No more WINE version of picasa. Give us native linux!

[Doughy]

Dear Google,

The ONLY thing that I miss about windows since switching to linux is a
good photo organizer. I was psyched when I found out about Picasa for
linux, since I really loved the windows version.

Then, I was really disappointed to find out that the linux version of
Picasa doesn't work nearly as well as the windows version. Many
features are missing, and so many of the details that make Picasa so
great are buggy. For example, when I hit CTL+K to type my keywords on
a photo, the cursor doesn't focus in the text box. There goes being
able to quickly tag all my photos using the keyboard. There are
dozens of detail problems like this that I have noticed, and I believe
it's all due to the fact that Google is taking a shortcut by porting
the linux version using wine.

Are there any plans to write a native version of Picasa?! PLEASE!
This wine version is KILLING ME and I need my Picasa!

Sincerely,
Doughy

[Jurassic]

Count my vote too! I'm sure many people here (if not all) would love
to have a native Gtk/Qt version.
I am also certain that if google open-sourced picasa code, community
would quickly pick it up and port it to linux.

[Chris Miller]

I'd also like a million dollars, a flying pig, and a money tree.

Rewriting Picasa for Linux isn't a terribly feasible idea. It'd take
a lot of hard programming. While Google has most of the most
intelligent of the Silicon Valley workforce in their employ, I think
their time would be better spent on other projects. Picasa under
Wine-X works reasonably well, and being a programmer myself I don't
think it's reasonable to request something as cataclysmic to core
application architecture and layout as a complete and total port to
Qt/GTK+. I know enough about Qt programming to know that a Qt port
would necessitate a nearly complete redesign of the entire
application, and a GTK+ port would probably prompt a rewrite of
Object-Oriented C++ code for the older C found in Gnome just to get it
to bind properly. C libraries are supposedly compatible with C++, but
when push comes to shove there's a lot of discrepencies that need to
be worked around.

I certainly would take a whack at it, but I'm not about to start
screaming for Google to open-source code that is still rightfully
theirs. There could be highly sensitive proprietary algorithms in
Picasa that would need to be abstracted to dynamically linkable
libraries for obfuscation purposes before a native Linux port by a
public community could be undertaken.

Until then, I'd suggest something like F-Spot, which is in many ways a
near perfect Picasa clone, though I must agree it lacks many of
Picasa's subtle enhancements which make it so much fun to use.

[dank]

On Sep 3, 10:53 am, Doughy <doughywil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ... when I hit CTL+K to type my keywords on

> a photo, the cursor doesn't focus in the text box. There goes being
> able to quickly tag all my photos using the keyboard.

Works fine for me in the next version.

> Are there any plans to write a native version of Picasa?! PLEASE!
> This wine version is KILLING ME and I need my Picasa!

It's not wine that's the problem, it's the fact that we haven't
released a new Linux version in ages. We've said we'll have
one out by end of summer, so stay tuned...
- Dan

[Martin]

I haven't checked for the ctrl-k thing, but i can only say that Picasa
2.7 running under wine is really stable and powerful.
Okay some functions (geotag and backup ...) still missing but it works
perfectly for me.

I even managed to share the .picasa direcory among two local users (me
and my wife) giving both the same database and pictures - which is
essential for me. However i know that this is not supported an may
even break the database if both programs would access at the same
time :-P

But this is not a limitation of the linux (wine) version but rather
picasa in general.

Just my thoughts...

Martin

[Mark Patey]

I've now installed v. 2.7 under Wine... my initial problem is now acting differently, but with the same results.  When I click on "Blog This!" instead of a blank gray window, I get the full Blogger sign-in window.  Yay!  The only problem is, the input fields for Username and Password don't actually work.  When I click in them, nothing happens, and when I try to type anyway, still nothing.

A hint as to why this is happening may be that scattered around between the input fields is the HTML code for the input fields!  So it seems that instead of being read as HTML, the code to accept input in the text boxes is just being displayed as text.

A little backstory... when I first tried "Blog This!" after installing 2.7, the sign-in window popped up and said I needed to install Gecko in order to proceed.  I clicked "OK" and it installed, and ever since it's brought me faithfully to the sign-in page, but with these broken text entry fields.

Anybody have a clue what I can do to fix this?  Somehow reinstall Wine's version of Gecko?  If so, how?

This is pretty annoying!  But I guess we can't expect a lot of support for running a Windows product in a way it wasn't intended to be run (under Wine).

Thanks for any help you may have!

-Mark

[Martin]

Strange - i never had such issues!

Try renaming the gecko directory - should be .picasa/drive_c/Program
Files/Gecko or something similar, can't check right now - i'm not at
home!
After that restart picasa and i hope it will download the gecko stuff
again - maybe this helps!

Good luck, Martin

[dank]

On Sep 5, 4:58 am, "Mark Patey" <mjpa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've now installed v. 2.7 under Wine... my initial problem is now acting
> differently, but with the same results. When I click on "Blog This!"
> instead of a blank gray window, I get the full Blogger sign-in window.
> Yay! The only problem is, the input fields for Username and Password don't
> actually work. When I click in them, nothing happens, and when I try to
> type anyway, still nothing.
>
> A hint as to why this is happening may be that scattered around between the
> input fields is the HTML code for the input fields!

Which version of Wine? If it's not 0.9.44, can you update to 0.9.44
and try again?

Could you try a clean .wine directory, e.g.
cd $HOME
mv .wine .wine.old
and see if that clears up the problem?

> I guess we can't expect a lot of support for running
> a Windows product in a way it wasn't intended to be run (under
> Wine).

With Picasa you can :-)
- Dan

[Mark Patey]

I just checked, and my normal Wine install is 0.9.44.  I tried doing mv .wine .wine.old (in my home directory), but Picasa wouldn't start in that state.  When I renamed it back, Picasa started normally again, but I still have the problem shown in the following screenshot:

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1331709736&size=o

...as you can see, the HTML for form submission is all being displayed instead of acted upon, and I can't sign in.

This is where I get confused... Picasa uses its own separate install of Wine, right?  If I make changes to my standard Wine install in Ubuntu, will that do the trick, or do I have to somehow do things in a special Picasa Wine directory?

Dank, thanks for walking through this with me.

-Mark

[Mark Patey]

Incidentally, I clicked the "forgot my password..." link on the BlogThis sign-in page to see if I could get anywhere with that, and got the same sort of thing.  The form submission HTML is displaying as text instead of being interpreted as code:

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1331039547&size=o

At least it's being consistent!

-Mark

[dank]

On Sep 5, 10:28 am, "Mark Patey" <mjpa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I just checked, and my normal Wine install is 0.9.44. I tried doing mv
> .wine .wine.old (in my home directory), but Picasa wouldn't start in that
> state.

You have to reinstall Picasa for Windows. Sorry, I forgot to mention
that part.

> This is where I get confused... Picasa uses its own separate install of
> Wine, right?

Picasa *for linux* uses it's own special install of Wine.
Picasa *for windows* doesn't. For all these tests, you
should be using Picasa for Windows.

> If I make changes to my standard Wine install in Ubuntu, will
> that do the trick, or do I have to somehow do things in a special Picasa
> Wine directory?

If you're testing Picasa for Linux, that's in ~/.picasa.
If you're testing Picasa for Windows, that's in ~/.wine.
- Dan

[Mark Patey]

OK, thanks for clearing that up.

I just renamed the .wine directory, and reinstalled Picasa for Windows.  The .wine directory was re-created during the install process, and Picasa started normally... but I still get the same problem with the BlogThis sign-in page (with the code to handle the form input displaying on screen instead of allowing input in the text fields), and I can't sign in.

I'm stumped!

-Mark

On 9/5/07, dank <daniel....@gmail.com> wrote:

[sheep...@gmail.com]

On 4 Sep., 17:07, "Chris Miller" <lordsauronthegr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'd also like a million dollars,

Are you not a google employee ? Dont you already have it ?

>a flying pig,

this could be a real problem

>and a money tree.

Oh, if i look at the value of this firm i starting to beleave google
already have one.

> Rewriting Picasa for Linux isn't a terribly feasible idea. It'd take
> a lot of hard programming. While Google has most of the most
> intelligent of the Silicon Valley workforce in their employ, I think
> their time would be better spent on other projects.

As you can see the comunity dont share your opinion in this matter.
(opinions are like *ssholes, everybody has got one (c) Larry Flint)

> Picasa under
> Wine-X works reasonably well, and being a programmer myself I don't
> think it's reasonable to request something as cataclysmic to core
> application architecture and layout as a complete and total port to
> Qt/GTK+.

1. Google is not a walefare foundation, they have the staff, the money
and the time to do that.
The other question is that they are not willing to spend even the
little bit of their profits for their own comunity.

2. If this is like you said sooo cataclismic to port, than i would say
that the programmers @ google are far from being "most of the most
intelligent of the Silicon Valley" because theyre even not capable to
write plattform independent.

> I know enough about Qt programming to know that a Qt port
> would necessitate a nearly complete redesign of the entire
> application,

Since this is propriatary program, it is not our prob.

> and a GTK+ port would probably prompt a rewrite of
> Object-Oriented C++ code for the older C found in Gnome just to get it
> to bind properly. C libraries are supposedly compatible with C++, but
> when push comes to shove there's a lot of discrepencies that need to
> be worked around.

So much to most of the most
intelligent programmers.

> > Count my vote too! I'm sure many people here (if not all) would love
> > to have a native Gtk/Qt version.
> > I am also certain that if google open-sourced picasa code, community
> > would quickly pick it up and port it to linux.
>
> I certainly would take a whack at it, but I'm not about to start
> screaming for Google to open-source code that is still rightfully
> theirs. There could be highly sensitive proprietary algorithms in
> Picasa that would need to be abstracted to dynamically linkable
> libraries for obfuscation purposes before a native Linux port by a
> public community could be undertaken.

"Could" and "would" are not the real arguments. The only sensitive
algorithm the program like picasa can have
is the algorith to analyse my beheaveour as a byer or advertisment
target, And if i were google
i would wanted to obfuscate it at all costs. I dont see other reasons
of keeping the code closed.

> Until then, I'd suggest something like F-Spot, which is in many ways a
> near perfect Picasa clone,
> though I must agree it lacks many of
> Picasa's subtle enhancements which make it so much fun to use.

Come on say something we dont know.

P.S.: You have to excuse my english, its not my favorit language.

[Mertiki]

I know that giving a Linux version of picasa could be a very hard
work, but things are going to change in the world of personnal
computers. Linux and Mac OS X grows each days and google can play a
role in that. Google regulary uses Linux and works with Apple too. I
think it's intelligent from a big company like Google to create
softwares which are platform independant because it gives choice to
the end user and make the Google programs very used because they work
everywhere.

I don't know if there are several amount of code which need to be
recoded in order to make Picasa working under another platform than
Windows, but Picasa would have success in Linux and Mac OS X. The Wine
version wasn't a bad idea, but don't work like expected. In Linux
Gutsy, Picasa completely crash the system while detecting photos..

[dank]

On Sep 10, 2:52 pm, Mertiki <mert...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ... The Wine version wasn't a bad idea, but don't work like expected.

We expect to fix any problems that are found.

> In Linux Gutsy, Picasa completely crash the system while detecting photos.

Then you have an X server bug, mostly likely a driver/kernel mismatch
with a
proprietary graphics card driver. Try running 'glxgears' and see if
that also crashes
your system. User programs that aren't run as root
CANNOT crash properly functioning Linux systems.
- Dan

[rks]

I write software, I know it is hard to port and I know Picasa was
bought by Google so the code was already Windows specific.

But is there a reason why Google is running the Windows Picasa through
Wine rather than compiling against WineLib and making a native Linux
binary? I thought Winelib allowed a more native toolkit look and feel?

[Werner]

I must admit i would prefer a Qt based Picasa more then wine based.
However, the people who said wine applications aren't native ...they
are wrong,
go and read why wine is NOT a Emulator. Applications can also be
compiled
against wine. I dont care about native look. Its doesnt really exist
nowadays
since many apps are shiped with her own themes/skins.

On my System Picasa has same stability & speed on Linux & Windows!
The wine/codeweaver peoples did a realy great job!

Oh, and the Picasa API is public, right?
I think it should be possible to integrate Picasa Service with Image
Viewers
like Gwenview ...or maybe as a kipi plugin?

[Mark Patey]

Werner, your computer must be much faster than mine (a P4 3.2GHz with 1.5GB RAM and nVidia 6200 w/256MB).  In Windows Picasa does very well for me, but in Linux it's significantly slower.  Not to the point of annoyance by any means, but it is noticeably slower.  I'm running Ubuntu Feisty

You mention the API... I wonder if there's any way for Picasa to allow us to drag a pic from Picasa directly into other apps (like Gimp, Photoshop, or just a folder or the Desktop)?  That would be a great feature for me.  A preference could be set to either render it with Picasa's edits or not.

Also, how about being able to right-click on a pic in Picasa and select "Open in external application..."?

-Mark

[Werner]

Hello Mark,

my computer is slower - i have only 1GB RAM and 2,8 GHz P4.
Picasa Speed depends a lot on the graphics drivers, if you're using
the open source drivers shiped with xorg its indeed veryyy slow.

If u like to know more about the Picasa API:
http://code.google.com/apis/picasaweb/overview.html

Regarding the possibitity to open images with external applications,
i miss that feature too. But i think the Windows Version also didnt
offer that feature.

On Sep 14, 9:45 pm, "Mark Patey" <mjpa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Werner, your computer must be much faster than mine (a P4 3.2GHz with

> 1.5GBRAM and nVidia 6200 w/256MB). In Windows Picasa does very well

[Mark Patey]

Interesting about our comparative specs.  I am actually using the proprietary "nvidia" driver, not the open source "nv", and it's still a little sluggish for me in Linux compared to Windows on the same hardware.  Not a huge complaint, but it is noticeable.

-M.