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Media Manager


After a very long development and test phase, the first version of the Zoonar Media Manager is here at last! We would have loved to have offered more functionality, but uploading with the web form is too awkward for many photographers and we were getting more and more enquiries about Media Manager. That´s why we have decided to make a basic version available with the most important features; namely, the facility of loading whole picture directories on Zoonar, and a function for editing the relevant IPTC tags and the keywords.



1. System Requirements

In order to support as many platforms as possible, Zoonar Media Manager was written in Java. So, you must first install a current version of Java Runtime on your computer. We tested the Java 2 Standard Edition Version 5.0. The most current edition of the J2SE is the version 5.0 Update 11 (1.5.0_11). In our tests, Media Manager ran under Windows XP/2000, Mac OS X 10.4 and Red Hat Linux.

2. Installation

Zoonar Media Manager is installed with the aid of Java Web Start. All you have to do is click on the relevant link on our download page and the installation is executed via the Internet. When you carry out the setup for the first time, you will be asked to accept a certificate. This is necessary so the Media Manager can access the picture files on your computer. If you run Media Manager later, and in the meantime new updates of the software have become available, these new updates will be automatically installed on your computer when you run Media Manager. So you needn´t be surprised if the Media Manager suddenly offers new functions.

3. Functions Overview

The Media Manager interface is divided into two sections. On the left is a list of all the directories that are designated to uploading; on the right are displayed the JPEG files of the directory that is currently selected.



3.1 File Menu

With the aid of the commands in the File menu, you first put all the directories together which you wish to load onto Zoonar. Using the command Add Directory, you can add a directory including all the sub-directories and the pictures contained in them to your selection. In the following example, a directory with three sub-directories has been selected.



To delete a directory, you must click the directory in question in the left-hand hierarchy view and after that, select the option Delete Directory from the File menu. In the same way as with the two commands described above, you can select and remove single JPEG files using Add File and Delete File. Alternatively, you can delete a file by clicking on the right-hand mouse button on the relevant file name. A pop-up menu appears that also contains an option to delete the selected file.



Please make sure that when you delete directories or files you only remove them from the Upload List in the Media Manager. The files remain available on the respective data medium.

3.2 Edit Menu

The commands in the Edit menu are only activated when you have selected a directory in which the JPEG files are also saved. With the aid of the menu option IPTC... you call up a dialogue in which you can edit what is known as the IPTC tag. At the moment, you can only edit the information relevant for Zoonar, i.e. title, author - this is later displayed in the area Copyright - and description. The information displayed in the IPTC dialogue refer to the picture currently marked, in this case, the file woman_on_escalator.jpg. You can also activate the IPTC dialogue, with a double click on the respective picture name using the left-hand mouse button.



If the dialogue for editing the picture information is open, you can flick from the IPTC tag to the keywords and back again any time you want using the control tab. You can also edit the keywords by selecting the option Keywords... in the Edit menu. Alternatively, you can also call up the edit function of the IPTC tag and the keywords from the pop-up menu. See Section 3.1.



We have tried to make it as easy as possible to edit the keywords. All keywords are displayed in a list structure and when you open the dialogue, a new empty line is selected at the end of the list. You can enter new keywords straight away, without having to click with the mouse in the field beforehand. After you have entered the keyword, simply press the button ENTER or RETURN. A new line is added automatically and the cursor jumps to this line.

To delete a whole line, simply press the button DELETE. Important: the line must not be in Edit mode. If the line only has a frame around it or has a blue background, it is not in Edit mode. If the cursor is flashing in the line, you are in the process of editing that particular keyword. In Edit mode you can only delete the characters to the right of the cursor using the button DELETE.

If you are currently in the line before last - in the above example, the line with the text "moving stairs" - change to Edit mode by pressing a key and delete the whole text, the line will also be deleted when you move the cursor up. Lines that are in the middle of the list and whose text is deleted are not cleaned at the moment. However, these lines are not saved as empty keywords.

To make it easy to add keywords to a picture, you can copy keywords to the clipboard and take them from there in other pictures. The relevant commands are executed via a popup menu that is activated by clicking with the right-hand mouse button.



The command Copy All allows you to save all the keywords to the clipboard. Copy Line will only save the currently selected keyword to the clipboard. The command Insert hangs the keywords from the clipboard to the end of the keyword list that has already been started.

3.3 Transfer Menu

This menu currently offers just one menu option. Using Transfer All, you can load onto Zoonar the pictures from all selected directories. You will be prompted to log in before you transfer for the first time.



Enter your user name and password that you used to register with Zoonar. Next, the login procedure is executed and your status is checked. The client and the Zoonar servers communicate via a encrypted SSL connection. If you are not registered as a photographer, have reached your upload limit or have been blocked, you will receive a message telling you this. Otherwise, a dialogue will appear in which the upload status of the file currently being transferred will be displayed.



After the file has been transferred, it is removed from the Upload list of the Media Manager and it also disappears from the files display. As soon as all the files in a directory have been transferred, the whole directory is removed from the file hierarchy view. If during the transfer you encounter a recurring network fault, you can load the remaining files by means of calling up Transfer all again.

In the case of network faults, the Media Manager tries to establish a new connection within the next 30 minutes in order to continue uploading. It is only if it fails to establish a connection in this time that it abandons the upload. You can upload manually later.

4. Log Information and Faults

For every day on which pictures are transferred, the Media Manager writes a log file with information about the upload procedure. Look in your personal user folder - you will find this under Windows, for example, in Documents and Settings - for the directory Zoonar. In this directory is a sub-directory called MediaManager, that in turn contains the folder log. In this directory you will find text files with the upload information. Taking the above example, the last file contains the following entries:

Sun Feb 11 10:47:27 CET 2007: Started image transfer.
Sun Feb 11 10:47:28 CET 2007: Image C:/Temp/image/pictures_2007/people/woman_on_escalator.jpg is too small.
Sun Feb 11 10:47:28 CET 2007: Image C:/Temp/image/pictures_2007/people/children's birthday.jpg is too small.
Sun Feb 11 10:47:28 CET 2007: Image C:/Temp/image/pictures_2007/people/man_with_hat.jpg is too small.
Sun Feb 11 10:47:30 CET 2007: Transfer picture C:/Temp/image/pictures_2007/StockST_6670.jpg.
Sun Feb 11 10:47:52 CET 2007: Transfer abandoned.

Unfortunately, the first three pictures have less than the required 8 mega pixels and will therefore not be uploaded at all. The fourth picture has the required size and the upload procedure is initiated. However, the upload was stopped by the user.

If you encounter problems with uploading your pictures, first check the respective log file. If you cannot solve the problem, send us an e-mail using the contact form with precise details of the problem and the entries from the log file.

5. Versions History


6. Known Problems


7. Outlook

We have loads of ideas for Zoonar Media Manager. Unfortunately, due to limited development resources, we can only expand the functionality in small steps. For the next few versions, however, we plan to implement the following points: We are always open to criticism and suggestions. Please send in your suggestions using the contact form. We will try to prioritise rollout of the functionality for which we receive the most requests.