SageTV photo library

[stevech]

I have hundreds of photos on line in 30 or so folders on a server PC.
I'm the family archiver.

Sage just isn't practical because it thumbnails all these - across the LAN.
And that's orders of magnitude too slow.
Moreover, it lacks basics for practical use...

My current software for viewing the archive has these basic features, all of which are missing in Sage >>> NOTE FOR SAGE's DEVELOPERS <<<

Photos arrive by email and are dropped into a subfolder folder for the family from which they came. Photos from my camera are put into the desired family or special event folders. This is key - SIMPLIFY stashing new photos to SAVE from email or camera uploads. No file renaming or processing or rotating.

Now, to view, the user employs the TV remote control and on-screen menus to do much as you'd do with a scrap book:

- Choose "new" or "all" photos - where NEW means list folders containing picture files that are younger than the last time that folder was viewed

- This yields a text menu of folder names (smith family, jones family, etc) where these are family/friends. NOT thumbnails - these aren't useful.

- Choose the one folder you want to see

- Slide show begins - for all photos in the chosen folder.
- Each photo is resized to fit TV screen - shrunk to fit or centered x/y if smaller than TV
- The EXIF photo detail is used from the JPG file - if it is present
--- EXIF allows photo to be auto-rotated if need be, at viewing time
--- EXIF allows photo's date-taken to be displayed in small font at edge
--- Software in C or VB to process EXIF (a standard) is public domain
- The usual slide show functions: pause, backup, forward, stop, auto-step; no fancy transitions (too slow)
- Upon "stop", return to new/all menu folder list as above

No fancy stuff like sound/narration - if you wanna make a production, do so with some other software.

I've found that this works with bare minimum of prep work - just drop incoming photos into the right subfolder (make new subfolders as needed).

Sure would like this done in Sage or an external program that can be invoked by Sage and which owns the PC display for the slide show.