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Crystal Image Toolkit 1.0.0 is ready to download.

Enhancements:

Factory object:  CrystalCollectorFactory was added to allow you to create the correct collector objects based on file or folder input.  Using this factory will help keep track of when objects are created.  See this post for details.

CrystalCollector: added StopCollector as a pure virtual method.  StopCollector stops the collection operation initiated by CollectImages.

CrystalCollector:  SortCrystalList with CrystalSortType.DisplayName will now sort the image items with case insensitivity.  This sort option uses DisplayNameLower property in CrystalImageItem.

CrystalImageItem:  Added ImageCorrupted property.  True means image is corrupt and cannot be displayed, false means it is safe to display.

CrystalImageItem:  Added DisplayNameLower property.  Takes the DisplayName string and does a ToLower call.

CrystalImageItem, CrystalCollector, and CrystalImageGridModel all implement IDisposable.  This objects hold references to Image objects, which can now be disposed of more efficiently.

Event notification: All events are now broadcast using the EventNotifier class.  This utility walks through the invocation list of a multi-cast delegate and checks to see if InvokeRequired is true before calling the delegate.

Code Cleanup:

Exception Handling Refactoring: Previously, the Crystal  Image Toolkit was eating all exceptions.  This was a bad practice and actually hid threading errors that were occurring in the forms and controls that were using the toolkit.  Now those exception handlers have all been removed, except for one in CrystalFileCollector:  LoadImage.  The exception here is caught when an image is corrupt and cannot be loaded from the disk.  In that case, ImageCorrupted in CrystalImageItem is set to true, see below.

CrystalCollector: AddView method was removed.  I had intended to support multiple views, but I need to wrap up this toolkit for the time being and move on to other projects.  Only 1 view is supported.  AddView has been changed to SetupView.  The internal list of views has been removed.

Download: Crystal Image Toolkit 1.0.0.  Totally free, open-source, C# .NET Framework 2.0 for Windows Forms, works with both Visual Studio 2005 and 2008.

Crystal Image Toolkit 0.82 is ready to download.

Minor Enhancements:

CrystalImageItem: Added DisplayName property.

This property will be used by CrystalImageGridView when it draws the text for the image item.  The DisplayName is separate and distinct from the ImageName.  ImageName for CrystalFileCollector is the name of the image file "image.png" whereas DisplayName could be "image1".

If DisplayName is not set, it will default to the value in ImageName.

CrystalImageItem: SplitImagePath now sets DisplayName as well as ImageName, ImageLocation.

CrystalImageItem: ToString() method uses DisplayName instead of ImageName.

CrystalImageGridModel, added new methods to help skip CrystalGroupItem objects...

1. FirstNonHeaderIndex:
       Finds the index of the first item in the model that is not a CrystalGroupItem.
2. LastNonHeaderIndex:
       Finds the index of the last item in the model that is not a CrystalGroupItem.
3. PrevNonHeaderIndex:
       Finds the index of the previous item in the model that is not a CrystalGroupItem.
4. NextNonHeaderIndex:
       Finds the index of the next item in the model that is not a CrystalGroupItem.

CrystalImageGridView: ShowThumbnails property added.

Set this property to false if you do not want anything displayed in the image grid view.  Only the gradient background will be shown. Setting the property back to true displays the thumbnail images.

CrystalImageGridView: DrawImageTitle now uses CrystalImageItem's DisplayName property for the title text.

CrystalComicShowController: unpack-wait dialog now positioned within the main form.

CrystalComicShowControllerDemo: Enhanced to convert images in CBR/CBZ files to a size compatible for viewing on the Sony PSP.  Fixed crashing bugs and sorting bugs from previous release.

Bug Fixes:

CrystalFileCollector: Images that have the hidden file attribute are now skipped when CollectImages is executed.

CrystalFileCollector, CrystalMemoryZipCollector, CrystalRarCollector:
Initial sorting of list was incorrect.  The sorting of the list must be done before the list/group item is added to the model.

CrystalImageGridView, CrystalPictureShow, CrystalPictureShowController:
Critical bug fixes where the controls tried to display or scroll to image item objects that were actually CrystalGroupItem objects.  The above methods are used to avoid them when necessary.

CrystalPictureShowController: Bug fix in DisplayImage.  Operations on the main GUI thread (_imageForm) synchronized with an Invoke and code inside MethodInvoker.

CrystalThumbnailer: Store method creates thumbnail folder if it does not exist.

CrystalThumbnailer: GetThumbnailName method bug fix, forward slashes '/' converted to '\'.  This was found in zip/rar files.

Code Cleanup:

CrystalImageItem: protected fields now change to private.
To access these values in child classes, you have to use the Properties encapsulating these fields.

CrystalTools: Class is now static (and therefore, sealed). 

Redundant Exception handlers were removed in various classes. 

NOTE: Exception handling will be revised in a near-future release.
Currently the toolkit is eating the exceptions and logging them; they obviously need to be thrown back to other objects in many cases.

Download: Crystal Image Toolkit 0.82.  Totally free, open-source, C# .NET Framework 2.0 for Windows Forms, works with both Visual Studio 2005 and 2008.

Crystal Image Toolkit 0.81 is ready to download.

New Feature: Header group items are now part of CrystalCollector, CrystalImageGridModel, and CrystalImageGridView.  You can now assign a group of thumbnail images to a collapsible header.  To illustrate this, here’s a screenshot from the demo application “HeaderGroupItemDemo” which is included in the project:

There are four header groups visible that you can see here (FF, Hulk, Iron Man, Spider-Man).  Each contains a set of thumbnails.  The arrow icon indicates the expanded state; you can replace this icon in the framework as I am just using a free icon here.  Likewise you can replace the folder icon to represent something unique about this group of images if you wish.  But what’s important to note here is that the header group can be collapsed/expanded by clicking on it:

Here I’ve collapsed two of the header items and left the other ones open.  You can see I have CrystalImageItem objects selected in each of the header groups.

In the C# code, Header groups translates to a CrystalGroupItem object containing a List of CrystalImageItem objects.  Each object now has a Parent property so it knows the group that it belongs to.  The biggest change in the collector is that now every GridModel has at least one root header. In the default mode, for backward compatibility, the header item is not displayed (ShowHeaders is set to false in CrystalImageGridView). This may cause problems in older applications that use CrystalImageGridView and try to navigate to item 0 in the GridModel.  You will need to do a test, such as: "if (theImage is CrystalGroupItem)".  See InitInitialImageImp in CrystalPictureShowController.cs for how to deal with this situation.

CrystalCollector now has an additional abstract method that requires you to CollectImages on a CrystalGroupItem object.  CrystalFileCollector implements this method and creates a default root header for simplicity.  But if you want to explicitly create CrystalGroupItem objects and add them to the collector, you do it like this:

   1: CrystalGroupItem groupItem = new CrystalGroupItem();

   2: groupItem.ImageName = "Fantastic Four";

   3: groupItem.ImageLocation = "..\\..\\SampleImages\\Fantastic Four";

   4: // Optional: set a unique image icon for this group header item in the image grid.

   5: //groupItem.FullImage = my Image icon;

   6: _theCollector.CollectImages(groupItem);

This is a bit of an early release of the header group feature.  In the future, I will add additional style bits for the header text font, add a border state around the header item, perhaps add mouse over events for it.

There are several bug fixes to the toolkit, which is why I wanted to release it now, even though this feature is a bit early.  To see all the bug fixes, please read the release notes in the zip file.

Download: Crystal Image Toolkit 0.81.  Totally free, open-source, C# .NET Framework 2.0 for Windows Forms.

Crystal Image Toolkit 0.80 is ready to download. 

New Features:

• CrystalImageGridView now has ZoomFactor: allows scaling of thumbnail images!
  See ZoomImageGrid demo and Crystal Picture Show Controller demo.
• CrystalPictureTracker: Pan Window that works with CrystalPictureShow.
  See Crystal Picture Show Controller demo.
• CrystalPictureShow: Hand cursors that allow the user to drag zoomed images around.
• CrystalImageGridView now has a new rounded rect border style.  Check out the groovy red borders in the Picture Show Controller demo.
• Crystal Toolkit now integrates log4net.  See CrystalLogger object.
  You can get even more debug logging by declaring CRYSTAL_DEBUG in project properties/build.

And now it's demo time, with Marvel comics pictures, of course:

CrystalImageGridView: ZoomFactor applied to zoom to a larger thumbnail image.  See my earlier article that explains how to set this up.  Changes were made to CrystalPictureShowController to add a second trackbar object to control thumbnail zooming. 

CrystalPictureTracker: Panning (controlling CrystalPictureBox) in separate window.  Tracker window appears when image is larger than client area.  You can close it, make it appear again by clicking on the Pan Window button.

CrystalImageGridView: Rounded borders on selected images.  There is now a property called BorderState that allows you to switch between these rounded borders and the old square frame.  Also, notice that in the split view mode, the CrystalPictureShowController hides the thumbnail trackbar and toolstrip objects auto-magically.   Thumbnail sizes in the split mode are fixed, whereas in the vertical orientation (with a sheet of thumbnails) they can be scaled.

This release comes in a ZIP file. Simply unzip the contents to your hard drive, navigate to the root Attilan folder, and double click on CrystalDemo.sln. This solution file contains the Crystal Toolkit plus demo programs. Just build the solution (which compiles the CrystalToolkit library first) and run the demo programs to see how they work. You can run the demo programs without building the source by clicking on "StartDemo.bat" in the root Attilan folder or CrystalDemoLauncher.exe in Attilan\bin.

Download: Crystal Image Toolkit 0.80.  Totally free, open-source, C# .NET Framework 2.0 for Windows Forms. 

Crystal Toolkit is a Windows Forms (.NET Framework 2.0) control library written in C#. This is the eighth release and contains the following updates:

Bug fixes.

1. CrystalGradientControl-derived classes, including CrystalLabel and CrystalPictureBox (but not CrystalTrackBar): Transparent backgrounds were not working previously. To set a transparent background, set BackColor property to the Transparent color. You can do this in design mode or programmatically. This makes TransparentMode=True. When this occurs, Color1 and Color2 are ignored. To get the Gradient color mode to work, set BackColor back to Control (or any other non-Transparent value) and then set Color1 and Color2 to the Gradient color scheme.

2. CrystalThumbnailer: Exceptions are now caught when an error occurs when thumbnailing images.

3. CrystalImageGridView: Bug fixes for keyboard navigation. When images were selected and right-mouse click inside the middle of the selection, the selected image list is retained.

This release comes in a ZIP file. Simply unzip the contents to your hard drive, navigate to the root Attilan folder, and double click on CrystalDemo.sln. This solution file contains the Crystal Toolkit plus demo programs. Just build the solution (which compiles the CrystalToolkit library first) and run the demo programs to see how they work. You can run the demo programs without building the source by clicking on "StartDemo.bat" in the root Attilan folder or CrystalDemoLauncher.exe in Attilan\bin.

I've tested the demos under Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista. Needless to say, buyers beware, this is alpha software and it's free open-source code: you get what you pay for! I'd welcome any feedback, bugs (or bug fixes), and thumb-bitmap replacements. Send email to richard [at] attilan {dot} com.

Download: Crystal Toolkit 077 (zip file, 8 mb)

Crystal Toolkit is a Windows Forms (.NET Framework 2.0) control library written in C#. This is the eighth release and contains the following updates:

New features.

1. CrystalPictureShowController: Allows you to tie the common elements of an image viewing application in one controller. Create a form with CrystalImageGridView, CrystalPictureShow, a combo box and trackbar for image scaling, toolbar buttons for navigation. Set all these elements in the controller and you are off and running. You still need to handle the split container and certain events (like initiating and terminating full screen modes) but the sample program below will show you how to do that.

   CrystalComicShowController: Allows you to tie the common elements of a comic book viewing (reading CBZ or CBR archive files) application in one controller. This may be the first C# toolkit designed to allow you to read CDisplay compatible files. Create a form with CrystalImageGridView, CrystalComicShow, a combo box and trackbar for image scaling, toolbar buttons for navigation. Set all these elements in the controller and you are off and running. The internal framework uses CrystalMemoryZipCollector for CBZ files and CrystalRarCollector for CBR files.

Enhancements.

1. CrystalCollector: Virtual methods moved from CrystalFileCollector to the base class. Sorting methods, Copy, Move, Delete, Rename, Select operations are moved here so that all derived classes can use them.

   CrystalImageGridView: FocusedImage property added - returns the current focused image. CenterCrystalImage public method added - centers the given image in the grid.

Demo Programs Expanded.

1. CrystalPictureShowController Demo: shows how to use the new controller to quickly develop an image grid viewer. This sample also shows you how to put the main form into a menuless, toolbarless, fully zoomed mode that takes over the entire screen. Just click on the Full Screen button. The Slideshow mode has been expanded to include an options dialog to allow you to set certain options like Shuffle, Repeat, or SlideShow effect.

2. CrystalComicShowController Demo: shows how to use the new controller, and in an indirect way, how to use CrystalToolkit to pull images out of compressed files. To get the full benefit of this demo, you will need to have a CBR or CBZ file on your hard drive. Run the demo program, click File\Open Comic Archive and open up the CDisplay compatible file. You should see the thumbnails start to appear and then the app zooms into full screen mode. Press ESC and you will see the sheet of thumbnails representing the comic book pages.

Bug fixes.

1. CrystalImageGridView: Right-mouse button no longer clears item selection.

This release comes in a ZIP file. Simply unzip the contents to your hard drive, navigate to the root Attilan folder, and double click on CrystalDemo.sln. This solution file contains the Crystal Toolkit plus demo programs. Just build the solution (which compiles the CrystalToolkit library first) and run the demo programs to see how they work. You can run the demo programs without building the source by clicking on "StartDemo.bat" in the root Attilan folder or CrystalDemoLauncher.exe in Attilan\bin.

I've tested the demos under Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista. Needless to say, buyers beware, this is alpha software and it's free open-source code: you get what you pay for! I'd welcome any feedback, bugs (or bug fixes), and thumb-bitmap replacements. Send email to richard [at] attilan {dot} com.

Download: Crystal Toolkit 076 (zip file, 7 mb)

Crystal Toolkit is a Windows Forms (.NET Framework 2.0) control library written in C#. This is the seventh release and contains the following updates:

Enhancements.

1. CrystalCollector: AddImage and AddImageItem methods allow you to add images without calling CollectImages and having it auto-magically thumbnail images. In using these methods, you pay a price in having to setup things correctly. See the demo program BorderSplitMode for more details about how this is used with CrystalMemoryCollector.

Demo Programs Expanded.

1. Demo Launcher program starts all demos. Click on "StartDemo.bat" in the root Attilan folder or CrystalDemoLauncher.exe in Attilan\bin.

2. Simple Image Grid Demo: A simple illustration of how to use CrystalImageGridView with the CrystalFileCollector to thumbnail disk-based images in a background thread.

3. BorderSplitMode Demo: Use CrystalImageGridView and a derived Collector to assign each image item its own border color, as I explained here in this article.

4. CrystalPictureBox Demo: Use CrystalPictureBox to display scrollable or ratio-stretched images.

5. CrystalPictureShow Demo: Use CrystalImageGridView to navigate thumbnail images and then use CrystalPictureShow to display them and perform Slideshows.

6. WaitForm PictureShow Demo: Use CrystalPictureShow to create a unique wait dialog.

Bug fixes.

1. CrystalTrackBar: SmallChange and LargeChange were implemented. Control was not behaving properly when nested inside a container like a Panel or GroupBox. I also fixed a bug where the thumb was not able to move between ticks, if you were going from 0 to 10, it would skip to 10. Now it will go 0, 1, 2, 3...10. In fixing CrystalTrackBar, I decided to prohibit TransparentMode. It wasn't working very well. I had no intention of making a TrackBar replacement, my goal was just to get a TrackBar on a ToolStrip. I've taken my old implementation of CrystalTrackBar and placed this into CrystalFixedTrackBar, which is used only by CrystalToolStripTrackBar. I'm afraid the TrackBar component will never be a full replacement in either case, but it works well enough in my Image Viewer application that I'm happy with it.

2. CrystalImageGridView: UseAlpha was set to true by default. This is now set to false by default.

3. CrystalComicShow: Normal "non-comic CDisplay" images were incorrectly displayed when going back using the left arrow key.

This release comes in a ZIP file. Simply unzip the contents to your hard drive, navigate to the root Attilan folder, and double click on CrystalDemo.sln. This solution file contains the Crystal Toolkit plus demo programs. Just build the solution (which compiles the CrystalToolkit library first) and run the demo programs to see how they work. You can run the demo programs without building the source by clicking on "StartDemo.bat" in the root Attilan folder or CrystalDemoLauncher.exe in Attilan\bin.

I've tested the demos under Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista. Needless to say, buyers beware, this is alpha software and it's free open-source code: you get what you pay for! I'd welcome any feedback, bugs (or bug fixes), and thumb-bitmap replacements. Send email to richard [at] attilan {dot} com.

Download: Crystal Toolkit 075 (zip file, 4.2 mb)