RIOT plugin for Irfan View

[luciansabo]

Frank, thank you for your feedback.
First of all I want to say I'm a little dissappointed by the lack of feedback here.
I wish to announce that RIOT is looking for official beta testers.
These beta testers will have access to unofficial releases, but they must share their impressions with me. Those interested please contact me at luciansabo at gmail.com. The program needs also a help file created by someone with fully understanding of the program's functions. If someone wants to offer his help in this area please contact me.

I can't switch OFF/ON the options

Currently when opening through IrfanView only the DIB is sent, no metadata is available. So is normal to see disabled metadata checkboxex. On the other hand, when opening with RIOT the known metadata models are enabled. Disabled items show that no such metadata exists.

Also I don't understand the necessity of the picture at the right side in 'Save as' dialog!

This is a preview of the selected file, like in the open dialog. If one should decide to overwrite a file he can see it's preview.
This is not the preview of the resulting optimized image.

- 'transparent mode' for the whole picture/not only for one color (with the possibility to change transparency/opacity per percent!)

In version 0.3 or even further, I plan to insert a method for defining transparent regions with variable transparency using a flood-fill/eyedropper with similarity options. This is a must-have for PNG. I have other interesting plans for transparency also.

- watermark function, using 'transparent mode' and a selectable overlay picture

Sure, but when the program will grow into something some sophisticated.

- multilanguage support

If there are many user requests, like for EXIF.

[Skippybox]

Lack of Change=Lack of Feedback

First of all I want to say I'm a little dissappointed by the lack of feedback here.

The problem may be that 0.2 is simply not radically different on the surface. Users are probably waiting for an amazing 0.3 to offer things like transparency, fullscreen preview, and an optimized-original swap to compare in-place.

It is also hard to say how many even want to use a beta release or update their RIOT plugin. Surprisingly, many users don't even want or know what plugins are.

[luciansabo]

Meanwhile, 0.2.0 was officially lauched.
0.2.0 is not meant to be spectacular, but provide a transition to something more advanced.
The first step was taking everything to unicode. Some fixes were made like the ability to retain EXIF metadata and optimization of the lite version.
The next versions in branch 0.2 will introduce a series of interface modifications needed to accomodate all future plans.
Version 0.3 will be more interesting for you.

It is also hard to say how many even want to use a beta release or update their RIOT plugin

I have been addressing to the subscribers and visitors of this thread called "RIOT plugin for Irfan View". I assumed they were interested in testing a new version and share their experience. Unfortunatelly this is not the feedback I was hoping for, but nobody is forced to help .

[Skippybox]

Keep up the good work Lucian

The next versions in branch 0.2 will introduce a series of interface modifications needed to accomodate all future plans.
Version 0.3 will be more interesting for you.

Sounds spectacular. Can't wait!

optimization of the lite version

With no lite version in beta, that may have deterred users.

I have been addressing to the subscribers and visitors of this thread called "RIOT plugin for Irfan View". I assumed they were interested in testing a new version and share their experience. Unfortunatelly this is not the feedback I was hoping for, but nobody is forced to help.

You're right though, I would have thought more users would have come forward with feedback. No, nobody should be forced, but it would be nice if they did. Remember, this is an advanced tool, so users are probably expecting something advanced.

I also forgot to mention there is another reason sometimes for no feedback. It means everything is working well and that certainly is a good thing.

[Sam_Zen]

Yep. I consider myself as a beta-tester too, because I keep up with the latest version.
Maybe a lack of feedback, but if all is functioning well, why should I place any comment ?

Having a request for some improvement though :
When Riot is opened, keeping the same slider resolution of a JPG, as set when the latest conversion.

[luciansabo]

No news is not good news in computing.
Thank you all for testing. I know you are doing this in your spare time, like I am deveping this in my spare time. But if you want to help, please write even if there is nothing wrong when asked to test.

Save last settings means saving all values from sliders, radio boxes, etc
This will be done in next 0.2 versions.

[Skippybox]

...but if all is functioning well, why should I place any comment ?

It seems my observation proves true.

Could RIOT have scrollbars for the image views? It would make panning a larger image easier.

[luciansabo]

I tried working with scrollbars, but this way you can't drag the image outside the scrollarea, thus you can't zoom to any point of interest (e.g.: a corner).

[Skippybox]

Hmm. You'd think there would be a way. Oh well, no biggie. Sounds beneficial the way it is.

[mastodon]

First: Thanks for this great software, it is very handy.

Have tried RIOT 0.2 in single and batch mode. Win XP SP3, IV 4.2
In batch mode I resized the pictures and set file size to 300, but 3 of the 6 pictures got size above 300. 321, 326 and 368.
Did I something wrong?

[luciansabo]

I don't know.
All I can suggest is: try directly from RIOT. If this happens again within RIOT you should send me your image and the desired size to replicate the problem.
I did not received any reports about "compress to size" making larger files and I did not noticed any problems.

PS: Are you sure you are saving with RIOT?

[mastodon]

I don't know.
PS: Are you sure you are saving with RIOT?

I hope so. I do it with Irfanview batch mode. There is an option to use RIOT plugin. I'll check it.

[Skippybox]

Is it possible that your images simply cannot be compressed down to 300 because they have reached the limit of compression?

Generally, file size does go above and below the target, but not too extremely. What is the tolerance anyhow Lucian?

I have noticed another odd behavior. When I use RIOT in the Save As dialog without progressive checked, I get the same file size as when I use RIOT (Save for Web) with progressive checked. Thus, it appears that RIOT is using progressive in the Save As dialog even though I don't want it to. However, when I use RIOT and select disable color subsampling and don't check progressive in the Save As dialog, I get the same file size as RIOT (Save for Web) without progressive checked. Thus, this combination works correctly. What is going on? Why is progressive invisibly activated when color subsampling is also activated in the Save As dialog?

RIOT DLL 0.1.11

[luciansabo]

I can tell you the flag use from the exported function "RIOT_SaveToFile" was not tested enough.
I confirm it defaults to progressive even if not checked in the save dialog and that's not right.
The differences in file size come from the improper use of these flags: progressive, color subsampling. I will look into this.

This problem is only in the dll version. There is no problem in using Compress to size from RIOT or saving from RIOT with the flags.

[Skippybox]

I tried the compress to size function in Save for Web and noticed that it does use the input as a max value. However, this is not what happens when you compress to size using Save As. It seems sometimes the file size doesn't go over the limit, but many times it does. By checking what happens in Save for Web, it looks like Save As overshoots the limit by going probably 1% higher in quality. There strangly is a few byte difference in file size using Save for Web with this 1% higher quality and Save As.

I don't think the max should be exceeded, do you?