Image Mod Proposal: Indexing Service

[Ed Kolis]

You know what the Imagemod needs? An indexing service! How many times have you looked through your images folders looking for just the right bitmap for your new component or facility, knowing you'd seen it before, but not remembering exactly where it was? Well, MS Office has its clipart index, so why not an index for the Imagemod? I'm thinking maybe I could write a program where you could type in a keyword and it would search through a database that we'd collectively create; the database would simply assign each image to one or more categories, and the program would take your search query and look for matching images! Of course future Imagemod submissions would be easier to find if their submitters would provide some keywords to search for their images by. So what do you think - something worth doing?

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Download the SE4Modder tool from Malfador's SE4 Mod page (or wherever, I think I DL'ed it from Malfador) and look into the images using that program. It's also a great modding tool.

[Suicide Junkie]

The very simple answer:
- look at the minis!

Each row is even numbered for convenience down the right hand side.

[Ed Kolis]

I do look at the minis (actually the thumbnails that the file manager creates), but there's still a LOT to look through... some sort of filtering would be nice, don't you think?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I say filtering. Finding stuff goood.

[Kana]

I agree some sort of catagories, or filing system would be good...then would be modders could find just the right image for their components, facilities, and such. I have a print out of the thumbnails from one of the image mods, and I was sifting through them one by one, trying to find and assign certain images for components in my SFB mod. Time consuming to say the least...anything easier, and or faster is always welcome...

Kana

[Suicide Junkie]

Eew, yuck, no.
Don't bother with windowsey thumbnails.
Just open up the minis. components.bmp or facilities.bmp or etc.

You get a couple hundred on one screen and can quickly scan.
When you see one that might be good, pop open the portrait to make sure there aren't any wierd details you missed with the mini, and plug it into your mod.

[Captain Kwok]

Sometimes you can't make out the finer details in the minis, so I prefer to just scan the pictures\components directory with thumbnails on in WinXP.

[Suicide Junkie]

Even without the details, you should be able to narrow down your choices to a mere 3-5 instead of 2000+.

Of course, if it works for you, stick with it...
If you find its taking too long, try the minis.