LetsSee the perfect solution for people who regularly work with pictures or movie files. LetsSee is a graphics browser that gives you fast and easy acces to your favorite pictures and movies, flash and mp3 files. You can modify and batch change filepoperties like name, file-comment and creator. Make files you want to keep private invisible. Move forgotten files in the temporary items folder to the trash. Present your media files as a continuous slideshow.
LetsSee now features the coollest slideshow on the mac.
The slideshow has transitions, you can display your company logo with transparancy over the slideshow pictures. And best of all the slideshow window has a row of scrolling thumbnails to make the window a perfect presentation tool.
Here's a list of what you can do with LetsSee:
• Instantly see which picture or media file you want to use in your project. LetsSee does not build catalogs, you no longer need to. Browse your harddisk or network easy and fast with the listbox or use the recently viewed folders menu. Use the direct access buttons or drop a folder on the main window to explore its content.
• (Batch) Change the filename, file comment or creator and type and other file properties
• Make files you want to keep private invisible
• Move forgotten files in the temporary items folder to the trash
• Present your media files as a continuous slideshow
• View your pictures in thumbnail view (in the slideshow)
• Use the slideshow as a MP3 player
• Zoom in and out and rotate your pictures.
• Render a file icon (limited for unregistered users)
• Keep your favorite pictures and folders handy together
• Export your pictures in various file formats
• and more
LetsSee is an easy and fast way to view your pictures and movies. It is an imageviewer and a very fast filebrowser. It seemlessly integrates pictures, movies and flash. It can open picts, photoshop files, jpegs, gifs, tiff, targa, png, macpaint, silicon graphic, quicktime images and bmp files. LetsSee opens quicktime and mpeg movies, flash (swf) files and mp3 sounds. You can modify and batch change file poperties like name, file-comment, creator and visibilty. It has a slideshow option you could even use as an mp3 player. (Quicktime 4 required)
System Requirements
LetsSee will run on all powermacs with system 8.1 or later and quicktime 2.5 or later installed. You need a color monitor that can display 800 * 600 pixels or more and have 12 mb of free memory, Quicktime 4 (without it you will not be able to play mp3 files) and 16 MB is recommended.
Registering
The trial version allows you to launch and evaluate LetsSee for 20 times. After that we ask you to register LetsSee. The unregistered version of LetsSee will occassionally render a file icon with a letssee tag in it (only if you choose the render file icon menu). Unregistered users will so now and then be reminded to register.
Our online registration form can be found at: http://order.kagi.com/?42S&& or use the register program. See the register readme for more information.
We allow LetsSee to be downloaded and used to evaluate the power and speed - however if you decide you want to keep it we ask that you register your copies with us. For each and every Macintosh you wish to leave LetsSee installed on you are required to pay a registration fee of 15 US dollars.
How to use it
When you roll the mouse over the buttons an online helptext will be displayed at the bottom of the window, you can switch off this feature in the preference panel.
Filebrowser
How to open a folder? Drop a file on the application icon. Drop a folder on the main window. Use the open button or the open menuitem. Click on the desktop button to display your dekstop, use the disk button for fast acces to all mounted volumes.
The filebrowser listbox acts like any normal listbox, select a row to view the image or movie, you can use arrow keys to step one row down or up. Use type selection to jump directly to the file you want to see. Doubleclick a folder to display its content (or hit enter when a folder is selected). Click in the header to sort the listbox columns.
File properties panel
Select menu window -> show fileproperties to the display the panel (Command-I). When you select one or more files in the filebrowser listbox you can change and investigate the properties of the files. Click on the name field, filecomment field or creatorcode field to make it editable. To change for example the filename; type in the new name and confirm the change with the return key. Without this confimation nothing will be changed. Click on the visible button to toggle the files visibility. Use this button to hide or show your files.
You can change the comment of a file. This is an annotation saved within the file. Use it for example to add a personal note or display copyright information. If you allways add the same line of text, it is possible to set a commentstamp in the preferences dialog. If you click the word comment it works like a button and the text is added, stamped into the file.
Next to the name field you will find a button with wich you change the name of a file very fast. Handy if you want to mark your pictures. Use the preferences window to set your marker.
Toolbar
On the toolbar the most frequently used features are presented with a button.
- Use 'open' to open a folder with the standard selectfolder dialog.
- The 'slideshow' button starts the slideshow.
- The 'scale' button presents a popup menu in wich you can select the way a picture is scaled; 'fit if larger' will scale the picture when it is larger than the window but will display the picture in it's actual size if it smaller. 'Always fit' will always scale the picture to fit within the window also when the picture is actualy smaller. Futhermore you can select a percentage to scale the picture.
- Use the + and - button to zoom in and out a picture (command + or command -)
- With the two arrows you can rotate a picture 90 degrees clockwise or counter clockwise. See the menu for more rotating options. You cannot rotate a picture if you scaled it with a percentage. Use arrow-key left and right to rotate the picture.
- With the 'visibility' popup menu button, the filebrowser listbox will display only those files of selected type. Visible and/or invisible files.
- The recent button will present a popupmenu with the 15 recently viewed folders, the folders that are currently not visible for the application, for example because the folder is on a removeble disk or on a non mounted network disk are dimmed.
Batch change
The batch change window wich was present untill version 1.3 had been removed. It's now possible to select more than one file in the main window listbox with the shift or command key. You can use the file properties window to batch change your files. Every option, name, comment, type etc., in the file properties window works on all selected files. When you want to change the name of multiple files a number will be added. The render file icon option and move to trash also work on all selected files. Two menu options, 'select all' and 'invert selection' have been provided.
Slideshow
In this version the slide has been complete changed and rewritten
The setup features and options can be set prior to running the slide show, using the second tab in the preferences dialog.
Duration: you can set the number of seconds between slides.
Advance: Automatic: The slideshow will display all pictures in the current folder and will advance to the next picture without the need of manual interaction. The same goes for 'random' but the slideshow will not display the next picture in the current folder but a random chosen one. Choose the manual option if you don't want the slideshow to start automatically. Use the arrow icons onscreen, the arrow keys or the thumbnails to view your pictures.
Scale: a popup menu in wich you can select the way a picture is scaled; 'fit if larger' will scale the picture when it is larger than the window but will display the picture in it's actual size if it smaller. 'Always fit' will always scale the picture to fit within the window olso when the picture is actualy smaller.
Logo: You can select a picture to be displayed over the slideshow pictures from the current folder. Like tv stations do. Use it to display your company or personal logo. If you click the set button you can select any picture on your disks. Use the the same button to clear this picture.
If a picture called 'mask' is in the same folder where your logo is, this picture is taken as a mask to display your logo. You can use it to draw a (partial) transparant logo. How does this work. Make a black and white picture of the same width and height of the logo picture. When LetsSee finds a white pixel in the mask no logo-picture pixel is drawn. When LetsSee finds a black pixel in the mask a normal logo pixel is drawn. And for the grey pixels in the mask: a mixed color, between background and logo is displayed.
It's probably best to experiment a little like this. Choose a (small) picture you would like to display over your slideshow. Duplicate this image and open it in your favorite photo editing program. Make it black and white and save it. Now rename it to 'mask' and start the slideshow. You'll notice the transparancy.
Show thumbnails: This checkbox will if checked display a row of thumbnails in the bottom of the slideshow window. You can click the thumbs to display a picture. Use the arrow icons to scroll. You will find a new icon in the slideshow window with which you can switch between the view with thumbnails and the fullscreen view without thumbs.
Transition: this popup menu gives you the ability to display your pictures with transitions. A slider has been made to adjust the speed of the transitions to your personal needs.
The slideshow starts with the picture you selected in the filebrowser listbox. The icons at the bottom of the window show online help. When LetsSee is bussy opening a large image file, these icons will possibly not react to mouseclicks, therefore keyboard shortcuts can be used. With the spacebar you can start and stop the slideshow. Use the escape key to close the slideshow window. The arrow keys to see the previous or next media file. With the keyboard shortcut: command-arrow left and right it is possible to rotate a picture.
Keyboard shortcuts
main window
command - O Open a new folder to view
command - Q Quit LetsSee
command - K Change the name of a file
command - L Launch
command - F Reveal a file in the finder
command - M Render one or more file icons
command - backspace Move selected files to the trash
command - D Go to desktop
command - R Go to the root of yout main harddisk
command - arrow - up Go one level up in the file hierarchy
arrow up Select a file up
arrow right Rotate right
arrow left Rotate left
arrow down Select a file down
command - I Toggle the fileproperties window
command + Zoom in
command - Zoom out
spacebar start/stop if a movie is selected
Enter if a folder is selected in the listbox hit enter to view its content
Slideshow
Escape Close the slideshow window
spacebar start/pause the slideshow
command - arrow - right rotate right
command - arrow - left rotate left
Tips
- Memory: If you frequently want to view very large images you could get and out of memory message. You should consider increasing the amount of memory. Remember that some files, like jpeg, are compressed. To open these files they will have to be decompressed. That means that a 700 k jpeg file can take up to 7 MB of application memory. With virtual memory on it should be easy to open a 35 Mb photoshop file.
- Creatorcode: With the creatorcode you can change the default application that opens when you doubleclick a file in the finder. For example if you downloaded a bunch of files from the internet and would like to see them in photoshop, rather than apple's imageviewer, than you could change the creator code to 8BIM. This code is case sensitive. If you don't know wich code to use, locate a file on your harddisk that 'belonges' to the application you would like to be the default application. Copy the creatorcode in the fileproperties panel. Go back to the file you wanted to change, paste the code in the creatorcode field and hit return to confirm the change.
Known problems
With some digital camera's and pcmcia adapters it is possible to keep these devices mounted while they are disconnected. If you see a camera icon on your desktop while the camera is disconnected or turned off LetsSee can give unpredictable results.
Comments and future versions
LetsSee is work in progress. If you have any remarks, if you did find a bug or have wishes about future versions please inform us at LetsSee@kagi.com
Fine Print
You may distribute this program in any way you wish as long as you do not break LetsSee up into it's component files and distibute parts of it individually. Please inform us when you make these files downloadable from a website or distribute them by cd-rom or any other kind of media.
LetsSee does currently not have an undo feature. Although you can undo every action manually, be carefull.
100Ron Media hereby disclaims all warranties relating to this software, whether express or implied, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. 100Ron Media will not be liable for any special, incidental, consequential, indirect or similar damages due to loss of data or any other reason, even if 100Ron Media or an agent of theirs has been advised of the possibility of such damages. In no event shall 100Ron Media be liable for any damages, regardless of the form of the claim. The person using the software bears all risk as to the quality and performance of the software.
