When a photographer uses eog -- some observations

Dear developers

 From a recent photo weekend workshop I needed to browse, select, delete 
and sort >2000 photos. I thought it might be interesting to developers 
to learn about my experiences when doing this with eog 2.22.2 (ubuntu 
Hardy Heron).

First of all, it is possible to handle large amounts of photos with eog. 
:-)

But some tasks could be more efficient and some tasks are not (yet) 
possible. My observations are strictly from an end-user point of view as 
I am a hardcore user and not a developer. Sorry, the email got so long 
and thanks for bearing with me. :-)


1) The ever-recurring task is to look at each photo (in fullscreen, 
sometimes 1:1 view) in a folder and decide about deleting it or moving 
it to another folder. Currently, eog provides only the deleting option 
with an irritating confirmation question:
- A preference tick box to suppress the confirmation question after 
deletion would save a click with each deletion. That is many clicks. ;-)
- Two ideas for implementing a sorting possibility: Either (a) let 
photos be marked (with 'M') and when user leaves F11 mode, s/he can move 
all marked photos to a specified folder. Or, (b) allow drag&drop from 
the collection pane to move a photo into another folder.
(Now, I delete the photos and get them out of the trash can afterwards 
and put them into separate folder. It is an ugly workaround to be able 
to stay in F11 mode all the time and save 3x as many clicks...)

2) Going to next/prev image. I read that the mouse wheel for going 
next/prev was removed, but I do not know why and whether it is possible 
to get it back. It would be very helpful.

Another elegant and visually appealing way could be: When the mouse 
touches the right or left border of the screen (in F11 mode), the 
next/prev photo is shown.

3) In F11 mode, I can zoom in/out of a photo or see it in 1:1 or 
windows-fit size. Unfortunately, this setting is not remembered when I 
go the next/prev photo. So, I have to zoom again... Maybe, make it a 
preference tickbox to remember zoom setting or not.

4) The image collection pane and EXIF information are essential features 
for this work and I am glad eog provides them. But the properties/EXIF 
window takes too muich screen space which I need for the image. And it 
is overloaded/confusing. Could something similar to the Ctrl-i feature 
from gthumbs be implemented that shows the image/EXIF information in a 
small box -while- in F11 mode? I put the properties button in the icon 
bar but it does not show during F11. This way, I see no way to see EXIF 
data during F11 mode...?

5) As to the EXIF information itself: There is no need to write down all 
the words "aperture value", "exposure time", etc. because the values 
(f/3.2 or 1/125) speak for themselves.

Here is a use case proposal to think about: When the user presses "i" in 
F11 mode, a small semi-transparent box with two lines of text should 
appear (and stay with subsequent photos) showing image information. In 
preferences, the user can select how much information should be shown: 1 
or 2 lines. Pressing "i" again switches off the info box.

Example:

(1st line)
P416724.jpg - (13/437) - 2736x3648 pixels - 3.2MB
(2nd line, optional)
f/5.6 - 1/250s - 85mm - ISO 100 - 05.07.2008 17:13

BTW: The value currently given as "Focal length" is not what 
photographers expect to see. They need the value in [mm] given under 
Details|Camera|FocalLenghtIn35mmFilm.

6) Judging photos has a lot to do with aestethics. It would be helpful 
if eog would support that by being in the background as much as possible.
Good start: In F11 mode, the background around the photo is black. But 
the image collection bar is system grey as is the top icon bar.
- Could the pane have black background as well around the thumbnails, so 
that only the thumbnails are visible?
- Could a small/middle/big sizing of thumbnails made in the preferences?

7) Often, adjacent photos need to be compared. Could a 2-up or even 4-up 
view in F11 mode be implemented that show 2 simultanesouly next to each 
other or even 4 in the four quadrants of the screen? (Next/prev would 
then mean moving 2 or 4 photos at once.)

8) Having a GUI preference to choose where the collection pane should be 
shown (bottom top left right) would be helpful. For example, sometimes 
the pane makes sense to be at the bottom, but sometimes more efficient 
use of the screen space for the photo makes sense and then the pane 
should be vertical on one side.

9) The last two are not crucial but may win over many people who work 
visually:

9a) Could we have a smoother scrolling in the image collection pane? 
Perhaps it could be done with the mouse hovering over the pane? Moving 
far to the right scrolls fast forward, more to the middle scrolls 
slower. (think iPod scrolling...)

9b) slideshow. To have it look professional (e.g., when showing photos 
to a larger audience with music in the background, etc.) it would be 
nice to have fading between the photos, in 3 variants: Fade via black, 
fade via white, fade directly into next photo.

Alright, I thank you for reading all this and I hope this feedback is 
useful to you. I would be glad to help with further input/feedback/spec 
if needed or if you have questions to what I wrote...

Thanks & best regards,
Marcus