User guide up again

The Wiki/User guide is up again. New link: http://paddy.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Paddy_user_guide

Board is back up but buggy and different link

I was able to recover the boards. They are now at http://paddy.sourceforge.net/forum/index.php

There still seem to be some bugs. I might have to migrate to a different host from sourceforge

Sourceforge help

Sourceforge discontinued both the Forum application and the media Wiki I used for documentation. Apparently, the material is still somewhere in a backup, but accessing it requires all kinds of stuff that I don't understand (e.g., https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/community-docs/Migrating%20MediaWiki%20from%20Hosted%20Apps/). Can anybody help with this?

Thanks

What's new

Ok, it's cold outside, and despite travel every week across the continent or the Atlantic, we have life back under control. Moved in new house, kids are in a new school and therapy rythm - time to pick it up again with Paddy!

1. If you are interested in helping with programming, the code is now hosted and you can run from the source. See here: https://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/paddy/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=685
2. I found one of the major hikups in the startup. If Paddy for you is constantly a few sliders of, try (1) start Paddy in suspended mode, (2) Open and close the Crop tool, (3) Start Paddy. I know this is dumb, but it seems to be a workaround until we find a solution
3. Working on that solution and a few other things.
4. Due to the long break, I might have to lock some topics and get a good bug reporting going again. I apologize - lots of discussion, but too much to go back, and 80% boild down to the issue under (2)

When LR 5.3 is Prime, I will push out the next update

I will need to rethink this

LR 5.x continues to be a headache. Just when I thought I solved it all, there are issues when users have subpanels hidden in the develop module. This is not that big a deal - we could just say that Paddy requires all subpanels to be open - but this whole thing just pains me.

I have an idea on how to rework Paddy's core. It will be a parallel project, but once done, Paddy  should be much more flexible and faster to adapt to new LR versions. It's a lot of legwork, not that much programming. Basically, I need to map LR's user interface to be able to say "Paddy slider #100 is the 5th slider in the Panel called "details", then get the windows handle for that slider. This is just a lot of legwork (some less obvious than it appears from the panels, especially for the filters), plus some adjustment for the HSL panel, but I have reached the point where I suspect I should have done that a long time ago. It would have saved me a lot of time now.

Stay tuned, we are nowhere near the end.

On a personal note

I know I am behind on everything.

Just a a way to explain, in the past 3 months

• We moved from a house to a rental apartment
• Moved last week from the apartment to a larger house
• Discovered that the just bought house needs some fixes in the cost range of a medium sized car (This being the U.S., as a German Engineer, don't get me started on rotten wood)
• Negotiated with contractors
• Had to work for a living
• And confirmed than the middle son has a learning disability that needs a lot of attention

So I have to admit, Paddy is the least of my priorities right now. The whole 5.0/5.2 situation is not pleasant for Paddy. I am sorry if you rely on Paddy for your professional work and had to deal with frustrating issues. I will make it work for all of us, just give me some time

Paddy 5.2 Beta 2

Find it here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/paddy/files/01%20Latest%20Version/

I know there are bugs, but the main things should work. This will also install the fast update channel for Paddy 5.2, so you will be informed of new versions.

This doesn't support LR 5.0 or below any more, be warned

Paddy 5.2 - where are we

After a crazy summer with no time on Paddy, a quick update. Essentially, three points

• If I only support LR5 going forward, Paddy Startup is much faster. MUCH faster
• LR 5.2 is still in in RC, with new sliders etc
• Between RC and actual release, enough things change in the background that it's a lot of work to support RC and new version

So, as soon as LR 5.2 is out as release, I will update Paddy to have a fast start and work with 5.2, but not 5.0 or LR4.x any more (old version will be available)

I know this is not ideal, but life has a habit of interfering with hobbies

Paddy 5.0 Beta is available

Down load here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/paddy/files/01%20Latest%20Version/Paddy%205.0%20beta.lrdevplugin.zip/download

This is the module directory.
 - LR 5.0 sliders now work
- the panel setup is restored after Paddy read the information
- The version check is now a separate thread, which should improve startup time on slow internet connections

Paddy 5.0 Alpha is available

Paddy 5.0 Alpha is available for download.

Module directory: https://sourceforge.net/projects/paddy/files/01%20Latest%20Version/Paddy5.0%20Alpha%20.lrdevplugin.zip/download

This should work more or less with LR 5.0 (and continue to work with LR 4.4). None of the new sliders was mapped, the goal here was to just make the old stuff work. Please report bugs here: https://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/paddy/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=621

Note that this uses the crutch outlined earlier: When LR opens, Paddy will go through all the tabs on the development panel. This might leave the configuration somewhat messed up. We will deal with that later - Basically restoring it to what we found. Right now, I am just trying to make sure that we can do this.

Also, this probably will not work with the RC, just by the nature of what Paddy does. But that's OK, if we can get this to work here, we know that the principle is sound.

LR5 - status

Now that move #1 is over, and work is less crazy, I had some time to think about LR5 again. I still suspect that ultimately, I need a more robust way to address LR changes. However, for the time being, I think I came up with a way to make Paddy work with LR5 reasonably quickly with limited pain for the users.

To make it short, When Paddy starts under LR5, it will effectively open and close all subpanels and tools in the develop module once. This will take (most likely) -5 seconds. But after that's done, it looks like control handles (The addresses I use to move sliders) are stable and Paddy can just plow ahead like before. While not exactly an elegant solution, it should work nicely. Also, I should be able to do this (and the necessary adjustments to the control addresses, which is always a lot of hunting and gathering) relatively quickly so we can all go on and use Paddy happily.

Paddy update

Thanks to a lot of testing and push from our German users (after Paddy was featured in a local internet show on digital photography), I was able to significantly improve the keyword handling. The experience should be better, foreign characters are handled correctly (as long as they are ANSI - so German, French, Danish works, Russian, Japanese etc doesn't). Also, Paddy now recognizes the keywords that Lightroom tagged as Synonyms as asks the user what to do with them.

This was likely the last big update to Paddy for LR 4, bar any bugfixes, which I will of course always try to do. The next two weeks I will be moving (from house to temporary apartment), then I will need to focus any significant paddy activity on LR 5. I will try to get an updated Nocturn video out, as well as an video on how to use the XBox controller, and if I am bored I iwll try to work on the user guide, but compared to the challenge that LR 5 brings, these ar eboring.

LR 5 - Maybe a way

I think I found a way, but it will be a lot of work, and I have to move over to C# for some stuff.

To make a long story short, I think I found a way to make this work in the new, dynamic LR 5 interface. But it will be lots of work, and it doesn't solver the Midi Out problem - Midi (and IPAD) will be blessfully unaware of any slider positions until the subpanels have been opened at least once. After that, no problem 9I think, cross your fingers), as most handles stay static once created.

The stupid exception as before is of course the HSL panel. LR "destroys" the controls as you switch around there. But we had that issue before.

It will be a lot of work to do this as I am quite literally analyzing every single control in the interface to get the handle associated with a function.

More on LR 5 - real issue for Midi

So, I looked further into the issue with the slider controls (not even thinking about other issues this creates, like presets). It looks like they are indeed dynamically added when needed. It used to be that a slider had a number that wouldn't change. Now, it can be anything. Example: You open LR with all subpanels closed. Then you open the Effects panel. The first slider here ("Amount") is now Edit1. Now you open the Basic Panel. Now the temperature slider is Edit1 (for JPG -  Edit3 for raw, but that was always the case). The Effects slider is now Edit21. And it changes again when other panels open.

This is bad for keyboard shortcuts and disaster for Midi.

The keyboard shortcuts used to work when the subpanels were closed. This will not work any more. Since the controls simply do not exist when the panel isn't open, I have to force the panel open when the user moves the slider. That's bad, but doable.

It's a complete disaster for Midi out, which relies on the fact that the value are available at any point in time. I read them, no matter whether the panel is open or not. Now, the values are simply not available if I don't force all the panels open.

The only good news is that the number never seems to go down. So, creative, I already see several workarounds here. But it will not be pretty.

[Edited: para added]: the second piece of good news is that the handles seem to stay with us. In other words, once I have them I can move the sliders. This gives us several options to work with

My hope is that this is a bug/feature in the beta that will go away in the release.

For those who wonder, I am not in touch with anybody at Adobe - I don't have much time for this this week. I might try to contact whatever support they have for Plugins, but since I am using an officially unsupported route, I am not optimistic

Lightroom 5 beta

Just got the LR 5 beta. The face recognition - promised in a survey, more or less - is not there. Some other features are. I leave it to others to pontificate about the radial filter, but I predict we will see a beta 2, given that the listed additions for this beta are underwhelming (maybe other than the advanced healing brush).
Copy/Paste from Adobe

• Advanced Healing Brush – Easily remove objects and fix defects—even those with irregular shapes such as threads or lint—with a single brush stroke. Take precise control over what's being removed as you make unwanted objects just disappear.

• Upright – Straighten tilted images with a single click. Upright analyzes images and detects skewed horizontal or vertical lines. You choose one of four correction methods, and Upright can even straighten images where the horizon is hidden.

• Radial Gradient – Lead your viewer's eye through your images with more flexibility and control. The radial gradient tool lets you create off-center vignette effects, or multiple vignette areas within a single image.

• Offline editing with Smart Previews – Easily work with images without bringing your entire library with you. Just generate smaller stand-in files called Smart Previews. Make adjustments or metadata additions to Smart Previews and your changes will be automatically applied to the full-size originals later.

• Video slideshow sharing – Easily share your work in elegant video slideshows. Combine still images, video clips, and music in creative HD videos that can be viewed on almost any computer or device.

• Improved photo book creation – Create beautiful photo books from your images. Lightroom includes a variety of easy-to-use book templates, and now you can edit them to create a customized look. Upload your book for printing with just a few clicks.

[edit - the below changed as I explored]
More importantly for us, Paddy 4.3 doesn't work. That is not surprising. Paddy writes directly into Windows controls - and these change when controls get rearranged for a new version. However, they really screwed me this time. The numbering changes over time. For instance, the Temperature box starts out as EDIT1. As you go along and pick tools, it can become anything up to EDIT128 (not quite anything, but details don't matter). This is a massive problem for me - Paddy relies on these edits being stable.

Wish us luck

Paddy 4.3 Update

Pushed out an update. We had a bug in the Midi assignments for the BCR/BCF and another one in the raw midi assignment, hopefully that's fixed.

As a bonus, I included V1 of the XBox controller interface. It's not documented yet - you have to go to "External Keyboards" to enable it. If you have a wireless controller, you will also need a receiver for the PC. The rest works as usual. I implemented 10 virtual pages that you can switch.

Also, the sticks are semi-analog - if you map a slider on the joystick, no matter with what function, the speed with which the slider moves depends on how far you push the joystick (there are 3 speeds implemented at the moment, hence semi-analog).

Lightroom 5

I anwered a user survey from Adobe today. Strong hints that LR 5 will come mid 2013, will have face recognition and some other new features. Exciting, but will be lots of work to adapt Paddy.

Paddy 4.3 is available

Can be found here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/paddy/files/01%20Latest%20Version/

Shuttle Pro 2

I bought a ShuttlePro 2 from the donations. This thing is so cool. Support will come. I love this slim controller. Suggestions welcome

Android

Now that the OSC capability is very stable, I hope osmebody takes on a design for Android. Contact me if you need help to get started.

The OSC commands are documented here: https://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/paddy/index.php?title=Paddy_Developer_Wiki#OSC