ia: Benvenite! In mi blog io scribe in interlingua, italiano e anglese.

it: Benvenuti! Nel mio blog scrivo in interlingua, italiano e inglese.

en: Welcome! In my blog I write in Interlingua, Italian and English.

Imaginario for your desktop

Hello everyone! As some of you know, I've developed a photo manager application for Ubuntu phones, called Imaginario (which in interlingua means something like "collection of images").
Imaginario on the Ubuntu phone
Last February Imaginario has reached feature completion, meaning that I'm quite satisfied with the features it offers (but if you find it lacking, then by all means please let me know by filing a bug report). I recently bought an Ubuntu tablet, the BQ M10, and verified that Imaginario works fine in the tablet form factor, even though it could be improved to use the adaptive page layout widget in a few places.

Anyway, the relative quietness the project had reached was starting to scare me, therefore since March I've been working on a desktop version of Imaginario, which shares the same code base but renders its interface via the QtQuick Controls module, which provides native-looking widgets on Linux, OS X and Windows. The goal is indeed to create a cross-platform photo manager, heavily inspired by the fantastic F-Spot which has been hibernating for the last 6 years but which I'm still happily using.
Imaginario is under development for your desktop!
I'm in no way done. I've got the application in a stage where I can start playing with it and some basic functionality is working, but I'm not yet ready to entrust it with my photo collection ­— though indeed, so far I haven't experienced any data loss or data damage.
That's why I think this is a good time to share the news, in the hope that I could find someone else (besides me) who could test the software and report bugs.

What should work:

  • Import your photo database from F-Spot
  • Import your photo database from Shotwell
  • Import photos from a folder
  • Edit photo tags
  • Search by tag (with OR/AND operators exactly like F-Spot does)
  • Search by geolocation

What does not (yet) work

  • More search filters (by date, rating)
  • Hidden tags
  • Exporting (but you can select photos and copy their URI to the clipboard)
  • Translations of UI elements
  • UI needs love
In the process of developing Imaginario with the QtQuick Controls I've also had to occasionally report (and fix, or workaround) some bugs on the controls themselves, which will hopefully come as a benefit for other applications using them.

How to install and test it

If you have been reading till this point, there's a little chance that you might actually be interested in helping me out with testing this app. I don't have any builds for OS X or Windows yet, but there are automatic daily builds for Ubuntu 14.04 (trusty) and 16.04 (xenial), available in my imaginario PPA. To install imaginario, just run these commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mardy/imaginario
sudo apt-get install imaginario
If you are interested in building it for other OSes, you can find the source code here, but please don't distribute any binary packages yet, as the software is all but ready to be used in the wild.

Closing note on QtQuick Controls vs Ubuntu UI toolkit

Those of you who are familiar with the Ubuntu phone might wonder why I've decided to use the QtQuick Controls and not the Ubuntu UI toolkit like I'm doing with the phone version. After all, the Ubuntu UI toolkit has been specifically planned to support the desktop use case too, and it would be just natural to take its convergence feature into use and let it handle the desktop version too.
There are a couple of reasons why I haven't been following this path:

  1. I want the app to be working in Windows and OS X too
  2. I want traditional desktop elements, such as split views, treeviews and menus
There is a good chance that — despite its name — the Ubuntu UI toolkit would work just fine under Windows and OS X, but it's clearly not a requirement, and the possibility that the compatibility gets broken is very real. Besides, in any case that wouldn't offer me a native-looking UI; not that I consider this to be  priority, but it's certainly a bonus point for the QtQuick Controls.
As for the other point, it's likely that split views, treeviews and menus are coming to the Ubuntu UI toolkit too, but of course I'm developing Imaginario now, and I have to use what is available at this very moment.
All in all, none of the above is a strong reason to chose one toolkit over the other; and it's actually not unlikely at all that in the future I'll decide to go for the Ubuntu UI toolkit on all OSes and all form factors; I've just made a contingent choice, which suits me fine for now but which I'm open to revisit anytime.

If anything, this double face of Imaginario shows the strength of Qt and QML: the same core C++ classes get exposed as two totally different user interfaces, and the speed of prototyping in QML makes this effort very cheap — I'm not afraid of literally throwing away one user interface or starting a new one from scratch.

    Un coincidentia curiose

    Illes qui cognosce plus que un lingua ha probabilemente habite le occasion de comparar parolas de duo linguas differente, e de observar similaritates in le construction del parolas. Pro exemplo, si on considera le parola perdonar e su equivalente anglese to forgive, on observa que iste parolas es componite per duo partes, traducibile perfectemente:

    Interlingua Anglese
    perdonar = forgive
    = =
    per = for
    + +
    donar = give

    (iste exemplo es ancora plus interessante, perque on pote argumentar que le traduction de "per" esseva errate, viste que le "per" in "perdonar" esseva originarimente "iper") Iste phenomeno es appellate “calco morphologic” e es plus frequente de lo que on pote imaginar; ma non sempre illo es facile a recognoscer. Lo que me surprendeva, esseva trovar un situation simile anque inter le linguas romance e le russo, que es un lingua multo distante del linguas romance. Isto reguarda le parola coincider:

    Interlingua Russo
    coincider = совпадать
    = =
    co (con) = co (c)
    + +
    in = в
    + +
    cider (cader) = падать

    Le etimologia del parola romance es con (insimul) + incider (evenir; vide "incidente"), e incider es in su turno componite per in + cader. Io non sape si isto es vermente un calco, o si le parola se formava independentemente in le duo gruppos linguistic romance e slavic; ma anque in le seconde caso, illo esserea un coincidentia amusante, nonne?

    Un'altra chance al Fatto Quotidiano

    Solo un breve aggiornamento: siccome qualche tempo fa ho scritto sul blog che non avrei rinnovato il mio abbonamento al Fatto Quotidiano, mi sembra giusto scrivere anche che, dopo aver notato i recenti miglioramenti al sito, ho deciso di supportarli ancora, acquistando un abbonamento come sostenitore.
    Adesso il sito è molto più leggero e leggibile, la pubblicità nel sito è quasi assente (benché la situazione non sia ancora perfetta perché, essendo un utente sostenitore, di pubblicità non dovrei vederne affatto), ed ho quindi voluto supportare quello che ritengo essere uno dei migliori siti di informazione sulla politica italiana.

    MH17: video artifacts in Zuhres BUK video

    Update: I was informed by some reader that there exist a 1080p version of the Zuhres video, so I repeated the analysis below to that version of the video. Here's the result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr9cfzo-pBE
    Indeed, the artifacts are much smaller in this version. However, they are still there, and again they apply only to the cabin of the truck, and not to the rest of the convoy.


    Last night I happened to stumble again on the video of the BUK being towed by a track in Zuhres, and I noticed some video artifacts as the truck moves behind the building: on the white wall, you can see parts of the truck. I loaded the video file in Blender, and watched the magnified video in slow motion, and indeed those artifacts were there. So, I've prepared a demonstrative video which shows the effect more in detail, and uploaded it to Youtube:


    I'm not an expert in digital video analysis, but I don't recall having seen any similar artifacts in other videos. You can see some artifacts on the image right before the truck disappears behind the building (at 00:06-00:07 of my video), and these might be the result of the video compression algorithm; however, at 00:09-00:10 you can actually see parts of the truck cabin being drawn on the building's wall. In my experience, digital video compression sometimes causes residual parts of a previous video frame to be shown over the current frame, when the movie is heavily compressed. However, in this case what we see is a completely new image: none of the previous video frames show the truck's cabin in that position. Also, the video is moderately compressed and of pretty good quality overall; and last, given that the building's wall is uniformly grey and square-shaped, it would seem weird that the compressor has decided to put some image elements in it, and made the image more complex: usually, compression algorithms simplify the video frames.
    But, as I said, I'm not an expert on this matters. If you are, or know someone who is, please ask him to have a look at this video, and share his opinion, along with his CV, blog or linked-in profile (just to be sure that we are actually talking with some authoritative expert, and not just another wannabe expert like me :-) ). Also, examples of similar artifacts in other raw videos are very welcome.

    Alicun notas super le referendum nederlandese pro le accordo associative UE-Ucraina


    Le referendum resultava in un clar victoria del partito del "NO" (circa 61% contra le 39% del "SI"), e le percentual del votantes esseva 32,2%, superior al 30% qui esseva requirite pro conferer validitate al voto.

    Considerationes rapide:
    1. Non sia deluse (si tu sperava in un "si") o troppo felice (si tu supportava le "no"): le referendum essera substantialmente ignorate, como il non es rar in nostre democratias.
    2. Le accordo de association es jam active.
    3. Il es le prime vice que le accordo ha essite subponite a un voto popolar.
    4. Nonobstante que le major parte del citatanos del UE ha audite re iste accordo solmente in tempores recente, illo ha essite discutite al minus desde le anno 2011.
    5. Jam ab le initio, iste discussiones ha habite un effecto destabilisator in Ucraina, un pais profundemente divise inter le parte occidental pro-UE e le parte oriental pro-Russia.
    6. Si! Nos parla del mesme accordo cuje rejection per Victor Janukovych esseva le causa (o le pretexto, si vos prefere) del revolution de Maidan del 2013, qui postea degenerava in le guerra civil.
    7. De un latere, uno pote sentir se deluse per le resultato del referendum, e vider lo como si le UE habeva alimentate le divisiones in Ucraina e nunc abandonar lo in le momento de difficultate; del altere latere, in 2013 le major parte de iste votantes non mesmo sapeva de iste accordo e del delicate situation in Ucraina — alora, lor opinion non esseva demandate.
    8. Ucraina es destinate a devenir parte del UE, isto es inevitabile. Tosto o tarde, integralmente o partialmente (al minus le regiones occidental) Ucraina entrara in le UE (a minus que le union se disintegra ante isto, obviemente).