle of the range by Ctrl-Click. The keyboard shortcut for Edit IPTC -- Shift-Ctrl-I -- no longer works. It is also grayed out on the Edit menu. (Note that these symptoms also apply to Edit Comments and Edit Image, maybe more). The only way to invoke the IPTC editor is with the right-click context menu. Interestingly, once the context menu is opened, even if it is not used the grayed out items reappear and the shortcut key works. It seems I should be able to select a range of images, eliminate one or more form the range, and then just simply press the shortcut key, but I cannot do that.
This is because when you deselect one image from the selection there is no image that has focus and so BBPro does not know which image to display. When you right click on one of the images in the selection that image gets input focus and now BBPro knows which image to use.


"Image Order|Sort by image data" doesn't appear to work properly when IPTC Caption is selected. Images with empty caption fields are grouped together and displayed somewhere in the middle of the thumbnails, not at the beginning where I would expect them to show up based on a normal collating sequence.
It's a little more complicated than this because it sorts by caption first and then by filename if the captions are the same. I will look into this because it doesn't appear to work quite as expected when the caption is empty.


HTML tokens, when used in the IPTC data template, are case-sensitive. E.g., when entering @filenoext@ in the object name field, that string is entered verbatim. When entering @fileNoExt@ the field is properly filled in. Why is it necessary for tokens to be case-sensitive? If this must be the case (please explain), can the "Show Token" button be added to the IPTC editor dialog (as it is elsewhere) to easily bring up the case-sensitive list? Seems that tokens not being case sensitive would overall be more usable.
It isn't practical to make the tokens case insensitive because they work by textual substitution i.e. each token is searched for and replaced in the string.


An error during batch RAW conversion aborts the whole batch. Could there be an option to skip the file in error and continue with the batch? Although this technically isn't a bug, it does hinder the workflow when an error occurs during unattended processing of a large batch of RAW files.
What sort of error are you getting? Normally you wouldn't expect an error part way through a conversion.


Another usability issue--help is always on top. I have other applications using Windows help that don't show this behavior. Is there a change that can be made to prevent this annoyance?
I think this is normal Windows behavior. If the help is associated with the app (so that it is visible and closes when the app closes) then Windows will put it on top.

[jimb]

This is because when you deselect one image from the selection there is no image that has focus and so BBPro does not know which image to display. When you right click on one of the images in the selection that image gets input focus and now BBPro knows which image to use.
Sorry, I don't believe this has to do with display. An action is being performed on a group of selected images, which should happen regardless of how they are selected. If they are selected using one method, all works ok. For example, you can select a group of random images with a Ctrl-Click on each one. The shortcuts will work ok. But remove one from the random selection, and the shortcuts quit working. When an image is removed from a selection the shortcuts quit working. It seems they should work all the time. Consider this...what if, in Windows Explorer, the Ctrl-C shortcut didn't work because you deslected one or more files from your inital selection??


It isn't practical to make the tokens case insensitive because they work by textual substitution i.e. each token is searched for and replaced in the string.
Sorry, I don't understand why this has to be true; make them all lowercase then to eliminate confusing capitalization. Regardless, what about a "Show Token" button on the dialog?


What sort of error are you getting? Normally you wouldn't expect an error part way through a conversion.
Errors happen...we're working with computers. The option to skip seems useful no matter what caused the error.


I think this is normal Windows behavior. If the help is associated with the app (so that it is visible and closes when the app closes) then Windows will put it on top.
Sorry, I don't consider a window that is always on top normal windows behavior. If the BBPro help window is open, you are forced to minimize it or close it to get back to the application. Beside, like I said, most other windows applications don't exhibit this behavior.

[Chris Breeze]

The options that require an image image to have input focus are disabled if no image has focus. Options that can be applied to a selection without requiring an image with focus are still enabled (e.g. tags, proofs, batch rename, copy, move, delete...).

It isn't practical to make the substitutions case insensitive because they work by textual substition of each token. To make it case insensitive for a token like @fileNoExt@ BBPro would have to substitute for every combination of upper and lower case which is clearly impractical. It could be implemented differently, but not without a substantial performance hit which would affect many parts of the app.

I will see how easy it is to add a "Show tokens" button to the IPTC editor.

I will also experiment with different settings for calling the Windows HTML Help system to see whether it is possible to prevent it always appearing on top.