KPhotoAlbum FAQ

Can I organize my movies as well? Are thumbnails generated? Is the movie playable from within the application?

Yes, you should be able to organize and view the videos within the application if you are using a recent release. Videos will be played from within the application.

How can I show the comments in a tooltip when I go over a picture?

Hit Ctrl + T. The tooltip contains a bigger preview too.

How do I delete a keyword?

Edit an image, select the keyword, then right-click and select delete in the menu.

Can I organize my images in multiple directories?

As long as all your image directories have a common root, then that is fine. In other words, you are allowed to have a directory tree with your images. At the moment KPhotoAlbum does not have full support for multiple image roots. However, you can use a command line switch -c to instruct what image

root you want to use. E.g.

kphotoalbum -c Pictures/index.xml

The default image root is stored on configuration file under home directory ~/.config/kphotoalbumrc. The default image root is

stated in this file e.g. imageDBFile=/home/<user>/Pictures/index.xml.

Can I move my images around on disk?

Yes, since version 1.1 KimDaBa/KPhotoAlbum stores check sums for each image. Before moving images around, you might want to invoke Maintenance -> Recalculate Checksum - this should, however, only be needed if you have modified your images (removed red eyes for example) (contributed by: Jesper Pedersen)

When I select multiple images, I can not go back and forth in the list of images with the PageUp and PageDown keys, I just see the first picture. How can I use PgUp and PgDn to move between pictures?

You should not press Enter in the thumbnails view to view multiple images; instead, use Images -> View or Ctrl + I. Also, you need to select all the images you want to view before viewing images.

You can reassign the Enter key to do the same thing as Ctrl + I in Settings -> Configure shortcuts. Because Enter is already used for Toggle full screen, you should choose a new key for entering fullscreen mode. For example, you can configure the F key to toggle fullscreen mode (so it behaves like mplayer). Just remember to type Ctrl + A before Enter if you want to scroll through ALL pictures.

How can I copy pictures into another directory?

Just select the pictures you are interested in, and drag and drop them into Konqueror or Dolphin.

Is there a feature to export filenames for a list of images?

Just select the pictures you are interested in, and drag and drop the images into your terminal window (for example, Konsole or gnome-terminal).

You can also use the Edit -> Copy menu item

Remember that some editors do not support drag and drop properly

What should I put in the Keywords field ?

Keywords are a way to tag images with relevant words, so you can search for them later. It is up to you what keywords should be applied to your pictures. Here are some tips to help you decide what keywords to add to your pictures:

• Don´t be too specific. A keyword that is too specialized will only be used on a small number of pictures, is seldom useful, and will require a bit of extra time to apply to some images. Generalized keywords are more useful than they might seem at first, because if you have many images with the same keyword, you can further restrict the search (e.g. : search for both keywords "Funny" & "Jesper"). It´s more likely that you will remember to set your keywords (and want to do it) if there are not too many, and they are generally high-level and memorable (examples : Funny, Family, Comes From Internet, Beautiful landscape, ...)

• Ask yourself what you intend to do with your pictures, and set keywords in this spirit. For example "wallpaper" if you like to change your wallpaper often, or "Gimp"; if you think you will have to retouch this picture someday. Another example : put "+++" on pictures you find really beautiful. This way, when a friend comes, you can show an impressive slideshow with only those pictures and you will want. To put pictures from your trip in the USA on your website (but not all the 1000 you have!), just search "+++" & "USA" and that´s it!

How do I sort images by filename or folder instead of by date?

The current version of KPhotoAlbum doesn't have this functionality. However, you can search for images by filename or folder name.

When I am tagging multiple images at once, I only want to change one or two tags, and not have all the checkboxes apply to all the images.

The check boxes in KPhotoAlbum 3 are tri-state, so that you can unmark a keyword for all images, leave a keyword unchanged for others, or mark all images with a keyword. Some KDE themes don't show the middle state as being different from the checked state, so you may need to choose a different theme.

I want to include a folder full of images, without copying them into the KPhotoalbum directory tree.

While future versions of KPhotoAlbum will allow more than one root folder to be added, you might need this ability right now -- and you might not want to copy 10,000 images to the KPhotoAlbum folder. If you're comfortable with the command line, use the first example. If you like Konqueror, use the second.

• On the command line, change to the KPhotoAlbum image root folder. Type

ln -s TARGET_FOLDER ./

TARGET FOLDER is where you substitute the path of the folder you want to include. This will create a link to that folder without copying the files

• In Konqueror, open a window in the KPhotoAlbum image root folder and another above the folder you want to include. Hold down Ctrl + Shift, and drag the folder you want into a BLANK area in the KPhotoAlbum root folder (you don't want to drop the link into a new folder). If you don't hold down Ctrl + Shift, you will get a menu that lets you choose to copy, move or link the folder. Choose link here.

I want to remove from Kphotoalbum database the removed images

In case you remove any of the images present in the KPhotoAlbum database from an external program you will see an icon in KPhotoAlbum until you remove the picture from the database.

The easiest way to remove those photos is going to Maintenance -> Display videos and images not on disk, then you will see all the photos that can't be found in the location KPhotoAlbum expects them. You can then remove those from the database.