Browsing image catalogs

The particular browsing view is only for those particulars that are located as images in image catalogs. The selected project limits which image catalogs are selectable in this view. An image catalog already assigned to a project can be safely removed from the assigned ones, as it does not affect e.g. images already attached or included to a writing or writings, as their visibility and functionality is based on the ids they have.

The width of the browser window automatically affects the grid size wherein images are shown. Up to a maximum of five images per row. Below images are internal links to where images have been used (writings and pictureshows) and near them are the read-only descriptions and sources (hideable if too obtrusive), which can separately be emptified by Ctrl clicking. An url as a source information gets automatically converted to a link, when shown in a image grid (in the views particular browsing and combined text editing). If a link is dropped on an image in the grid (e.g. from the operating system's side, from browser's bookmarks or from browser address bar), then title and url of the link will be used as description and source information for the particular image. Also, as more info gets fetched about the link, its availability date will be added to the description information using certain syntax. That date is utilized when image container is momentarily sorted by date. This probably sounds overly complex, but sometimes there are reasons for such.

Hovering mouse pointer over an image reveals tool buttons such as Details, Crop, Remove, Reduce images, Usable, Load Image and "Large Preview". Opening a large preview image also gives access to the OCR function, which is an external service that tries its best to recognize text in images and provide the letters, words and sentences that it founds as plain text. After using it, it is also possible to make a selection from the recognized text and make a web search to retrieve the first three search results using either the Google Search or Brave Search (their APIs). Those results will be shown in the same modal window. Ctrl-clicking on the recognized text will copy all of it to the clipboard. When using Google Search, the metadata in the search results can be used to save date, title, web address, etc. in the description and source data of the image.

The Reduce images function means that all image sizes larger than 640 pixels that were prescaled during the image upload phase are removed. If the Ctrl key is hold down while using it, the image size of 1024 pixels wide is also left undeleted. Crop is also available in the upload phase, but after the upload it is also possible to create multiple new particular images from a selected area of the selected image, which is useful if, e.g. when several areas of an image might work better as separate images.

To make it easier to browse through images of selected container, the "Large preview" image can be changed using the arrow buttons. Also applies to the "Crop images" modal window. Names of image containers of a catalog can be copied to the clipboard, if such is felt as useful. Images can be marking as "usable" in two alternative styles, which both have a "used" version (overstriked). These markings can also be applied in the image assorting and combined text editing views. They are visible in most views where particular images are listed. In the particular browsing view they can be used to filter what images should be show by using relevant switch. Another switch is used for showing those images, which aren't used anywhere.

Action tool "Usable" has two different purposes, one being revealing the modal window for showing the image with all of its different sizes when Ctrl-clicking. Later there will also be a possibility to enhance image (implemented already, but effects haven't been choosen yet) by selecting an image effect. Enhanced version is firstly created as a new image particular, but it can also be used to completely replace the image of the particular that is currently selected. Original and enhanced version can be compared neatly before choosing to do the replacing and which would also remove the enhanced image particular so that it wouldn't be needed to remove it separately. It is defined as an experimental feature, but only by the lack of different image effects.

Understanding which image catalog and which image catalog container the image is in can be forgotten, and one might not want to bother searching for it by navigating through many navigational moves. It is easier to click on a link that takes you to a particular browsing view and where relevant image catalog and its container are already opened. As an example, here is a link below the image displayed in the writingparticular panel of the text editing view. The images in the special pages, adequates and writing fine-tune views also have similar links in use.

Fancier ways of browsing images

If the description of an image particular has a date as first characters, using certain syntax and on its own text line, such dates will be utilized to momentarily sort images of a container by date.

Vertically tall images may be more convenient to scroll through if they are placed side by side and the mouse wheel can be used to scroll through them horizontally. There is a possibility to momentarily set it up in in the particular browsing view.

If images in an image container has images with greatly varying heights, some of which may be very tall, one might want to browse them by momentarily limiting their maximum height to 1400 pixels. Visually images that are vertically taller than that will look like they have been "torn across" at the bottom. This function is available in all views where images are placed on a grid. This function also causes only the part of the images that will be displayed to be downloaded from the server.

Method named "lazy loading" is used often, which means that only those images (and e.g. videos) that are meant to be displayed on some moment are loaded from the server or CDN, i.e. scrolling up or down the page causes loading more to be displayed. This applies e.g to browsing image containers, but also to all images in public solutions etc.

Free-form image browsing

In this alternative particular browsing view image-type particulars are first presented in the usual way, laid out on a grid, after which one can start moving them around in the view without any special movement constraints. A large tablet device or a other touchscreen device with a stylus pen becomes a practical combination, as the range of hand movement can be much less than with a mouse.

On a touchscreen device there can could be a feature allowing to grab an image with two fingers and rotate the image while perhaps also resizing it. However, such may be a bit too "gimmickry" without much benefit.

This view also allows moving images from one image container to another by holding down the Alt key while clicking on an image and (before that) pre-selecting the image container that should be used as a target container to move images to. Targetable image containers can be removed from list of targetable image containers by clicking on them while holding down the Alt key. When using mobile devices, a separate physical keyboard can be used, or one choose to show a switch button corresponding to the Alt key (setting available in user-spesific settings, applies to certain views).

If target image container is not selected, clicking on an image with the Alt key opens the Large Preview modal window, which also includes OCR functionality and the option to change to the next or previous image with the arrow keys. As in the particular browsing view, the Large Preview image can also be displayed by not fitting it in the browser window's viewport, but by displaying it as large as possible. The only difference is that the other required key press is different, as one would have to press the Shift key along with the Alt key when clicking on an image.

When using a keyboard, clicking on an image with the Shift key makes the image increase in size visually. Pressing the Shift and Ctrl keys together decreases image. This doesn't affect the actual resolution of an image. Four different image sizes are available.

On the screen several images can be moved at a time by first clicking on them while holding down Alt and Ctrl simultaneously. Selections made in this way are not removed when moving unselected images or when returning from the modal window, but only when the background or selected images are clicked again. Selected images can be completely deleted from the image container by pressing the Delete key. Their essential information can also be copied to the clipboard for use in some other views and wherein selecting order affects the order on the clipboard also.

From the image selections one can create new particular images or pictureshows attached to a writing. This can be done by first using the "copy image selections" and then going to the text editing view, where, using either of the two modal windows for adding images, one can use the image selections by pressing the "Clipboard replace" button. In the case of inserting individual images, each separate image selection will then cause the corresponding image to be attached into a writing. In the case of pictureshow insertion, the user will have a change to set the order of images before attaching a pictureshow into a writing.

After moving images around on the screen their size and placement can be saved and reloaded later. When saving, the width of the browser window at the time is also saved, so that the arrangement of images in a browser window having different width can be adjusted to make sure nothing get places out of boundaries of the browser window. These layouts are reset on a per-image basis if they are moved from one image container to another.

Usable markings can be made as in the particular browsing view. For the sake of clarity, the showing of the images being in use somewhere is presented differently in this view as relevant links are presented as letter symbols place over images instead of e.g. writing names. The images can have markings like "highres", "usable" and those in-use ones at the same time. Description information of images can be set to be shown on one line in the limits of visible widths of images or on multiple lines, also limited by visible widths of images.

The infinite type of viewport of this free-form image browsing is one where images can be spread out beyond the visible area and where you can move the viewport by grabbing the background of the view. It allows you to open images from multiple image containers. It could be used to develop a viewport where you can freely browse images and also edit text, but for now it is an experimental feature that can be enabled in the user preferences. One problem with it is that if you use gestures-type plug-in in the browser, they may lose their ability to draw a visual line in the right place, since their functionality often relies on them editing the displayed web page by adding code to it. In addition, some browsers on many devices do not quite allow the viewport to be infinite.