While the picture (which looks nice and interesting)
gives an idea of what you have in mind,
it does not really explain the thing... ;-)
Before something like this is realized, a bit of 
brain-storming is needed to get it right.

Some thoughts:
- this sounds like a kipi-plugin to me
- images should be selectable in digikam's thumbnail view
  and then be added to the combine tool
- the combine tool should have a thumbnail-list
  (e.g. light the Light Table has)
- from there images are added to the templates
  by drag-and-drop (or some keyboard shortcuts)
- a wide choice of different templates should be available
- creation of new templates should be easily possible.
  I.e. a kind of (separate?) template editor will be needed.
- Users should be able to contribute templates to digikam.
- Initially templates should only support rectangles
  (later, circles, ellipses or even more complicated shapes might
  be useful)
- the (rectangular) region for one image should allow for decoration
  (border, drop shadow, smooth blend with the background, ...)
- a background image should be possible
- adding Text should be possible
- It should be possible to save such a project (without and maybe with
  images) for later modification
- When an image (of a certain size and aspect ratio) is
  placed onto a template region, it (usually) has to be resized and
  cropped. 
  Thus for each image a different scaling would be needed
  and a separate positioning
  (E.g. scaling could be done by CTRL+mousewheel and shifting
   via the middle mouse)
- To make such operations fast, they could all be done
  on the thumbnails and only later the full version would be generated.
- When scaling images, applying an unsharp mask 
  should be possible afterwards.

Hmm, I better stop here, that's a lot already ....
Are there already any other programms around which do something like this?

Arnd

This basically looks like enhanced CD cover creator and this wish is 
covered in Bug 146869. IMO more important that good looks is printing of 
some data like filename, size, etc. One comment: NO CROPPING.

----------------------------------------------------
Sztuka zakazanego autora! 
Operetka Witolda Gombrowicza! 
Zobacz ju

Yes indeed, a CD template would presumably allow to cater for 
your CD cover wish! One could think of additional lines of texts below 
the image (with adjustable font, size, and layout)
with text coming from any of the relevant fields (or arbitrary text).

However, what do you mean by "NO CROPPING"?
If you have a 3:2 image and want to put that into a 1:1 rectangle,
I don't see how you want to do that without cropping
(leaving squeezing or that smart-resizing aside)?
I.e., if you want to create a collage out of several images
to produce a postcard, it makes perfect sense to only use part
of an image.

Arnd, 

This sound like a wish for a new kipi-plugin... Isn't it ?

Gilles

Yes, Gilles, changed accordingly.

BTW, transparency (and alpha masks) would be nice as well ...

*** Bug 148796 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

José,

This file still valid with new PhotoLayoutEditor tool introduced with kipi-plugins 2.3.0 ?

Gilles Caulier

(In reply to comment #7)
> José,
> 
> This file still valid with new PhotoLayoutEditor tool introduced with
> kipi-plugins 2.3.0 ?
> 

Sorry but it think it should stay open : PhotoLayoutEditor is very powerfull but too slow to use. It bring just the same functions as GIMP or Fotowall for moving/scaling/rotating, while the idea of this wish is to tile automaticaly the select images from digikam. The only option should be to choose for each photo the tile size : 1x1, 2x2, 3x4, etc.

(In reply to comment #8)
> Sorry but it think it should stay open : PhotoLayoutEditor is very powerfull
> but too slow to use. 
This is the future work and there are a lots of stuff to do - improve performance and also memory usage.

> It bring just the same functions as GIMP or Fotowall for
> moving/scaling/rotating, while the idea of this wish is to tile automaticaly
> the select images from digikam. The only option should be to choose for each
> photo the tile size : 1x1, 2x2, 3x4, etc.
This is a plan for Digikam Coding Sprint to add such functionality.

José,

This file still valid with last kipi-plugins 4.10.0 ?

Gilles Caulier

(In reply to Gilles Caulier from comment #10)
> José,
> 
> This file still valid with last kipi-plugins 4.10.0 ?

I just have kipi-plugins 4.8.0, but as far as I see, it still doesn't provide any automated layout.

In my github acccount, i ported this experimental Qt4 code to Qt5 :

https://github.com/cgilles/cute-collage

It do the job about automatic collage feature.

This code must be backported in new photolayout editor where i currently work :

https://github.com/cgilles/digikam-photolayouteditor

Gilles Caulier