Jix

I've been having trouble uploading large image files with Jix. I've raised a support call, and asked in lj_dev but it's all a bit quiet.

Jix is still working for smaller files, and I think that when it goes wrong depends on your connection speed.

I think that it's Scrapbook that's broken, not Jix. The error that's returned doesn't make sense. I've tried uploading the same files with Semagic and got the same problem.

So apologies to anyone who's having this problem. Me too. 8~(
Uploading from the Scrapbook web page still works fine.

I've fixed a bug in my previous instructions on how to set up user tools. Opening a command prompt from Jix might not have taken you to the right drive. Changing a cd to a pushd fixed it.

I found this yesterday: the "Let's tag" page in ScrapBook, which I'd never seen before. It's lovely, as is the tag cloud page.

When you log in, Jix may give you an error message ending with "XML has no content". There seems to be an intermittent problem on the LJ ScrapBook server that causes this.

I have a support request open and I'm told that LJ developers are looking at the problem. I've seen both failure and success with logging in, so if this happens to you, it may be worth trying again later.

Update: this problem should now be fixed.

You can set up your own tools in Jix. This lets you do things like open a picture in your favourite image editor. When you're setting up tools (menu: Tools, Configure tools) you can press the Help button for some tips to get you started.

However, there are some quirks, so here are some examples of how to set up a few handy things on Windows.

Explore here

This will open the Windows Explorer in the right place for the current picture.
explorer.exe /e,"%d"

Open default app

This will open the current picture with the default program, just as if you'd opened the picture from the Windows Explorer.
cmd /c start cmd /c start "Starting %f . . ." "%f"
Yes, you do need cmd in there twice, and you do need "Starting" (or some other quoted title). See what I mean about quirks?

Prompt here

This will open a command prompt in the right place for the current picture.
cmd /c start cmd /k cd "%d"

Jix 0.4.0 is now available. The main change is that you can now post to LJ with your pictures after upload.

Download latest Jix version

Other changes:

• You can define a template for the HTML that Jix generates for you after uploading: you don't have to have 100x100 thumbnails.
• You can re-order Jix's view of the images on your computer.
• Number of tools increased to six.
• Improved image info dialog
• Fixed various issues

You will get an warning about the configuration file, including the place where Jix expects this file to be. You can allow Jix to create this file for you, or if you've used Jix before and you want to preserve your previous settings (user name, window size and position, tools, etc.) you can copy the previous file there. It is called jix.properties and it will be in the same place that Jix is installed, e.g. C:\Program Files\Jix on Windows or /Applications on a Mac.

If you know some Java and you want to fix Jix, you can! ( More info for Jix fixers...Collapse )

Previously, Mac users had to download Jix as a jar file. Now there's a Mac disk image on the downloads page that lets you install Jix as a regular Mac app.

No Jix releases for over a year, then two come along at once!

Jix 0.3.1 is available for download.

The only change this time is that you can now copy from the upload results dialog in a postable format. You get each image as a 100x100 thumbnail which links to the full sized image. Paste this into your blog post on LJ or wherever. Thanks to yankeppey for suggesting this feature.

Jix comes with a bonus app, Tilex. This turns an image into something that will tile without joins. You open an image, crop it and mirror it. If you like it, save it and try it on your computer desktop.

This doesn't sound much, but I've found it dangerously addictive. Some things make unexpectedly beautiful tiles: sections of clothing, buildings and plant life pleased me particularly. When you're cropping, look at what's near the edge of the crop. Most of all, trial and error will be rewarded, so if it's not good the first time, use the undo button.

I have put up a gallery of tiles - to get the full effect, try them on your desktop.

If you're on Windows, installer sets Tilex up for first-time users as a tool. If that hasn't happened, you can set it up yourself: on the Tools menu, choose Configure tools... and put this in the command box:
javaw -classpath "C:\Program Files\Jix\jix.jar" Tilex "%f"

If you're not on Windows, setting Tilex up for yourself is very similar. Try something like this in the command box (fixing the path as necessary):
java -classpath "/home/myaccount/bin/jix.jar" Tilex "%f"