EDIT-jam, mod. 27 jan 2008 Guide to use mManager is now up in GUIDES here > viewtopic.php?p=32852#p32852
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Hey everybody.

I want to introduce you all a new alternative m-robe 500i management software I have started developing.

mManager is a m:robe© 500i manager.

mManager is a small replacement to Olympus m:trip© that manages photo and photo albums and on the next releases it will manage music, music albums and remixes.

Simple yet powerfull enough
I was most concerned on making a simple and lightweight tool that — most importantly — worked the way it is supposed to. I have made my best efforts to make the interface user-friendly and easy to use.

You may want to check out some screenshots and even try the latest release at http://mmanager.dynaweb.org. Latest version is 1.0 beta 1 (0.9.2.191) - released November 13, 2007.

Although I do know that many do not like beta and initial dev versions, I would really appreciate if you try and post your comments on the software.

Best wishes!

This stuff is great!!!

I am using it now and cannot wait until the music management features come out.
Thanks!

Great area for development, synccing photos to the mr500. Especially if it can create albums for photos however you want them. I'm going to give it a shot, just hope it doesn't wipe out all the photos and albums of photos i already have on there (but I have PC copies, so i'm not overly worried on that count). I'll have some questions later.

I would leave sorting out the REMIX function till last. And perhaps, for people running linux...the REMIX database not changing everytime you sync will be a definite plus, as it errors the linux function and linux has to be fixed at the svg files again....

cheers tiago, wish me luck....

...........

EDIT+ just tried it. At the moment it's not working for me. I guess i'm reporting major bugs for me.

1. i created a new album fine
2. assigned some new photos to the new album
3. saved the changes, exit, safely remove hardware
4. removed mrobe, started mrobe, checked the new photo album, 2 pics in there, but i put 6 in. and the 2 were just blank white pages.
5. photos in all photos seemed fine except maybe jumbled in an order i'd not known before.

Did the > hr sync with mTrip, then rejigged linux svgs to restore order.

d0n above, you managed to put photos in albums yet with mmanager or is it all not assigned to albums, is what you mean by working fine...? If you have put them into albums fine and viewable, let me know.

jamelikat

PS. nice looking interface tiago, your mmanager.

I'm glad you liked it!!
Since the robe I have in hands is my father's robe, I have only upgraded the firmware. He feels ok with the original OS, so I haven't tried linux. But I guess there shouldn't be any problem.


Adding pictures to albums and not showing them is a strange problem. I remember testing this well... I'll look into it later.
As for the blank white images, I can only imagine that the problem is when creating the thumbnails... maybe I'll have to rely this on a third party software. Did you use standard JPGs?

As for the image order, I'll have to add some extra checks to keep them as they come. Also, I think I'll add a function to order the images. That's a feature I haven't thought of.


d0n, Do you use linux on your robe?
Also, please make a test like jamelikat did and post the results back.


Just in case you get things wrong, you can use the backups that are created just before saving. They are stored on a "Backups\LastSaved" folder.

thks for the reply tiago

2 questions for now..

Q1. I already had photos in albums, made in mTrip. Could that have interfered with mManager working properly, explaining why my trial with photo albums didn't reaaly work?

Q2. mManager seems like it can only add/assign 1 photo at a time to albums. will you make it able do it in batches i.e. click/selectseveral/many at a time then with 1 click of the mouse, assign them to a particular album?

thanks

jamelikat.

I don't think so. My father had also made albums with m:trip before and it worked well. Ordering was something I hadn't paid attention to, so this is something I'll have to add. I'll take some serious look at it later today and will keep you updated.


No, this is already done. You can select multiple pictures using the shift or control key, then right click on the list and choose "Assign selection to album(s)..." - or click the 7th button on the toolbar. You can either add the pictures to one album, or multiple albums...

Unfortunatelly I am alone in this matter, so a complete guide will take some time to be available.

OK good to know the already existing mTripped photos and albums should be OK with mManager.

1. Yes, as far as I know I used standard JPEGs. What would you say were NOT standard JPEGs so i can be sure...?




2. I need confirmation from you and if better still, yes others too that you have managed to create a new album and put in photos there, batch-wise.

re. a guide, when i try mManager again and if I get it to work, then i can help you to write a userguide.

jamelikat

okay, I just got my m:robe 500i on ebay and wiped it clean of all but system files.
I upgraded the firmware to most current at Olympus. (No Linux)
Using syncdrop (another very cool app app) I put ~5gb of songs and playlists with no problem other than a couple of database errors resolved by a reboot.
Using XP I dropped 55 pics from a digital camera (all .jpg) onto the unit and used pixdrop to make them viewable. There were no albums other than All and Favorites (built ins).
Obviously making an album is a much desired feature so when I came across m:manager I tried it out. It started and ran with no errors (although some of the tasks were not intuitive - I have no improvements so I am not criticizing). All but 2 pictures were unassigned. The other 2 were in favorites, placed there from the screen. I created 4 albums through m:manager and then assigned all 55 pics among them with no issues.
This program worked flawlessly for me and I can't wait 'til it can handle music.
Hope this helps!


EDIT +

. . . also. This m:robe has never seen m:trip.

. . . and the photos were added using the batch method (ctrl and multiple selections).

I just thought of CMYK images or 16/24 bit RGB. Also, I'll probably add a routine to check for non standard characters (a-z 0..9 dash, dot, underline) and blank spaces on the filename, just to make sure this is not the problem...

As for the multiple selection, giving a second thought on what I've done, the highlight color is too confusing. I guess I'll put up some different color to make it easier to distinguish when you have multiple items selected.

thks for looking into those and look fwd to your report.

jamelikat

I have just uploaded a new version to the website, you may want to check it out at http://mmanager.dynaweb.org/download and the list of changes at http://mmanager.dynaweb.org/releases/history

I have double checked (actualy I have tested many times) the report from jamelikat regarding pictures not going to albums and it worked well.

Test steps:

I have added 1, 2, 5, 15, 30, 59 images this way and all tests were OK.
In any case, let me know if there is still some problem.

Hope this works well.
Tiago

tiago, thanks for the new version, got it and tried it. Good move with the colour thing on multi-select for album assignments.

Success: yayy I succeeded in putting photos into mTrip created albums and mManager created albums, and mManager is managing them all together

Bug: The first few hundred of photos in the list index, when i click on them, this comes up @List index out of bounds'. And these I can't send to albums.


That screenshot shows the last one on the list that gives that 'out of bounds' thing.

From the next one, and for the rest of the list.....no 'out of bounds' error...See >


Any ideas?

Q1? What is this panel circled in red, for? What happens if I leave any boxes unchecked before Save?


Q2 Not essential as it's good you've kept the application small/lightweight....BUT...any chance we can flick from the single photo view panel to a multi thumbnails view panel as well, like in mTrip?

SUMMARY so far:

Pros: With mr500 in cradle/usb connected to PC, you can make and name however, your photo albums whenever you want. Cuts down on photo synccing time immensely compared to mTrip. If you also have linux-opie on your mr500, it doesn't cripple the linux each time you sync which used to mean redoing the svg files to reenable linux. Oh yes, I think just like syncdrop for music, you can manage from any PC. The mManager exe just sits in your mrobe drive for whever you need it.

Cons: So far very few, apart from if you have been mTripping so far, in which case you have to reassign all your photos to albums via mManager again (ie the albums from mTrip are there still but they get emptied the first time you do mManager). No album art support, yet. No multi-thumbnails view like what mTrip has. The bug that I mentioned above is a medium sized con for me at the moment. ie I have several hundred photos at the start of the list which is 'List Index Out of Bounds' error. These it seems I can't assign to albums. I could always delete them and try readding them from the PC via mManager and see what happens....but maybe tiago can tell me what I can do to remove this bug, so i don't have to readd from PC. Until tiago responds on this, I'll wait a couple of days, ie I've used the configuration tool to go to 'Last Saved BackUp', Photos ticked and restore...and I got my Mtrip folders WITH photos back in them as before using mManager. So, the backUp/restore function does undo your last mManager photo sync, which is verty useful at this time of beta testing.

This will be a truly awesome alternative once music synccing is enabled (and maybe Remix). It can be a music and photos/photo albums synccer, but fast, unlike how I find mTrip.

cheers, and, yes, this is all very exciting, tackling photos/album/synccing time for the mr500, an alternative worth its weight in gold so far.

merge EDIT...........................

tiago, next mManager 'bug' if you want to call it that:

1. I used mManager to add photos to the mrobe 500 from PC. The photos had been sized down to 320 pixel wide by 200 something height.
2. They went in to the mr500 but they were all only one quarter of the screen, at the top left.
3. I'd figured out before that the mr500 can show 320 pix wide photos full on the screen OK. Using all 320 wide photos means that I can store a ton of photos on the mr500. I do have tons, hence the need for album capability which the mManager has. It would be great if mManager can bring 320 pix wide images into the mr500 full screen. At the moment I can't do it with mManager.
4. I have now switched back to mTrip and managed to get those same images in full screen.

jam

jam

Sorry I missed this thread.. i was out on leave..

Top work Tiago.. up on front page.

well done tiago on making the front page.

tiago, could you investigate/answer:

Q? The current m:M release, what are the restrictions on image size pixel x pixel that can be syncced well from PC to the mr500? Could you resize a few copies of your own, do landscape/portrait versions too and see what happens? I tried 320 x .... pix landscape ones e.g. with no/little success. Could you enable that at all?

jamelikat

will merge consecutive posts ...

Those following the development of and tweaking of current m:Manager beta version, this just in from mManager maker tiago, by email:



jamelikat

Any image size. The only restriction by now is you can only load JPEG images. I'm working on adding more formats (of course if m:robe will accept them).
There is a m:robe restriction though... if the picture is different than 640x480, it won't resize, nor center on screen. They could have done it differently, let's say firmware stretching/resizing... but... it's is not. Anyway, I'll add a tweak on this for the next release.



I have made some changes to the coding to fix this. I have sent a release to jamelikat for testing and if all goes well, I'll be releasing a new version next week or so with this bug fixed and the final solution for smaller/portrait pictures.



Geez!! That's great!! Thank you
I hope soon I'll be there again with the full version out!

All the best!
Tiago