Downloads

Version 0.4.0 available (released 2007-05-02)

What is PythoPhotoPod?
PythoPhotoPod is a Python-based GTK+ GUI for Linux synchronizing photos and photo albums with your iPod (tm)¹ (see a list of supported iPods below).

Why PythoPhotoPod?
iTunes (tm)¹, the official tool supplied with each iPod, is only available for two proprietary operating systems. If, like me, you don't have any of those, or Linux simply is your favourite choice, then this is the tool you need to use your iPod's photo capability.

Screenshots
See the screenshots to find out what you get. Click images to see larger screenshots. The exact looks and window style depend on your window manager and settings of course.

Requirements
PythoPhotoPod has the following system requirements:

• Python installation, at least version 2.3
• GTK+ and Python-gtk support
• Linux operating system
• One of the supported Apple iPod (tm)¹ models:
  • iPod Photo (tm) (also known as "Apple iPod with a color display")
  • iPod Video(tm)
  • iPod Nano (tm)
• Working USB or fire wire connection between your iPod and PC.

Python and GTK should be default parts of most Linux installations. In some distributions (such as SuSE Linux) you may need to select and install the optional “python-gtk” module.

Features of PythoPhotoPod

• Create Photo Albums:
  • Each photo album contains images located in a directory on your local disk. PythoPhotoPod automatically synchronizes the photo album with the directory contents. Adding, changing or removing photos in your local directory will be recognized by PythoPhotoPod the next time you update your iPod.
  • Create new photo albums simply by dropping a file system folder on PythoPhotoPod's album list.

• Manage Photo Albums:
  • Change the order of the photo albums as they are shown in the iPod's photo album list. Just drag the album in the album list to change their order. Use "up" and "down" buttons alternatively.

• Configure Photo Albums:
  • Configure the name of each album as displayed on your pod.
  • Set directory location of each photo album on your local machine.
  • Optionally photos within the subdirectories of the given album location can be included.
  • A list of file masks can be configured to restrict the album to images of certain type (e.g. "*.jpg:*.gif:*.png").
  • A list of exclude masks can be given to identify images which shall not be part of the album (e.g. "thumb*.jpg:*_thumb.gif").

• Image Options:
  • Zoom option: PythoPhotoPod resizes images to fit your iPod display. Normally images are shrunk to fit the entire image in the iPod's display. This, however, may result in black stripes above/below your image, unless your image exactly matches the aspect ratio of the iPod display. When the zoom option is enabled PythoPhotoPod removes black stripes by zooming-in the image. As a result the image covers the entire iPod display, but image areas at the left and right border may be cut off.
  • Rotate option: Images in upright format (image height is larger than width) will result in large black stripes at the left and right edge of the iPod display. With the rotate option enabled, PythoPhotoPod rotates such images by 90 degrees. To view such images on your iPod - just turn your iPod by 90 degrees - there you go! This works beautifully with entire albums of such images. Of course, this option only affects images displayed on your iPod directly. It has no effect on the iPod's TV image (Rotating an entire TV set is widely seen as rather uncomfortable... ;-) ).

• iPod Preview:
  • When you select an image in an album, PythoPhotoPod automatically displays an image preview. This preview reflects size and shape of the image as it will be displayed on your iPod.

• Supported image formats:
  • PythoPhotoPod supports all standard image formats (basically all formats supported by GTK+). This includes bmp, jpeg, gif, png, xpm and many others. Specialized “raw” image formats of some digital camera types are not supported though. You'll need to convert such images to a standard format first.

• Supported languages:
  • Currently PythoPhotoPod only supports English language. A future version may introduce multi-lingual support. If you want to translate PythoPhotoPod to your favorite language, see below for "Help wanted".

Limitations

• Currently PythoPhotoPod only writes your iPod photo database. It will not read or upload any image or album data from your iPod. Hence, PythoPhotoPod should be the only tool working on the photo database on your iPod. Note, that the photo database is completely separate from the music and artwork (images associated with songs) databases. So, it's fine to use other tools working on these databases, such as gtkPod.

• PythoPhotoPod does not yet support images containing an alpha-channel (images with transparency information). This problem will be fixed with an upcomming version.

• PythoPhotoPod should be working nicely with iPod Photo (the iPod with a color display), iPod Video and also iPod Nano. Once new iPod models are available, the tool will probably need to be adapted. Please note that only photo synchronization is supported - you cannot synchronize videos etc.

Non-features
PythoPhotoPod does NOT and will NOT support the following features:

• Synchronize songs with your iPod. I recommend to use gtkPod instead.

• Associate artwork with songs on your iPod. The artwork database of the iPod is separate from the photo database. PythoPhotoPod does not affect the album artwork.

• Support of any other pods except Apple iPods.

Help wanted

• If you want to translate PythoPhotoPod to a language not yet supported and are willing to update the language support whenever a new version of PythoPhotoPod is released, then please contact me. However, the current version only supports one language - localization support will be added with an upcomming version.

Acknowledgements
Thanks to everyone who contributed to wikiPodLinux at http://www.ipodlinux.org/ITunesDB. Without your help this tool hadn't been possible.

LEGAL

• iPod and iTunes and are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S.A. and other countries.

• This software is neither written, nor published by Apple Inc. It is not supported, approved or affiliated in any way with Apple.

• This software is published under the GNU General Public License. See detailed license information within this package.

• Software written and copyright (c) 2005-2007, Thorsten Brehm, thbr (at) users dot sourceforge dot net.

(c) 2005-2007, Thorsten Brehm, thbr (at) users dot sourceforge dot net.