Looking Forward to Bibble 5.2 - Part 2

Hi Guys,

Continuing from my earlier post, here's another set of features and updates we're working on for Bibble 5.2.

Copy Sets

Copy Sets Preferences Tab

Copy Sets can be a huge time-saver once you've figured out how to use them. The idea is to assign a hotkey, perhaps something like CTRL+1, to a group of settings, perhaps like Keywords, Ratings, Labels, and Tags. Then each time you press CTRL+1, the keywords, ratings, etc from the selected image will be copied to the clipboard. CTRL+V then pastes that to all selected images. In other words, you pre-select the stuff you want to copy frequently using a interface like the Selective Copy window, and save that to hotkeys. You can have lots of these, too, and that's where real workflow automation comes in by creating various Copy Sets for things like color correction, tonal control and other image adjustments, then other Copy Sets for various metadata options like copyright and photographer's contact info, or GPS info.


Presets & Default Settings
We've also added a lot of smarts to the handling of and display of Presets and Custom Defaults. First of these is that you can now quickly see the settings contained by a specific Preset or Custom Defaults - this is both great as a simple reminder of how you created the Preset in the first place, and as a confirmation or error-checking step if applying a Preset doesn't give you the visible feedback you expected.

There's also a new Preferences Panel that lists all the custom default settings you have created - which is also a great tool to jog your memory about how you have set things up. I have custom defaults for a couple models of cameras, and I've adjusted the default settings for JPEG files too - and now I can see those files, and examine their settings quickly. That really makes the general use and management of custom default settings much easier.


There's also a lot of smaller stuff aimed at improving usability and making the overall process of working with Bibble 5 easier and more fun. These include things like:

• Auto-select newly added versions
When you create a new version of an image, we're going to automatically select that version for you. If you create many new versions at once by selecting several images and pressing 'Insert' - we'll select ALL the new images. Handy dandy.
• Auto-select the Master Version when deleting versions
Likewise, when deleting a version, we'll auto-select the Master Version that the version you deleted was created from.
• Press the spacebar to temporarily switch to the pan cursor
Bibble 4 did this, and lots of folks missed this in Bibble 5 - so it's back. Press the spacebar at any time (like when creating regions or cropping) and you'll quickly hide the region outlines and can pan around your image. The quick hiding of the region outlines is great, because that allows you to judge where the edges are for your regions as well as the feathering.
• Hotkey to temporarily unlock Multi-View panning
I leave the multi-view 'lock zoom' option turned on. That way, when looking at images from a burst or other similar images, I can zoom in on one image, and all others zoom there as well. But if I was hand-holding, there is probably a little difference in the framing of the various images, so pressing CTRL+ALT when panning one image, I can temporarily unlock the panning of that one image, so the others are not affected.
• Hotkey to temporarily maintain pan/zoom when switching images
We've had a preference for this for a while, but having a hotkey for this makes a lot of sense, too. With this, you can hold down a key (I use 'Z') when switching images, and the next image will be zoomed and panned to the same spot as the previous image. This is great when comparing to similar shots full-screen.
• Remember the 'reset job sequence' checkbox setting on batch output
Again, it seems like a small thing, but can save a lot of clicks over time. By checking both 'Ask each time for jobname' on a batch's settings page, and checking the 'reset job sequence' box that appears on the window that asks for a jobname - I can get a batch that numbers files sequentially for each set I send to batch, but restarts that numbering sequence for each subsequent set of images.
• Preference to display only full-quality previews when editing
Normally, Bibble will show you a lower resolution preview in near-real time as you make image adjustments. On fast machines, that's great, but on my netbook, it can cause a little slowdown that I'd rather not see. So, enable this preference and you'll get nothing but the best preview for the image size you are viewing.
• Add "Send to batch" to the thumbnail context menu
Simple one, and it makes a lot of sense for folks that are right-click fans
• Auto-Select the last selected image when Bibble restarts
This is very cool because it allows you to pick up right where you left off, not only the same folder of images, but the same image. Makes culling and rating huge folders of images easier to do over several Bibble runs instead of just one.
• When filtering is on - tell folks about it
Again, this probably should have been there from the start. When you enable thumbnail filtering with the filter tool open, it's obvious what you are filtering for and that you are filtering at all. As soon as you close the filter window, though, you lose that information. No longer!
• Auto-open and Auto-Switching tabs
Select a group of versions and drag them to the collapsed left tab group - and the tabs open up. Hover over the 'Output' tab and it becomes selected, allowing you to drop those versions on the output batch you want.
• Importing Metadata from Bibble 4 "bib" files
Bibble 4 wrote settings in a proprietary (but human readable) "bib" file format, and now Bibble 5 can read metadata like IPTC, keywords, and ratings from those files.
• Oodles of Squished Bugs
Many, many bugs have been fixed too; a group of bugs relating to renaming versions, another group related to Copy Output batches (like the "Download" batch), lots of user interface bugs and improvements, a BIG improvement to color and white balance for certain Pentax files, fixes for some repeatable crashes (both in our code and in 3rd party technology we use), and LOTS more.

There's even more in store for Bibble 5.2, so stay tuned for additional info...