Important note about registration codes

Your version 8 registration codes will still work with beta 5. When needed, we will be sending new codes to all perpetual licensees and to everyone who registered or upgraded since 16 January 2012.

This page refers to ThumbsPlus 9 Betas 2-5, builds 3795-3805

You can discuss ThumbsPlus with Cerious Software and other users on the Cerious forums in the ThumbsPlus Beta category. You may also submit problem reports to report problems directly into our support database.

Beta 5 2012-05-15

Batch and individual metadata (XMP, IPTC, EXIF) updates are much improved, including fixed support for arrays and structures.

Many bugs have been smashed.

Overall performance is improved.

A few of the hundreds of changes are here (well, they will be soon!)

Beta 4 2012-04-16

A few of the hundreds of changes are here.

Beta 3 Update 2012-03-14

Many of the changes in beta 3 are to improve logging and problem reports, giving us the information we need to track down other bugs that we haven't yet nailed.

Beta 3 changes and fixes:

• Dozens of bug fixes, performance improvements, and memory handling enhancements.
• Improved detection of memory leaks in both debug and release builds.
• Fixed some project setting discrepancies that were causing unusual crashes.
• Improved crash handling, especially for stack overflow crashes.
• Added new command line options (documentation pending).
• Because of its size (especially the winsxs tree), ThumbsPlus now skips the Windows folder unless enabled in Options - Preferences - Disks and Folders.
• Fixed problem with -repair command line option (which repairs the current database before opening it, and is available as an option on the Start Menu: Start - All Programs - ThumbsPlus - Utilities - ThumbsPlus 9 (Database Repair).
• Prevents checking for updates when run in safe mode using the command line option -safe, or from the Start Menu: Start - All Programs - ThumbsPlus - Utilities - ThumbsPlus 9 (Safe Mode).
• Fixed crash on exit when running on Windows XP.
  

Quick Update 2012-02-17

Some users were receiving build 3795 instead of 3796. This has been corrected (all downloads should now receive 3797).

I released build 3797 on 17 February 2012 with the following small changes:

• The installer now displays a message when it is checking the Microsoft runtime versions to see if they need to be updated. For some users, this check was causing a long delay (sometimes several minutes) with no visible window.
• Builds 3795 and 3796 used the Version 8 SP1 installation/first run date for determining whether the trial period had expired. Build 3797 correctly uses its own first run date.
• I changed log name to ThumbsPlus9.log to prevent problems when running version 8 and version 9 simultaneously.

Page Contents

Installation notes

Licensing

New features

Python

Facebook

Other

Known issues

Problems fixed

Python scripting details

Installation notes

The installer includes the Digicam Plug-in Package, as we have not yet built a digicam installer that is compatible with version 9. This is also why it is so large.

If you wish select the old-style Everything in one folder installation option, be sure to install to a folder that does not require UAC (user access control). Most importantly, do not install in the C:\Windows, C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86) folders (or their equivalents in other languages).

The installer occasionally hangs for 30-60 seconds before the user interface, as it checks that the correct versions of Microsoft C/C++ (MSVCRT) and MFC library runtimes are installed (and installs them if necessary). Note that due to Microsoft guidelines, these runtimes will not be uninstalled if you uninstall ThumbsPlus. This is generally fine, since thousands of products use them.

The beta installer does not uninstall version 8 or earlier, since you may want to use both simultaneously (version 8 for production work, version 9 for testing).

If you encounter problems during the installation, please send us the Thumbs9Install.log from your user TEMP folder along with your problem report. (If you're not sure where this is, hit Win+R, enter %TEMP%, and hit enter, and Explorer will open it for you). The Win key has the Windows logo () and is usually between the Ctrl and Alt keys.. If your keyboard doesn't have one, consult the documentation for your keyboard and version of windows, or run the command START %TEMP% from a command prompt.

Licensing

In early betas, you may use your version 8 license information to register (Help - Enter Registration). We will email all pre-release and perpetual license holders new codes as soon as we release a beta that requires them.

All single-user and home network users who ordered or upgraded ThumbsPlus on or after 15 January 2012 will receive version 9 free.

Concurrent license users who are up-to-date with their annual support contracts will receive version 9 automatically and at no additional charge when it is released. Those with out-of-date support contracts may upgrade at $50.00 per user (or $40.00 during the current pre-release sale).

New features

Facebook

You can use ThumbsPlus to log in to your Facebook account, where you can browse and update your photo albums, and even thumbnail and view your friends' albums and photos.

Python

There are many improvements and additions to the Python scripting capabilities. We're working on sample scripts that will be included with version 9, and will announce them on the forums as they become available. See the section below on Python scripting for more info.

Several of the new features in ThumbsPlus 9 depend on Python (including Facebook access),, and in the future we will be moving more and more high-level functions to Python. Of course, the core image processing, database, and many other internal functions will remain written in C++ and C (and even a bit of assembly language for some important speed optimizations).

We're looking forward to see what kinds of functions our users can contribute as well!

Other new features

I'm currently building this list, Known Issues, and Problems Fixed by viewing all source changes

Known issues

Main Window

The Search for Help drop-down on the main menu is not operative.

The Window - Show list is empty on the main menu. However, it works from the Show drop-down on the toolbar directly above the thumbnail list.

When selecting and unselecting items from the Show drop-down, the checkmark sometimes does not appear or disappear immediately.

Database - Restore is not working. As a work-around, download the 7-zip program and extract the database (and folder, if your thumbnails are stored in separate files).

Facebook

The user interface is not quite complete: some context menu items are not yet functional, and there is not currently a way to copy images to albums. These should be available in the next beta.

ThumbsPlus caches facebook query results internally, and compresses, saves and restores them between sessions. This can take a lot of memory, so I will be changing the cache so it uses a local disk file instead. This will also eliminate the time required to load and save the cache. The cache file is called Thumbs9.fbcache and is located in your preferences folder, which you can open from Start menu - All Programs - ThumbsPlus - Utilities - View Preferences Folder.

Downloaded files are cached in a subfolder of your TEMP folder (%TEMP%\Tp_Fb). This cache is not currently pruned. You can remove all of the files anytime; ThumbsPlus will re-download them if you make thumbnails or view them.

Folder colors do not update correctly when removing thumbnails from Facebook folders.

The Keep me logged in to ThumbsPlus option on the Facebook login window does not work when restarting ThumbsPlus.

Problems fixed

Using Python for scripting and customizing ThumbsPlus 9

In progress...

Command line options

In progress...

ThumbsPlus and Cerious are registered trademarks of Cerious Software Inc.
Microsoft, Windows and Vista are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.