Beta Release Notes
The newest version is PhotoLinker 2.5b7. This is compatible on 64-bit machines with Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion).
Important Note
This is a beta version of PhotoLinker and it has not been extensively tested. In fact, there are so many changes throughout the code, that anything might be broken. This means two things:
- Please send me bug reports!
- Test this only on backup photos. Don't use a beta version on your only copy of your photos.
Changes in 2.5b8
- Release date: 2012-02-19
Changes:
- Updated and added new documentation for reverse geocoding, new geotagging methods, location created, location shown and image direction.
- Added new documentation and links to the plugin architecture that is now supported.
- Fixed numerous bugs in the slide show.
- Fixed a crash while reverse geocoding.
- Fixed a crash while geotagging.
- Massively speedup the loading of new photos.
- The loading photo status now updates properly.
- Fixed a bug that caused altitude to not be read from NMEA files in some conditions.
Changes in 2.5b7
- Release date: 2012-02-09
Changes:
- Fixed massive slowdown for 10.6 users.
- Fixed an error that causes PhotoLinker not to launch for some new users!
- Fixed intermittent geotagging crash.
- Fixed thumbnail viewer alignment in 10.7.
- Updated to ExifTool 8.76
- Took another stab at fixing the highly intermittent bug that crashes the photo browser.
Changes in 2.5b6
- Release date: 2011-12-23
Changes:
- Fixed a crash that occurs while geotagging.
- Geotagging linker points now shrink using the correct animation.
- iPhoto syncing badge shows up in the toolbar correctly again.
- Italian localization should be back and fully functional.
- The date time original tag should now correctly pull from the date time digitized tag, as per MWG recommedations.
- May have fixed a highly intermittent (but annoyingly persistent) bug that crashes the photo browser.
Changes in 2.5b5
- Release date: 2011-12-19
Changes:
- Fixed a crash that prevented the Italian localized version of PhotoLinker from opening.
- Fixed a crash that occurs when reverse geocoding.
- Fixed a crash that occurs when changing the time zone.
- Fixed a crash that occurs after date/time shifting, then saving.
- Fixed a bug that causes the reverse geocoding preferences not to be respected.
- Added a contextual menu and a new button to access the exporters.
There are no other known crashers or bugs.
Changes in 2.5b4
- Release date: 2011-12-12
This update includes significant changes and I need your help finding bugs. The entire codebase has been refactored in order modernize the code and make PhotoLinker more reliable. Most notably, PhotoLinker's memory management has transitioned to automatic reference counting (ARC) from garbage collection (GC). This represents a huge amount of work and, if all goes smoothly, you should notice no changes other than fewer random crashes. However, because the so much of the underlying code has changed, there may be some new bugs introduced in this version. Please send me bug reports and crash reports.
Also note that the code is now 64-bit only. This means that there are some machines that are capable of running 10.6, but are not capable of running PhotoLinker.
Changes in 2.5b3
- Release date: 2011-09-01
Recent Imports was no longer working in the Track and Waypoint Browser -- so I fixed that and also fixed some related crashes.
Changes in 2.5b2
- Release date: 2011-08-29
Changes:
- Added a magnetic declination calculator to compensate for photos that use magnetic north instead of true north for their image direction.
- Added the "iiq" extension which should allow PhaseOne IIQ to be read from and written to by PhotoLinker.
- Fixed GPS downloading issues that were introduced in the beta version.
Notes:
The beta release fo Mac OS X 10.7 has, for the most part, gone very well. I have received very few bug reports---none of which are showstoppers. However, I continue to receive a very large number of crash reports!
Crash reports drive me absolutely crazy---I consider it entirely unacceptable to have a program crash and the program should be fixed immediately. Unfortunately, when I dig through these crash reports, every one of them appears beyond my control---in fact, most (all?) appear related to garbage collection. On the one hand, I'm pleased that I eliminated all the crashers in PhotoLinker that I'm responsible for. On the other hand, it's frustrating to see all these crashes. HOWEVER, Apple has introduced Automatic Reference Counting, ARC, in Mac OS X 10.7 that does not suffer from the random crashing issues that garbage collection does. It is going to take a lot of work, but the next major 'feature' in PhotoLinker will be a codebase converted to ARC. The hope is that this will eliminate the crashers and make PhotoLinker more stable.
Changes in 2.5b1
- Release date: 2011-07-19
Major Features:
- Got direction?
- PhotoLinker now lets you add image direction to your photos and displays the direction on the map! To try it out, just select a photo, then right-click on the map.
- You can now also add the latitude and longitude shown (as opposed to created). This lets you distinguish between the where you took the photo, and where the subject of the photo is. Again, right-click on the map to try this out.
- Improved manual geotagging: drag the photo, drop it on the map, and boom!, you've geotagged your photo.
- Exporters/Plugins (look under the new menu, for now)
- Slide show. Present your photos along with a map.
- Metadata. Export photo metadata in a number of different formats.
- Images. Export resized images that contain all of the correctly formatted metadata.
- The plugin protocol for the exporters will be released as soon as time allows. The metadata exporter and the simple file exporter will also be released as open source. Please let me know if you're interested now.
- 64-bit. For a photo application, which hogs significant resources, this could actually be a really big deal and prevent a number of crashes.
Minor Features:
- Added improved resolution for Bing Maps.
- Zoom the map by clicking on the mountains next to the slider. This zooms in even increments to the optimal resolution of the map tiles.
- Pressing spacebar now activates Quicklook for photos in the photo browser.
- Bumped ExifTool to version 8.60.
- Improved the preferences for geotagging and reverse geocoding.
- New menu options (main and contextual) to support the image direction and location shown tags.
Mac OS X Compatibility
Support for Mac OS X 10.5 had to be dropped in this release due to incompatibility between the perl installations on 10.5 and 10.7. There were a couple of possible (but unsatisfactory) workarounds, but in the end, dropping 10.5 will be for the best. The current 2.2.9 release is very stable and should serve 10.5 users well.