Hi everybody

I'm a programmer and microstocker at the same time and today I'm pleased to present my piece of free and open source software. It's named Xpiks (Cross-platform Image Keywoarding Software) - keywording and uploading tool for microstock photographers and illustrators. It was written from scratch with aim to make it more usefull, convenient and quicker than existing tools.

Program is available for OS X, Windows and Linux.

Main features:

• keywording capabilities as well as setting additional XMP/IPTC metadata (title, description, author)
• uploading images to Stock Agencies' FTP hosts (keeping encrypted list of credentials)
• keywords suggestion based on Shutterstock API or local library
• search through loaded images by any metadata (keywords, description, title)
• ability to upload vector (eps/ai) files with images with same name (useful for illustrators)
• automatically zip vectors and previews if needed
• checks for potential problems before upload (insufficient resolution, missing metadata etc.)
• spell checking

Main website

UPD.Introduction video

Facebook page

Tutorial part 1
Tutorial part 2
Tips and Tricks

Any feedback would highly appreciated would it be good or bad. In case you've found any bugs or misfunction, please, check out this page (http://ribtoks.github.io/xpiks/blog/2015/how-to-report-an-error) on how to report it.

If you have any questions please, ask them in the Support section on the Xpiks Website, because it's hard to keep track of all forums. I will definitely respond within 24 hours (due to the difference in time zones).

I'm developing Xpiks only in my free time and anybody is welcome to join the development on Github (https://github.com/Ribtoks/xpiks). Any help would be highly appreciated - see Contributors Guidelines file in the repository.

If you liked program or found it useful for your needs, you can support development sending any amount of money to my Skrill account kushnirtv at gmail dot com

There's a new release of Xpiks available. Visit the downloads page http://ribtoks.github.io/xpiks/downloads/ to grab it.

Improvements:

• Keywords Suggestion from the local library
• New dialogs for single item editing
• Advanced filtering support
• Improved scrolling support
• Improved warnings checking

Fixes:

• focus stealing while scrolling
• upload percentage for windows issue

Can you use this application to 'stamp' metadata like title, description and keywords back into the exif/iptc fields of the image itself? When I save the image from within Xpiks it puts a .xpks file next to it - presumably this is some kind of sidecar file that contains the metadata I added?

Quote from: fotoVoyager on November 09, 2015, 18:26
Can you use this application to 'stamp' metadata like title, description and keywords back into the exif/iptc fields of the image itself? When I save the image from within Xpiks it puts a .xpks file next to it - presumably this is some kind of sidecar file that contains the metadata I added?

Hi

.xpks file is just the backup. Title, description and keywords are written to the exif/iptc fields of the image itself. Backup is useful if you made some edits and then somehow exited the program without saving or blackout or etc. Afterwards you can restore everything from the backup.

You can always turn off/on creation of the backups in Settings ->  Behavior -> Create backups for items

Thank you for sharing this wonderful software. I am using stocksubmitter already but am not quite happy with it so I will surly try this one now

I love your program. It took me a little bit of time to realize I didn't have to save separate backups of every file, but it's been smooth sailing since then.

Hello everybody. While new Xpiks 1.1 release is coming (in few hours), I've created official Xpiks page on Facebook. It would be great if you will support Xpiks by promoting the page with likes or reshares. Thank you. https://www.facebook.com/Xpiks-748703535265682/

New release of Xpiks is available! Xpiks 1.1 brings to you spell checking, auto updates and a lot of small improvements! Download release here http://ribtoks.github.io/xpiks/downloads/

Don't forget to support Xpiks with sharing and promoting Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Xpiks-748703535265682/

Major features of this release:

• Automatic spell checking and suggestion for all metadata
• Automatic checking for updates
• Added plain text mode for keywords editing
• Speed improvements with large collections
• Editing of separate keywords
• Improvements for UI of some popups on large monitors
• Improvements on keywords pasting
• Exact search terms parsing (with exclamation mark before word like "!man")

I love this program. I am having an issue with the latest release. It loads fine, and imports photos fine, but when I go to the Upload screen and then click Start Upload, I'm getting a weird error, and the uploads do not go forward:

"The program can't start because VCRUNTIME140.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem."

Quote from: jeffkjo on December 20, 2015, 04:05
"The program can't start because VCRUNTIME140.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem."

Hi. Thanks for ringing the bell. Can you please go to downloads and download Xpiks again? I've updated zip archive. It should have name Xpiks-v1.1.zip. Looking forward to hearing from you

That took care of it. Thanks.

There's a new bugfix release available. It should have reached you via auto update. Now importing/exporting of files takes literaly 10 times less time than before.

And about vectors?

Quote from: cgartist on January 10, 2016, 06:13
And about vectors?

What exactly about vectors?

Xpiks can upload them and zip if necessary (if you will tick the box). What else?

Quote from: ribtoks on January 10, 2016, 07:42

Quote from: cgartist on January 10, 2016, 06:13
And about vectors?

What exactly about vectors?

Xpiks can upload them and zip if necessary (if you will tick the box). What else?

Oh amazing.. I haven't tested it out till now.. will do it soon, the images looks promising. Great work bro.

Its crashes after I agree to the terms and go to main window.

Quote from: cgartist on January 14, 2016, 08:59
Its crashes after I agree to the terms and go to main window.

What? You're the first one to report this kind of bug.

Can you please describe your operating system and send a report about a bug using guide http://ribtoks.github.io/xpiks/blog/2015/how-to-report-an-error/ I'll take a look at it ASAP.

Quote from: ribtoks on January 14, 2016, 09:04

Quote from: cgartist on January 14, 2016, 08:59
Its crashes after I agree to the terms and go to main window.

What? You're the first one to report this kind of bug.

Can you please describe your operating system and send a report about a bug using guide http://ribtoks.github.io/xpiks/blog/2015/how-to-report-an-error/ I'll take a look at it asap.

I am using windows 10 64 bit with 8gb nivida 880m card

I also didn't got any installation file.. Its was all extracted file so I have no log directory
"on Windows they should be at C:/Users/USERNAME/AppData/Roaming/Xpiks/ directory"

Quote from: cgartist on January 14, 2016, 09:07
I am using windows 10 64 bit with 8gb nivida 880m card

This is very strange since I have around 80 users on Win10 at the moment and none of them experienced such a disaster. I'm looking forward to receiving a log from you so I can investigate it.

Quote from: cgartist on January 14, 2016, 09:10
I also didn't got any installation file.. Its was all extracted file so I have no log directory
"on Windows they should be at C:/Users/USERNAME/AppData/Roaming/Xpiks/ directory"

When Xpiks is launched it writes to logfile. Doesn't matter about installation files.
if your username is cgartist on your computer, than please take a look at

C:\Users\cgargist\AppData\Roaming\Xpiks

Also you can just type '%APPDATA%\Xpiks' (without quotes) in your explorer path edit line

Quote from: cgartist on January 14, 2016, 08:59
Its crashes after I agree to the terms and go to main window.

Please, send me also Windows crash report and screenshot with a crash.
Thank you

Quote from: ribtoks on January 14, 2016, 09:43

Quote from: cgartist on January 14, 2016, 08:59
Its crashes after I agree to the terms and go to main window.

Please, send me also Windows crash report and screenshot with a crash.
Thank you

It closes automatically, there isn't any crash window present.

Also I found the log file and here is what I got.

Quote14.01.2016 12:17:28.198 - Debug: Log started
14.01.2016 12:17:28.205 - Debug: Reading local artworks library...
14.01.2016 12:17:28.205 - Info: Reading settings values
14.01.2016 12:17:28.221 - Info: Initializing upload infos from string
14.01.2016 12:17:28.226 - Debug: About to load main view...
14.01.2016 12:17:29.465 - Debug: Main view onCompleted handler
14.01.2016 12:17:29.465 - Debug: Main view loaded
14.01.2016 12:17:30.310 - Debug: Delayed onOpen timer triggered
14.01.2016 12:17:30.310 - Debug: Starting spellchecker service...
14.01.2016 12:17:30.310 - Debug: Starting backups saver service...
14.01.2016 12:17:30.311 - Info: Update service: checking for updates...
14.01.2016 12:17:30.374 - Debug: Hunspell initialized with AFF "\\\\?\\C:\\Users\\USER\\Desktop\\Xpiks-qt-v1.1.3\\dict\\en_US.aff" and DIC "\\\\?\\C:\\Users\\USER\\Desktop\\Xpiks-qt-v1.1.3\\dict\\en_US.dic"
14.01.2016 12:17:30.376 - Debug: "Encoding of AFF set to UTF-8"
14.01.2016 12:17:30.596 - Debug: Opened dialog Dialogs/WhatsNewDialog.qml. Opened dialogs count is 1
14.01.2016 12:17:30.958 - Debug: Opened dialog Dialogs/TermsAndConditionsDialog.qml. Opened dialogs count is 2
14.01.2016 12:17:32.384 - Debug: Reporting action 0
14.01.2016 12:17:32.385 - Debug: Dialog closed. Opened dialogs count is 1
14.01.2016 12:17:33.871 - Debug: Saving current xpiks version
14.01.2016 12:17:33.872 - Debug: Dialog closed. Opened dialogs count is 0
14.01.2016 12:17:34.165 - Debug: Telemetry report submited successfully
14.01.2016 12:17:36.133 - Info: Update service: available = 113 current = 113
14.01.2016 12:17:36.134 - Info: Updates checking loop finished
14.01.2016 12:17:36.134 - Debug: Updates worker finished
14.01.2016 12:17:38.707 - Info: Reading settings values
14.01.2016 12:17:38.822 - Debug: Opened dialog Dialogs/SettingsWindow.qml. Opened dialogs count is 1
14.01.2016 12:17:45.113 - Debug: Opened dialog Dialogs/LogsDialog.qml. Opened dialogs count is 2

Quote from: cgartist on January 14, 2016, 12:20
It closes automatically, there isn't any crash window present.

cgartist, if there's no crash window present how would you know if it's a "crash"? Is there a Windows crash window? (Like "Application Xpiks stopped working. Check the solution online blah-blah-blah"?) If there is one, it contains some useful information - I would appreciate if you would grab it and send me.

The log file you pasted here looks like absolutely healthy. Maybe you accidentaly clicked "Disagree" and Xpiks just closed?

And please - send logs and bugs-related stuff to the Support forum on the xpiks website http://ribtoks.github.io/xpiks/support/. Maybe it will be useful for other users as well.

No, there isn't any kind of notification I get when it crashes.. It runs fine for a minute and closes, automatically....

I have runned it as admin, and I see its working fine.. I will keep you updated if it closed again.. thanks