F-Spot: An iPhoto Replacement for Linux
Eric Fleming
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When looking at photo management applications, iPhoto, the photo management application by Apple, has fast b 
ecome a standard (or at least a standard template) for other programs. Linux has three applications that follow iPhoto's general look and feel - Digikam (for KDE), Picasa (from Google), and F-Spot (for Gnome). This review will go over one of the newest of these programs - F-Spot.
One of F-Spot's greatest "selling" points is its incredibly simple interface. There are very few buttons, sliders, check boxes or icons in the main interface. All you are presented with is a timeline at the top of the window, to show groups of photos and when they were added to the library, a side bar on the left of the window that shows different collections, and then - the largest part of the interface - the photos themselves. While F-Spot could have chosen to present every available option in the main interface (much as Microsoft Word presents its users with dozens and dozens of buttons), only the most commonly used options are visible in F-Spot.
When browsing, photos can be looked at either by date added to the library or by tags. Tags are similar to the albums in iPhoto, and are simply a way of organizing photos by any category the user wishes. For instance, if a number of photos were taken at a birthday party, the tag "birthday party" could be added. Then, if - at a later date - more pictures were taken at a different birthday party, the same tag could be added, and all photos would be in the same place. For further refinement, more than one tag can be added.
F-Spot supports the most popular file formats as well, including jpeg, fig, ping and svg, as well as uncompressed formats such as tiff and raw. This allows F-Spot to truly be a library of ALL your photos, and not just photos that come from certain sources.
One of F-Spot's greatest "selling" points is its incredibly simple interface. There are very few buttons, sliders, check boxes or icons in the main interface. All you are presented with is a timeline at the top of the window, to show groups of photos and when they were added to the library, a side bar on the left of the window that shows different collections, and then - the largest part of the interface - the photos themselves. While F-Spot could have chosen to present every available option in the main interface (much as Microsoft Word presents its users with dozens and dozens of buttons), only the most commonly used options are visible in F-Spot.
When browsing, photos can be looked at either by date added to the library or by tags. Tags are similar to the albums in iPhoto, and are simply a way of organizing photos by any category the user wishes. For instance, if a number of photos were taken at a birthday party, the tag "birthday party" could be added. Then, if - at a later date - more pictures were taken at a different birthday party, the same tag could be added, and all photos would be in the same place. For further refinement, more than one tag can be added.
F-Spot supports the most popular file formats as well, including jpeg, fig, ping and svg, as well as uncompressed formats such as tiff and raw. This allows F-Spot to truly be a library of ALL your photos, and not just photos that come from certain sources.