Unique and Productive or Just More Eye-Candy?

4ndys writes "A guy who goes by the name MacSlow is currently working on a project he calls LowFat. This is a photomanager with a twist. Rather than just viewing you pictures one at a time, you spread the pictures out over your desktop and can manage them in a much more natural way. He is hoping to release this on multiple platforms inc. Linux, Mac and Windows."

Comments

So, basically, its Picasa?

[patio11]

I hate to discourage folks from trying to be innovative, but competing head to head with a company backed by Gooooooooooooogle when they're releasing their product free isn't likely to be very successful. And Picasa is actually feature-complete...

Re:So, basically, its Picasa?

[winkydink]

Feature complete compared to what?

Did you even watch the demo? Because I don't recall Picasa allowing me to organize my pics in the manner shown in the demo. Also, I don't recall this guy saying that in order to use his stuff, I'll have to allow him to index all of my pics for some vaguely defined reason.

Re:So, basically, its Picasa?

[Coryoth]

From what was actually demoed he's aiming at something more interesting than a simple photo sorting application. Photo-sorting is the initial demonstration, but it's really all about the interface and ability to manipulate and sort objects with an easy to use interface in a very visual way. For instance, he talks about building a next generation file management tool out of it, which certainly could make a lot of sense. Based on what was demonstrated it certainly looks like it could provide very interesting and intuitive new file handling abilities.

The downside is what you don't get to see in the demonstration: how the interface actually works. You can see photos being grouped, changing layout schemes, being zoomed and rotated etc. which is great, but the real question of exactly what the interface to all those things is: how do you use keyboard and mouse to tell the computer to perform all those actions? How do you zoom instead of dragging the photo? How do you manipulate a group instead of an individual item from the group (and vice versa)? If it's an exclusive modal system switched by keyboard commands then it's clunky, but if it's based on modifier keys and buttons then, given the rnge of actions demonstrated, it may become equally clunky.

None the less it looks like an interesting idea, and if the demo actually shows fully implemented work (as opposed to being rendered and edited together) then it is indeed a promising project.

Jedidiah.

Re:A little fishy to me

[SirSlud]

Speaking as a games programmer, thats a lot of work for a quick buck.

I really dislike how negative people are about this kind of thing. Its certainly not a quick buck. All that work, with no garauntee of any donations. If you want to talk about making a quick buck, you're probably better served talking to management of the company he's employed at.