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Level 1

4 points

Rotating pictures in Preview

A co-author and I are writing a book. Research entailed visiting many archives, and photographing pages of cellar books, and of wine catalogues. Naturally enough, pages were photographed in order: at each archive, oldest books first, and within each book the pages from oldest entry to newest.

We have about fifteen thousand pictures, my folder structure on my computer being the same as that on his.

With Snow-Leopard Preview I would go to the folder for that archive, command-A command-O, and all the pictures would open. I could scroll from one picture to the next, either gesturing within the sidebar, or with appropriate keys. About half of all pictures needed rotating, done with command-R. So far, so good. Indeed, so excellent.

Now to my new Mac, a 27" beauty that came with OS Lion. The large screen is to see big pictures at the same time as editing the words of the book. And again, command-A, command-R, and scroll away. Ooooh: that picture is at ninety degrees: command-R. Annoying rhythm-breaking dialog box asks whether I want to unlock it (no, never ever change my original pictures, just never) or duplicate it (or, uselessly, cancel). Duplicate. So now there is a new window with just that picture, rotated. About half of all pictures need rotating, so quite quickly my screen is a disorganised mess of one-picture windows.

I have owned a Mac since 1988: please let this not be Apple’s Mr Clippy moment. Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to the Apple store I go. I get some sympathy, and some agreement that for my purposes new Preview doesn’t work well. Suggestion: download the old Preview from somewhere. So to my old Mac, now somebody else’s; archive Preview (and TextEdit); FTP up; back to my machine; FTP down and unpack.

Preview has a long complicated error message, the crunchy bit perhaps being “Library not loaded: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MeshKit.framework/Versions/A/MeshKit”.

(Aside: TextEdit works, which I hoped was great—no more over-writing my files behind my back. Alas the new TextEdit in the applications folder is super-locked and can’t be overwritten.)

Back to Preview. Please, how can I have a bulk open of pictures, in the right order, which are not altered by Preview, which are easily rotated (no dialog box), and which post-rotation remain in the right order? No new files; and no changes to the old (=only) files. Rephrased, Snow-Leopard Preview was really good: please could I have it back?

iMac

Posted on Nov 7, 2011 11:51 AM

123 replies

jdaw1 Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 27, 2011 12:58 AM in response to Tony T1

… Lion sets the lock preference "ON" by default. If you attempt to change the file by rotating the image, OS X asks if you want to Duplicate, or Unlock and change the file.

So if you attempt to rotate Lion asks for a choice between:

New window, pictures out of order;
Change file that should not be changed;
Tilt head.

Snow Leopard allowed a still better option. Indeed, that was SL’s default: in order; no damage; no head tilt; and not even a rhythm-breaking dialog box. My apologies to SL’s developers for my having taken these things for granted.

It might be that a Lion-free application, as suggested by Tony T1, is better than Lion. But that would not be praise of Lion.

Nov 27, 2011 2:10 AM in response to Tom in London

Tom in London wrote:

It seems reasonable to assume that any document I create is my property. That's whether I create it with a pencil and paper, or with the Mac OS.

Or am I wrong?

Hmm. Nobody seems to have an answer.

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,516 points

Nov 27, 2011 3:43 AM in response to Tom in London

Ok, I'll answer: You're right But your characterisation of the issue is unclear.

What's a "document"?

There is no "Document" on your computer. There are no files. Files and Documents are metaphors used to help make the actual working of your computer intelligible to users.

What you own - indisputably - is your Data. So, that letter you create is yours. But that letter is not that file. It's the content. To mangle the metaphor further - the file is to data what a shoe box is to shoes.

The example I use is as follows: In my iTunes Library I have a file called 'Let_it_Be_The_Beatles.mp3'. So what is that, exactly? It's certainly not the song. The Beatles never wrote an mp3s, they didn't even exist then. They wrote a tune and some lyrics - a song. They recorded it and a copy of that recording is what is stored in the mp3 file.

But that same recording can aslo be stored in different containers - wav, AIFF, wmv. All different containers with different characteristics. Same song. Same recording of the same song.

So the file is just a container for the recording. That container is designed in a specific way attuned to the characteristics and requirements of the data. Hence, mp3.

So, the mp3 isn't the song, the jpeg isn't the photograph and that .doc or .rtf file isn't the letter. The letter is the data contained.

You seem to think that "files" are somehow inviolate. They're not. They change all the time. Someone emails you an attachment. Now there are at least three versions of the file: On his machine, on your machine and on the email server(s) and relays between your machine and his. And they are not identical. They were all created at different times for a start.

But they should contain the same data, and that's what's important.

Versions doesn't change the data. It records changes that you make to the data as it evolves, but you can revert to a version of the data at any time. The "file" changes all the time.

So to be clear: if someone sends you an email with an attachment and says "thou shalt not change this file" then you have a problem before you even open it, because it's already different from the one on his machine.

Regards

Nov 27, 2011 3:57 AM in response to Yer_Man

Terence, your reply brings to mind the word "obfuscation".

Let's not start nitpicking here.

My stuff is my stuff, whatever you want to call it.

The Mac OS is not my stuff, but the things I create with it are my stuff.

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,516 points

Nov 27, 2011 3:57 AM in response to Tom in London

Perhaps you need to read my post again:

So: are you saying that none of the data in anything I create is my property?

I said exactly the opposite.

What you own - indisputably - is your Data.

Regards

Nov 27, 2011 4:01 AM in response to Yer_Man

Terence Devlin wrote:

What you own - indisputably - is your Data.

Regards

TD

And to prove my point, while you were writing that I completely changed my, uh, data.

The Mac OS isn't my stuff, but the things I create on it are my stuff.

I hope that's true, or I've been going through life on the basis of a very serious misunderstanding.

jdaw1 Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 27, 2011 4:47 AM in response to Tom in London

TD is legally correct, and technically mostly correct. But the point of an Apple is that I don’t have to fret about technicals in the registry, instead the thing just works as it should. An Apple should do what a moderately naïve user thinks it would do. That’s why, for twenty-three years, my home machine has been an Apple.

If looking at book, there is © in the words (plotline, characters, etc) and also in the typesetting. If today a book written in 1930s is reprinted, then the © in the words might be about to expire. But the © in the new typesetting isn’t. The book is both words and container, even though they are different. Yet we know what we mean by a book.

A “file” is an English word that encapsulates some of the concepts relating to a digital container for a bunch of stuff. That file is stored — on a medium that itself might impose further abstraction — as a series of bytes, or of blocks of bytes. You know what “unchanged” means in that context — same byte stream. Yes, there will be metadata saying file …/…/…/…/…/… is stored in the following blocks on the hard disk, and that metadata location data, that file index, is subject to change by the OS. That isn’t the file, that is a pointer to its location(s). The OS might store other juicy meta-info: last opened, position of icon within its window, page at which to open it, whether to hide it from children, etc.

I make a file. Some of the files I make are plain text — e.g., a PostScript program. Others are more richly endowed with data I don’t know about (Excel spreadsheets). And others were made by a non-Apple device, such as a camera.

Not changing the plain text is easy, or at least used to be easy. Likewise the Excel spreadsheets, until Microsoft encourages Apple’s Mr Clippy. The user should have that control: don’t change my files without my consent, and rotating without explicit saving is not consent.

De-powering the user (auto-save) might well help some users some of the time. Apple’s error has been to extend that to all users all of the time.

Nov 27, 2011 5:36 AM in response to jdaw1

jdaw1 wrote:

don’t change my files without my consent

I wonder if this slightly reworded post will be deleted as my previous one on this subject was?

Define "my files" and "my consent".

Tony T1

Level 6

10,232 points

Nov 27, 2011 7:52 AM in response to jdaw1

jdaw1 wrote:

… Lion sets the lock preference "ON" by default. If you attempt to change the file by rotating the image, OS X asks if you want to Duplicate, or Unlock and change the file.

So if you attempt to rotate Lion asks for a choice between:

You commented that Apple made changes to your files without your permission.

As you can see, that is not correct.

Changes can only be made with your explicit permission.

BTW, I hope you don't have any old PowerPC Apps on your Mac!

Nov 27, 2011 7:56 AM in response to Tony T1

Tony T1 wrote:

Changes can only be made with your explicit permission.

That isn't correct. In Lion, my changes are saved without my permission.

Tony T1

Level 6

10,232 points

Nov 27, 2011 8:13 AM in response to Tom in London

Tom in London wrote:

jdaw1 wrote:

don’t change my files without my consent

I wonder if this slightly reworded post will be deleted as my previous one on this subject was?

Define "my files" and "my consent".

Here you go;

You open a file you created in an editor (i.e. Preview) (this is the definition of "my files")

You instruct the editor to rotate the file.

The editor opens a dialog box asking if you want to unlock the file to make changes (definition of "my consent")

The reason you do not understand this is due to the fact that you're on Snow Leopard (this change in document management was made in Lion)

And btw, if this was not your file, but instead a file sent to you by a client marked "This file is copyright and may not be altered or saved without my permission", and you unlocked and changed the file, you would be in violation of your clients copyright (unless, of course, he gave you permisson)

Tony

Nov 27, 2011 8:13 AM in response to Tony T1

Tony T1 wrote:

The reason you do not understand this is due to the fact that you're on Snow Leopard

Wrong again. I have Lion on another machine.

Tony T1

Level 6

10,232 points

Nov 27, 2011 8:14 AM in response to Tom in London

Tom in London wrote:

Tony T1 wrote:

The reason you do not understand this is due to the fact that you're on Snow Leopard

Wrong again. I have Lion on another machine.

Then there is no reason for you not to understand.

Stoaty

Level 1

4 points

Nov 27, 2011 8:52 AM in response to jdaw1

jdaw1 wrote:

If looking at book, there is © in the words (plotline, characters, etc) and also in the typesetting. If today a book written in 1930s is reprinted, then the © in the words might be about to expire. But the © in the new typesetting isn’t. The book is both words and container, even though they are different. Yet we know what we mean by a book.

Some are a bit lost here on the concept of copyright. You essentially copyright something when it becomes published or broadcast. Copyright laws vary from country to country. Copyright protects commercial exploitation of other peoples work and not their private use. Content sent to individuals by the author or owner is not necessarily subject to copyright protection and is best protected by contract. Files on a computer or sent between individuals are not necessarily subject to copyright . The author does not own the typesetting copyright the publisher does - I think that is Apple in your analogy.

De-powering the user (auto-save) might well help some users some of the time. Apple’s error has been to extend that to all users all of the time.

This is not an error by Apple - they know what most users want. Apple's philiosophy is to make things as simple as possible for the average user. The new Preview is simpler than the last. Most users do not want to keep a badly orientated photo once they have rotated it to the correct view. Asking them to "save" is another unnecessary step and the new system is simpler. If users mess up - they can roll-back to a previous version. Lion is so much better than Snow Leopard for almost all users. Switching versioning off by default would kill one of Lion's biggest features.

Nov 27, 2011 9:05 AM in response to Stoaty

Stoaty wrote: Switching versioning off by default would kill one of Lion's biggest features.

That's what I want. Until Autosave and Versioning are off by default, I can't work with Lion.

Rotating pictures in Preview