Shotwell 0.4.0 released

We’ve released Shotwell 0.4.0, Yorba’s photo organizer for the GNOME desktop.  We’ve been cranking along the past two months (has it only been two months?) to get this version out before the end of December, and the hard work paid off.

Probably our most-requested feature to date has been publishing photos to Facebook and Flickr.  Shotwell 0.4.0 now offers both.  I’m pleased with the result, especially being able to log in to these services in Shotwell itself rather than through an external browser.  We have big plans on making Shotwell play well on the Web and with other Web services, so stay tuned.

Other big additions include more language packs, thanks to the work of translators from around the globe.  Shotwell 0.4.0 features complete or all-but-complete translations for Italian, German, Polish, Estonian, and Swedish.

Finally, Shotwell 0.4.0 has been ported to Windows and a binary installer is now available.  This is an alpha release with some limits, including a lack of camera support and no Facebook/Flickr publishing.  However, we were surprised with the (relative) ease of porting Shotwell to Windows.  GTK and Vala’s portability were a huge boon in this process.

We’re always looking for feedback, so let us know what you think.  Hope you enjoy!

24 thoughts on “Shotwell 0.4.0 released”

  1. This project looks really good.
    Is there any chance to have lucid packages in your PPA? ๐Ÿ˜‰
    Regards

  2. Hi all,
    imo shotwell is a great project, i tested it at home on my linux box and it works pretty good.. i can’t say the same under windows.. it tries to load a gtk module that isn’t installed.. than it aborts starting up.
    I’ll keep on using it under Gnome linux, i installed it on windows just to test.. and it doesn’t work..
    anyway great project, and great purposes! And i wish you a great new year! XD
    Joe

  3. Thanks to everyone for their kind words and feedback!
    linusr: Yes, we are planning to implement PicasaWeb uploading in Shotwell 0.5, currently planned to ship in March 2010. See http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/667 and our development plans at http://trac.yorba.org/wiki/Shotwell .
    Javier: Yes, we are planning to add Lucid packages to the PPA soon. See http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/1227 .
    David: We are planning to add video support at some point – see http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/855 . This will probably not be in 0.5 (unless someone outside Yorba wants to submit a patch ๐Ÿ™‚ but should happen some time in 2010.
    TheJoe: Could you provide a bit more information about what went wrong on Windows? What version of Windows are you using? What error message did you see, exactly? You can provide feedback on our mailing list or by submitting a ticket at http://trac.yorba.org/newticket . Thanks!
    Adam Dingle
    Yorba

  4. I tried the Windows version, and it indeed didn’t work, because it couldn’t find some “loader” libraries. Anyway, I copied *.dll files from “c:Program FilesGimp-2.0libgtk-2.02.10.0loaders” to “c:Program FilesShotwelllibgtk-2.02.10.0loaders” and I changed the folder paths in file “c:Program FilesShotwelletcgtk-2.0gdk-pixbuf.loaders” accordingly and it worked. However, I haven’t tried it much, but there is one thing which is a bit annoying. It seams that GTK can’t load/find Windows theme, so this is how I see the program: http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/4430/clipboard1tq.png

  5. One simple question.
    Every time I try to compile SVN version I see:
    $ make
    Shotwell requires Vala compiler 0.7.9 or greater. You are running Vala 0.7.6.
    But somehow you produce builds for Ubuntu 9.10. So why make it difficult for us?

  6. Hi Alexandre,
    We’re not attempting to make it difficult for people to build Shotwell. Vala is a bleeding-edge language and still very much in flux. Some times even a minor change in the Vala compiler is a big deal because it fixes serious problems we’ve encountered.
    As it turns out, the changes between 0.7.6 and 0.7.9 are significant enough that we have to require the latest to build. If you build 0.7.9 from source, you can build Shotwell, even on Ubuntu 9.04.
    You can get the latest Vala sources at http://live.gnome.org/Vala/Release.
    Also note you can get the latest binary builds of Shotwell from our Launchpad PPA at https://launchpad.net/~yorba/+archive/ppa
    — Jim

  7. rockstar1707,
    Yes, it turns out there were some image loader path problems on Windows in Shotwell 0.4.0/0.4.1. We’ll soon release Shotwell 0.4.2 which should fix this.
    Adam Dingle
    Yorba

  8. @Adam
    Thank you very much for the response.
    About the appearance on Windows. I solved the problem by copying the configuration file “gtkrc” from GIMP “./etc/gtk-2.0/ “directory to the appropriate Shotwell directory.

  9. rockstar1707,
    The Shotwell installer doesn’t include the gtkrc file because in our testing we’ve found it isn’t necessary: Shotwell correctly uses the Windows theme even when gtkrc is absent. On your machine, however, it seems that this file is necessary, which is puzzling. What version of Windows are you running?
    Adam Dingle
    Yorba

  10. @Adam
    I’m using English Windows XP Professional SP3 (32 bit). It is true that I have quite few other GTK applications installed, and I remember having problems with the appearance with at least one GTK application before (I can’t remember which one). I think the problem appeared once when I installed GTK libraries together with Glade or something like that…
    Hence, it is quite possible that the problems with the appearance are the result of some very rare coincidence on my machine.
    I’d say that if other people don’t have such problems you shouldn’t spend too much time on this. From my point of view it’s pretty easy to solve, and in worse case the solution can be added to some “Tips and Tricks” or FAQ.

  11. I think the gtk appearance problem under windows is only on windows xp (?) i will try shotwell on windows 7 in a few minutes but for now i shall follow rockstar1707’s instructions. this isnt crucial for me as ubuntu is my main os i just use winxp for photoshop and it would be nice to manager my pics with shotwell ๐Ÿ˜€

  12. hi, back again. i dont have GIMP installed in windows so i use my gtkrc files from pidgin! (its located at Program FilesCommon FilesGTKetcgtk-2.o) the theme was unchanged but the fonts arent humongous like before, it would be nice to have somebody elses gtkrc? pidgins just doesnt set the theme ๐Ÿ™

  13. @rockstar1707 woops the gtkrc DID work its just the gtk theme it was set to use wasnt included in shotwell so i copied some gtk engine dll’s from pidgin and bravo! it worked a beautified gtk theme-able shotwell lol all this work for windows ๐Ÿ˜› now let me fire up the installer for shotwell 0.4.3 since i have 0.4.2 at the moment ๐Ÿ˜€

  14. Guys,
    Just discovered your software. I’ve been looking for a good photo editor / album on linux since I started using it a year ago. I think I just found it. I’ll definitely be using it in the future.
    Really like the Shotwell photo viewer. I have to quickly edit a lot of photo’s for work and never had all the simple tools at my disposal without having to go to a menu. As soon as you add resize to this I’ll definitely be using this solely.
    Good work!

  15. Angus,
    Thanks for the kudos! We’ve been working hard to make Shotwell the best photo manager out there.
    One thing I should point out: The reason we don’t have a resize tool is because that’s a function of exporting the photo. In other words, when you export a photo you have the choice of what dimensions the photo should be. Since Shotwell is a non-destructive photo editor, resize doesn’t make sense until that moment.
    I *think* that’s what you mean when you mention resize … let me know if you’re thinking of something else.
    Cheers,
    — Jim

  16. Mention about the export function that in under the file menu. It can only resize a photo. When you do a few selection of photo and want to resize them together, the export function not working. I can choose the weight or height that I want but, the photo export is in ORIGINAL size. Will it be fix in future?

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