Timelapse2 : Version History

The Version history describes updates in various versions over time

V2.3.2.0

Major upgrade with significant new features
- Folder levels and folder metadata feature added to both the template editor and Timelapse
- New data field types added (IntegerPositive, Integer, DecimalPositive, Decimal, MultiChoice, DateTime_, Date_, Time_)
- Massive number of other lesser changes and bug fixes.
- See Version2.3.2.0 upgrade explained for details

V2.3.1.0

Enhancements (as requested by Timelapse users)
- Timelapse now respects image orientation. Your images should appear right-side up even when your camera or phone is used in portrait or landscape mode.
- If you duplicate an image while in a Custom Selection, the duplicate image will be visible.
Minor but notable changed
- The Timelapse executable program has been renamed Timelapse.exe instead of Timelapse2.exe.
  - When installing Timelapse, don’t copy it into your older Timelapse executable folder, as that can do odd things.
Various (mostly for rare) bug fixes and performance tweaks
- Fixed a significant problem that occurred when many merges are done over many images

V2.3.0.9

New feature: Template Editor now includes option of which fields to Export to a CSV file
- You will see a new column displayed in the TemplateEditor called Export. If unticked for a data field, that field and its values will not be exported to CSV files.
Minor but notable change
- The Timelapse executable program has been renamed Timelapse.exe instead of Timelapse2.exe.
Various (mostly for rare) bug fixes and performance tweaks
- Fixed issues in file and data deletions taking a long time in certain cases
- Fixed issues where labels with a ‘_’ in its name were not appearing
- Fixed issues where Timelapse would crash in cases where many merges were done
Code refactored
- particularly for Templates and the Template Editor to anticipate future developments.

V2.3.0.8

New feature: Folder editor to move and rename your folders
- A drag and drop folder editor is now available, invoked by the ‘Edit | Folder Editor (move, rename detc)…’ menu item.
- The problem it solves: Previously you could not easily rename or move your image set’s sub-folders. If you do that using Windows, Timelapse could no longer find those folders as their locations as recorded in the Timelapse database differed. This required you to use the ‘Locate missing folders…’ facility to try to find them.
- The solution it offers: The Folder Editor lets you easily and quickly rename/move/delete etc your subfolders within Timelapse. Both the physical location of those folders, and the location of those folders as recorded in the Timelapse database are updated as needed.
- Details in updated Timelapse Reference Guide - Files and Folders: Folder editor
File | View | Show in Explorer is a new feature opens Windows File Explorer with the currently displayed image selected
Progress bar now included in Folder Editor, plus capabilities for other long-running atomic actions.

V2.3.0.7

Merging databases completely redone, where it can be used to implement a ‘master database’ to manage large projects
- See details in the Timelapse Reference Guide: Merging databases for large projects.
- Merging lets you manage an (optional) workflow where you keep all your data in a single place (the master database), yet still carve out sub-sets (i.e., timelapse databases in sub-folders) of your data, work with those subsets independently, and then bring the updated data back into the master database..
- With this (optional) workflow, you can:
  - create a ‘master’ timelapse database in a root folder
  - check-out a child timelapse database into a particular sub-folder that only contains the data pertinent to that sub-folder
  - process the images in that sub-folder independently (e.g., by giving that sub-folder to someone to analyze)
  - check-in the child database back into the master, which replaces the master’s data for that sub-folder with the updated child’s data
  - Incremental additions of new data: if someone collects images in the field and analyzes them, they can check-in that new folder into the database as well.
Quickpaste: quickpaste button’s context menu includes a move up / down item to relocate the button on the list, plus more shortcut keys
Recognition|Bounding box options
- Now includes a checkbox allowing you to hide bounding boxes for the duration of your Timelapse session.
Missing folders dialog now includes a checkbox for a more selective search
Shortcut: Ctrl-D now activates Edit | Duplicate this record
Various bug fixes and performance tweaks.
- fixes a rare crash when showing bounding boxes in the overview

V2.3.0.6

Various bug fixes of mostly rare bugs
Lots of internal programming changes (Resharper recommendations)
- Mostly to make Timelapse more robust and efficient.

V2.3.0.5

Downloading and running image recognition software on your computer is now much easier.
- Installing MegaDetector and its EcoAssist graphical interface is explained on the Image Recognition and Download MegaDetector pages on the Timelapse web site.
New recognition menu on the menu bar, with these menu items
- Import recognition data for this image set… is moved here from the File menu
- Set bounding box options…. is moved here from the Options|Preferences… dialog
- Populate a data field with detection counts… is a new feature that counts the number of detected entities above a given confidence value and records that in a counter data field of your choice for all your currently selected files. Useful for getting a rough count of how many entities are present in each image, which can be inspected and altered if needed.
Importing Image recognition files
- Previously, importing from an image recognition file would completely replace any existing image recognition data with the new data. That has been changed: the new recognitions are now merged with the existing recognitions. This means you can incrementally add recognitions, for example, associated with new images added to your image set over time.
- You can now run an image recognizer in a sub-folder of your image set. While the image paths would be relative to that sub-folder rather than the Timelapse root folder, Timelapse can recognize and repair those paths if the recognition file is located and imported from that sub-folder.
Timelapse Image Recognition guide
- Updates include how to incrementally add image recognition files, and how to use the count facility.
Merging
- Does a better job merging image recognition data
- Bug fix of a problem that occurred when a database to be merged was in the same root folder as the merged database.
- Merge operations are now cancellable.

V2.3.0.4

Bug fixes

Handling file paths that are too long. Somewhat surprisingly, Windows imposes a hard limit on the length of file paths of 260 characters. This limit is usually exceeded if you have a deep folder hierarchy with descriptive folder and file names. This could cause Timelapse to crash when reading or manipulating files with long file paths, or when creating files (such as temporary files and backup files) that added to the path length. Timelapse now checks the file path length and generates a warning if you are approaching or exceeding the file size limit.
Whether or not you get these warnings, try to keep the folder paths + file name length well below the 260 character limit. This is most easily done by:
- using shorter folder and file names
- making shallower folder hierarchies
- moving the Timelapse folder up the hierarchy

V2.3.0.3

Features
- Custom Select by Time: Custom select dialog box now includes a toggle that lets you select by Time instead of Date. For example, you can select all night-time shots by indicating a time range of (say) 21:00 – 7:00.
- .mov video files: now recognized, but playback may depend on what Codecs are installed on your machine
Documentation
- Timelapse reference guide updated to include new custom select by time feature
- Web pages on image recognition and MegaDetector download updated to make them somewhat more readable
Bug fixes and behind the scenes
- Bugs fixed when upgrading .ddb and .tdb files where:
  - some older Timelapse files were not being upgraded
  - markers sometimes (rarely) associated with the wrong column

V2.3.0.2

Version 2.3 included the ability to upgrade your .tdb and .ddb files to a new format (see below). However, a few users, after upgrading their files, used an older version of Timelapse to open their image set. This crashes Timelapse and corrupts the .ddb and .tdb files.
- If this happens to you, open the corrupted files (i.e., your image set) with this version. It will ask you to upgrade the files again, which will repair them.
- To avoid this problem, simply make sure everyone is using the latest Timelapse version.
Bug fixes / features
- A warning dialog now appears if you open your template or image set with an earlier version of Timelapse/Editor than was previously used to open it. This may reduce incompatability problems in the future
- Recreate database indexes if they are missing (which can occur due to upgrade)
- Added code to check if upgraded ddb / tdb file was corrupted due to it being opened with a pre 2.3 version of Timelapse, where it presents a dialog to upgrade and then repair those files.
- Fixed a UTCOffset problem when date is read from file creation time rather than file metadata
- Corrected regional issues with decimal points as commas for detection / classifications confs, and bounding boxes. Also modified DialogUpgrade to look for those and correct when upgrading the files

V2.3.0.1

Omitted, as this number was used for a test release

V2.3.0.0

Important changes to Timelapse! As of this version, template .tdb and data .ddb files will use a different internal structure.

Upgrading is easy.
- When you open an older timelapse file, a dialog will ask you to upgrade the timelapse files in that folder.
- Or, select File|Upgrade Timelapse files (.tdb/.ddb) to latest version to raise an upgrade dialog that will allow you to quickly bulk-upgrade your timelapse files (e.g., by selecting a folder containing your projects, where that folder and its sub-folders will be searched for candidate files).
Ensure that everyone is running the latest Timelapse version: older Timelapse versions will not work on upgraded files.
ImageQuality field is deprecated: When upgrading, you will be asked to specify whether you want to delete the ImageQuality field ((recommended as most don’t use it) or convert it to a Dark Flag field.
Exported CSV files are slightly different.
- DateTime is always in local time (UtcOffset is no longer available)
- ImageQuality column is no longer presence, or is replaced by a column called Dark with true/false values
- Folder is renamed RootFolder. Its inclusion as a CSV column is optional (set in Options|Preferences…)
- Importing pre-2.3.0.0 CSV files is affected due to the above column name differences

Lots of small changes and bug fixes, too many to list. But here are a few.

Custom select now includes a ^GLOB (Not glob) operator that will select all data field values that do NOT match the pattern provided
Timelapse remembers and restores the last Select and Sort settings used for each image set. When you reopen that image set, it restores those settings and a popup briefly appears to remind you of that.
Manuals and practice sets have been updated to reflect changes
Lengthened Episode time threshold for customized Episode determination
New facility to do upgrades, where all upgrading code (including dialog) moved to dll

V2.2.5.2

Features
- A new program called Timelapse-ViewOnly.exe is included in the Timelapse folder. This is actually a ‘helper’ program that starts Timelapse in a mode where people can view but not alter any data. Its useful if you want to handoff your processed image set to others to view, but don’t want them to change anything in it.
Important update to using image recognition
- If you are using Megadetector, this version accounts for changes in the upcoming new Megadetector release. In particular, Megadetector confidence values are set differently, where the threshold of what should be considered ‘mostly correct’ recognitions are quite different. New json file will include values that estimate these thresholds. Timelapse uses those values to calculate and provide reasonable default confidence ranges in the Select dialog, and the default threshold for showing bounding boxes around recognitions. If those values are missing, defaults reflecting the old Megadetector versions are used.
Bug fixes and behind the scenes
- For various reasons, Timelapse does not allow Templates to be opened if they are located in either a drive’s root folder (e.g., D: ), or in a system or hidden folder. Informative messages are now displayed if someone tries this.
- Software updated to use the .Net Framework 4.8

V2.2.5.1

Features
- Custom Select – DateTime field: now selects on Dates only rather than both Date and Time. This makes it simpler to set a date, and reflects how people likely filter by date ranges (e.g. all files between 01-May-2021 to 30-May-2021)
Bug fixes
- Sort | by ID now works.
- Image recognition now works in countries that used ‘commas’ instead of ‘periods’ as decimals places (e.g., Germany, France)
- Edit | Date Correction | Correct for cameras whose clocks run fast or slow corrected for a recently introduced bug.
- Magnifier now disappears when navigating with the cursor outside the image or video
- Fixed problem where View menu items sometimes didn’t show up
- Fixed problem that occurred when templates were in the very top level of a drive (e.g., D:template.tdb)
- Fixed several other rare bugs.

V2.2.5.0

Important. This version introduces changes affecting backwards compatibility. Using an earlier Timelapse version to re-open a Timelapse database is still possible, but several functions will not work properly (e.g., Episode and Custom Select on DateTime). To be safe, always use the latest version of Timelapse.

User manual, practice image set, videos
- Manuals are completely re-written as six separate guides with new practice image sets. This includes
  - a Quick Start Guide that walks people through various basic Timelapse features.
  - Detailed Reference Guide and Template Guide
  - an Image Recognition Guide (plus companion video)
  - two practice images sets accompanying the guides, with one being specific to image recognition.
  - Companion videos for several of the guides
- See https://saul.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/timelapse/pmwiki.php?n=Main.UserGuide.
Enhancements to existing features (almost all based on users requests)
- CSV Import
  - now imports dates and times (if its in the correct format) and folder names
  - is much, much, much faster with very large data sets
- Options | Preferences | CSV Export has significant changes to how dates and times are exported.
  - Importantly, a space can be optionally inserted before the fields, which stops Excel from changing date/time fields into its own internal format.
  - The UTC DateTime export option has been removed.
- Populate metadata
  - Edit | Populate one or more fields with metadata dialog now allows you to choose multiple metadata field to populate at a time
  - Options | Preferences now includes a Populate fields with metadata as new files are loaded panel. If selected, it will populate your selected metadata fields whenever new files are added. This gives you the choice to populate metadata in a single operation.
- DateTime and UtcOffset changes
  - Dates/times are now recorded in local time, with UtcOffset set to 0. Older database, when opened, updates to local time as needed. You shouldn’t notice a change unless you use the UtcOffset
  - Only the Date and Time columns will now appear in the Data Table view (DateTime and UtcOffset columns are removed).
- Image recognition
  - Bounding boxes and other recognition features are automatically enabled after recognition data has been imported. The option to turn it on manually has been removed.
  - Custom Select now includes an option to include all files in an episode when at least one file matches. This feature is useful for cases when the analyst wishes to review all files in an episode in order to best identify, validate the recognition prediction.
- Episodes
  - Options | Preferences... now includes an Episodes panel that lets you adjust how many surrounding files Timelapse should examine to determine the episode length (it formerly only looked at a maximum of 99 files before giving up, due to performance concerns). This has been increased substantially, where you now have the option to increase it even more.
  - Options | Adjust episode time threshold can now range from 1 second to 10 minutes, where that time separation determines if adjacent files are grouped into an episode.
- Help menu updated to include menu items that point to the new guides and practice image sets
Many bug fixes

V2.2.4.4

this was released but quickly pulled back due to bugs

V2.2.4.3

Bug fixes

File | Import data from a .csv file… had a bug where it wasn’t importing some values. It has also been fixed to ignore any changes in the Date/Time/DateTime fields. This makes importing much more reliable as Excel often changes those fields into its own internal format.
Various internal fixes and efficiencies, notably updating various packages to latest versions (exif, sql, metadataExtractor)

V2.2.4.2

Significant new feature (usually requested by users)
- Options | Preferences… now includes an option to change how Date and Time are exported to CSV files.
  - Default: as before. a Date column e.g., 24-Dec-2021, a Time column e.g., 16:00:05, or
  - A single DateTime column in ISO format for local time, with or without ‘T’ separator, e.g., 2021-12-24T16:00:05, or 2021-12-24 16:00:05
  - A single DateTime column in ISO format for UTC time, e.g., 2021-12-24T322:00:05-06:00
- Help | Videos added to include direct links to video tutorials providing either overviews or guides to specific Timelapse features. Check them out, especially the overviews as it may inform you about features that you did not know existed. Also includes a primer image recognition, and whether it can work for you.
- The user manual has been updated to describe these features.
Bug fixes
- Import CSV file performance is much faster for large CSV files
- Merging database (.ddb) files now handles cases where data columns were re-ordered

V2.2.4.1

Edit | Duplicate this record… allows you to duplicate the currently selected record. This allows you to reuse your data fields to describe aspects of your image.
- For example, consider a wildlife biologist who has a single species field that identifies the animal in the image. This is a problem if the image contains two species (e.g., a deer and a wolf), as only one of them can be entered. However, by duplicating the record, they can use the first record to fill in the deer, and the second to fill in the wolf.
- When you export the data as a CSV file, both records will be included as separate rows, each with the same RelativePath and File names.
- For more information, see the updated user manual (p. 86) and/or watch the short tutorial video.
Edit | Delete | Only the data associated with the current image / all selected files – deletes the data record but leaves the image alone. This is helpful for removing a duplicate if you no longer need it.
CSV Import... modified to handle duplicates. It works fine when there are the same number of aduplicate record in both the CSV file and Timelapse .ddb file. However, if there is a mismatch, the import will try the best it can to match the records available. Unavailable matches are left as is.
Bug fixes
- Fixed various bugs as reported by users, mostly rare.
- Fixed bug where select on counters were treating it aplphabetically rather than as a number . Its now treated numerically.
- Changed Populate Field with Episode Data to allow a user to continue the operation evein if the sort or search order isn't optimal (but with a warning)
- now omits hidden/system/recycle bin folders while searching folders
- fixed index out of range issue when checking if copying from the last non-empty value is possible (used in Propagate from last non-empty value).
Code updates
- updated exiftool, FFMPEG, SQLite, MetadataExtractor, XMPCore to the latest versions.

V2.2.4.0

Bug fixes
- Fixed various bugs as reported by users, mostly rare.
New features (as requested by several folks analyzing video)
- Edit | Date correction | Read dates and times from a metadata field. This is particularly valuable function for correcting video file date/times, where the date/time the video was created may be stored in a non-standard metadata field.
  - It lists all metadata containing what appears to be a date or time value in the currently selected file.
  - If one of them contains the correct date/time, you can ask Timelapse to update the Date/Time field for all selected files to the contents of each file’s value for that metadata field. Files that do not have that metadata are left unchanged.
Modified features (as requested by several users)
- Edit | Populate a field with Episode data – sequence data is now written is 1|5 instead of 1/5 to stop Excel from interpreting it as a date
User Manual Updated to include the above changes

V2.2.3.9

Bug fixes
- when using a control’s context menu from the Overview
- when trying to write CSV and backup files,
- when an occasional mouse click crashes Timelapse (due to XCEED bug, fixed by updating it).
Modified features
- ExportAllSelectedFiles now checks for overwriting files, for duplicate files, and gives users option to rename files to include the subfolder path
- Populate Recognition Data: now enforces a lower bound when reading in confidence values
- Custom Selection: Recognition: enforces non-zero lower bound in how the range slider / numeric updown selects ranges for Non-Empty values
- RandomSample: UpDown control added to slider to allow users to specify exact range
Software cleanup
- Updated XCEED to v4.0.0.2 (which fixes a bug introduced by XCEED)
- Updated SQLite to latest version 1.10.113.7

V2.2.3.8

New features (as requested by several users)
- Edit | Populate a field with Episode data allows you to populate a field of your choosing with episode data. For example, it would record file 1 out of 7 in episode 23 as 23:1/7. The data format is configurable.
- Select | Create a random sample from the current selection: randomly samples the current selection to produce a subset of those files. You determine the number of files you want using the dialog box that appears. Scanning through samples lets you review those files efficiently against some criteria.
Modified features
- Select | Folders changed to Select | All files in a folder and its subfolders. Makes it easier to examine all images contained in a particular folder.
- Select | Custom selection… The selection dialog has been changed to better handle complex queries. Standard Timelapse fields (if selected) are And’ed together, while you have the option of using And vs. Or for other fields. If you don’t know what this means, don’t worry – it is explained in the manual.
- Episode popups – you can now click one of the popup thumbnails to see its details, where it will temporarily display a larger, zoomable image of it.
- Image recognition includes classifications, which can also be selected in Custom Selections. Classifications are visible only if they are included in the recognition file.
User Manual
- Updated to explain the above features.
- Updates Part 3: Image Recognition to include classifications.
- Removed Part 5 on Migrating Timelapse1 to Timelapse2 files to a new manual
Bug fixes
- Fixed various bugs reported by users.

V2.2.3.7

New features
- Copy/Paste menu item added to each data field’s context menu
- Edit |Restore default values for this file : new option will restore default values (as specified in the template) for a particular file, essentially resetting the data for that file.
- Rank by probability
For those using image recognition (i.e., with Microsoft’s Megadetector)
- This section is only relevant to those using image recognition data generated by Microsoft’s Megadetector.
- Custom Selection Dialog: Image Recognition now includes a checkbox called ‘Rank by confidence’. This will sort the images returned of all selected recognized entities (e.g., Person) by the confidence. That is, it will allow you to scan your images from high confidence to low confidence, in order to determine where the detector seems to do well and where it starts to produce many errors.
- Microsoft’s Megadetector can now generate both detector data (animal/person/vehicle bounding boxes) and classification data (e.g. deer, elk, etc). However, as classifications are still experimental, Microsoft is releasing that data only to a few select agencies who are helping them determine an efficient classification workflow.
- If you are one of the agencies working with Microsoft to test its classification data, Timelapse will now display both detection and classification data, and also allow you to select by classification (e.g., ‘Deer’). Note: the manual does not yet explain how to exploit classification data, as that still has to be determined.
- If you are not one of the agencies, then Timelapse will only display detections as in prior versions.
Bug fixes
- Fixed various (mostly rare) bugs reported by users
- Fixed crash on propagate from last value to here that happens when there are no ‘true’ last values
- Fixed issue when time zone on local machines is not set

V2.2.3.6

A major change that you may not even notice
- Sorting defaults: when loading an image set for the first time now sorts by Relative Path and then by Date/Time. That is, your images will be grouped and sorted by its folder location, and within each group images will be sorted by their date/time. The Sort menu options have changed to reflect this. The previous default was sort by ID (the order that images were read into Timelapse), which often – but not always – will produce a similar sorting effect.
New features
- File | Export selected images and videos copies all files in the current selection to a folder of your choosing
User interface tweaks
- Adjust image appearance user interface changed somewhat
- Delete images can be cancelled for long operations
Bug fixes and performance improvements
- Now accepts filenames with quote (’) character
- Merge now works if a merged database with the same name already exists
Lots of other minor changes and fixes

V2.2.3.5

User interface tweaks
- Overview and zooming are now more responsive (including for videos).
- Locate missing folders and files dialogs are now available via the Edit menu
- H key presses now temporarily hides both episode and detection bounding boxes when pressed in both the overview and normal view.
- Adjust image appearance now includes an option to apply its settings to every image
- Episode navigation: <control>→ or <control>← navigates to the 1st image of the next or previous episode. Alternatively, select View | Next episode or View | Previous episode.
- Episode information display was slow in certain situations – it is now fast.
- Magnifying glass on/off state now saved on a machine vs. image set level.
- Videos: showing video frames as thumbnails in the overview is somewhat faster, uses FFMPEG with MediaPlayer as a fallback
- Missing folders dialog: When the user specifies the first missing folder, Timelapse searches that folder to see if it can find the other foldrs.
- Panning now follows cursor (it did not before)
- The Selection state is no longer saved between sessions.
- Preference dialog: new color-blind friendly option for detection bounding box colors
- Popup episode: now displays detection bounding boxes, if any exist and detections are turned on
Code
- lots of cleanup.
  - refactored various DrawBoundingBox methods so it is now invoked as a single method in the BoundingBoxes class
Bug fixes
- Error message now replaces crash message on a particular Timelapse issue
- Autoplay fixed so that videos do not play in the background when navigating in the overview
- Import image recognition bug fixed, where it wasn't importing data when a subset of folders had data but the rest did not

V2.2.3.4

New features
- Options | Temporarily Adjust Image Appearance raises a control that lets you temporarily adjust an image’s brightness, contrast, gamma, and sharpness, to emphasis edges, and/or to open the image in your default Windows photo viewer (so you can use that viewer’s controls to manipulate the image appearance). A much-requested feature.
- Video Player – significant enhancements
  - now plays .ASF video files, along with .mp4 and .avi
  - controls for setting video playback options: speed ( .5x, 1x 2x), autorepeat, autoplay
  - ‘Play externally’ button opens the video in your default Windows video player
  - magnifying lens is now included: toggle it on / off (M) and adjust its magnification up (U) or Down (D)
  - zooming and panning now included via the mouse wheel, and then click/drag
  - clicking on the video or pressing spacebar now plays/pauses it
- Detection Bounding Boxes now visible in Overview: If you use detections, bounding boxes are now visible in the overview. Pressing the H key will temporarily hide the bounding boxes.
Bug fixes and performance improvements
- Fixes a rare and hard to reproduce bug where setting the Timezone to 0.0 crashes timelapse.

V2.2.3.3

New features
- Merging databases is a new feature that lets you merge all databases found in sub-folders into a single database. See Merging Databases section in the user manual for details.
- Episode popup: pressing the P key over an image will temporarily raise a pop-up showing the surrounding images in an episode, if any, regardless of your selection. This can help interpret what is in an image by letting you quickly review its related images that don’t happen to fit the selection. Let me know if this is useful to you, or suggest improvements to it. See Episodes section for details
- Detection Bounding Boxes: If you use detections, pressing the H key over an image will temporarily hide the bounding boxes.
Bug fixes and performance improvements
- For users of the original Timelapse1 system, migrating data from old ImageData.xml files now works better.

- Long file names exceeding the limit are now skipped and message displayed

Lots of other minor changes and fixes

V2.2.3.2

Major feature changes
- Progress bars now appear for most lengthy operations
- Importing CSV (spreadsheet) files. See Section 11 in updated user manual for details
  - Import data from a CSV file… is much more robust and useful. You can easily open your data in Excel, modify it, and import the changed data back again. Or import old CSV files created outside of Timelapse.
  - UpdateCSVFile.exe is a new separate utility program available on the TImelapse web site, where it may helps transform CSV (spreadsheet) files into a format understood by Timelapse.
- Lots of other small (but still useful) feature changes that you may or may not notice.
User manual
- Updated to reflect the above changes.

V2.2.3.1

Bug fixes
- catch crash when reading in old databases that occurs on reading an image where ImageQuality was previously recorded as Unknown.
- rare case when marker was erroneously recorded at Infinity,Infinity.
- Detection bounding boxes now display or don't display correctly depending upon the confidence preference and the confidence selection
- fixed a weird exception where invoking 'IsDisplayable' when a video image was being displayed by coding a work-around.
- fixed (rare?) but where datatable was being dropped and rebuilt due to differences in .tdb and .ddb templates but was also clearing detections as a side effect, since it was a foreign key. Fix was to turn off f foreign keys (with pragma), drop the table, then turned foreign keys back on.
- Altered import recognition data to require an exact match between folder paths in the recognition file and the ddb file, as previous attempts to look for subfolders cannot handle all conditions. Message boxes are raised to describe how well it worked.
- When clearing rows in a database table with a foreign key, foreign keys must be off as otherwise it hangs / takes a massive amount of time if the table is large.
- eliminated crash when importing quickpaste items from another .ddb before a quickpaste window was opened
Enhancements:
- Redid Custom Selection/Detections dialog and custom selection code to:
  - include All as a category that covers the union of categories with actual detections
  - Empty now includes confidence range so that it includes images with no identified detections, plus those with at most a low confidence of detections (i.e., the inverse of All where 100-confidence)
  - Several other changes to make it work a bit better and more accurately.
- Populate / /Inspect image Metadata: Users can now choose between metadataExtractor ors Phil Harvey's Exiftool to inspect and retrieve an image or video metadata. MetadataExtractor is faster but less up to data with specific camera's makernotes, while Phile Harvey's Exiftool is more comprehensive but slower.
- Quickpaste enhancement. Editor window now includes buttons to select or clear all Use checkboxes
- Custom Selection: minimum dialog window size reduced
- Added busy indicator when importing recognitions
User Manual
- updated to reflect changes as mentioned above in
  - Populate Metadata
  - Image Recognition.
Maintenance
- Package Updates to: MetadataExtractor, Newtonsoft.JSon, System.Data.SQLite

V2.2.3.0

Bug fixes
- Reverted AvalonDock as it was causing a crash when trying to restore a floating window on startup
- a few other bug fixes
Feature changes (for image recognition only)
- Adjusted the position of image recognition bounding boxes so that they don’t obscure the animal
- Image recognition bounding boxes will always appear within a selected confidence range

V2.2.2.9

Bug fix
- Using markers on counters no longer causes Timelapse to crash
Features
- Custom selection: Selecting Empty on detections unchecks the confidence box, as that should not be used with Empty
User manual
- Updated Part 3 Recognition to include several workflow variations

V2.2.2.8

Major functional changes
- Can import and use Image recognition data produced by a 3rd party. As the 3rd party currently does this by invitation only, features are turned off by default. If interested, contact me.
- Loading / adding images searches all subfolders for images. New images are added, but previously loaded images are automatically skipped.
- Image Quality
  - now only includes Dark and Ok.
  - will disappear soon, to be replaced by a ‘Dark’ flag.
- Select Menu changed – you can now select ‘by Folders’.
- Dark classification is no longer an option when loading images for the first time. However, it can be done after loading via the Edit Menu.
Performance improvements
- Loading / adding many images should be several times faster.
Bug fixes
- Episodes adjusted to indicate episodes that are excessively long.
User manual: new / heavily modified sections
- Part 1, Section 2: Best Practices for Organizing your Files and Folders
- Part 3: Automatic Image Recognition

V2.2.2.5

Bug fixes – somewhat rare but critical
- fixed crashing issue when closing an image set when in the overview
- fixed appearance of counters when entering data for multiple images in the overview
Internal changes
- Put in working stubs where video thumbnails can be cached, which improves the display of videos (instead of black). This is still hidden from the user until it is fully implemented. However, ffmpeg.exe (used to generate thumbnails) is now included in the binary release.

V2.2.2.4

Feature addition
- Episodes – Timelapse identifies a sequence of images separated by a short time interval (e.g., an animal moving through a scene) and numbers them (e.g., 1/10). Useful for analyzing a sequence of related images as a whole. Try Options | Show Episodes. See User Manual – Episodes for details.
- Tabbing – skips system-supplied fields by default as these are rarely edited (DateTime, ImageQuality, DeleteFlag), but you can change that using Options | Preferences
- Navigating images – left/right arrow key works everywhere except on a note or date field that has the focus (as they navigate the text in it). You can use Shift-left/right arrow keys, which always navigates images.
User Manual updated
Bug fixes and fine tuning
- Code checks / repairs NULL in file table, against prior versions in version compatability
- Fixed bug in bouncing floating data panel
- Fixed bug where defaults were not being added to the schema
- Hotfixed arrow keys on QuickPaste
- Hotfixed bug in classifying dark and corrupt images
- Various others, some critical.

V2.2.2.3

Feature addition
- Many UI fixes / tweaks
- QuickPaste – a major new feature that lets you paste multiple data field values in a single click.
- Copy Previous Values button and QuickPaste display previews of the values that would be pasted, where data fields flash to verify pasted actions
- Tabbing and keyboard data entry improved: fixes made over the prior version.
Bug fixes
- various
- fixes dropping a column due to template changes failed, and default values were ommited in the updated table
- fixes crash when rapidly navigating images
User Manual
- updated to include the above changes

V2.2.2.0

Feature addition
- Sort Menu (new!) allows you to sort images by your data fields, e.g., by DateTime, FileName, by a combination of any two data fields, etc. Each image set will remember its sort setting.
- Options | Advanced | Timelapse Options… now provides several settings to manage DeletedFiles
- Tabbing and keyboard data entry vastly improved:
  - Tab / Shift tab between fields, the Copy Previous button, and File Navigator Slider
  - Flags (Checkboxes) activated via ‘Space’
  - Choice menu: items navigated via arrows
  - Copy Previous button activated with space, left/right arrows navigate files
  - The active data control is highlight to rapidly identify them
- UTC dates and offset management simplified (as rarely used)
User manual
- new sections / additions describing the changes (e.g., sections on sorting and tabbing)
Bug fixes
- Rare bug reading files stored on network discs fixed
- Various other bug fixes as noticed by users.
Database (.ddb file) modified
- Timelapse adds new fields to the ImageSetTable in the.ddb file, used internally to store settings. Earlier versions of Timelapse will still work on these .ddb files.

v2.2.1.7

Bug fixes
- Repaired issue where left clicking on a marker caused Timelapse to crash
- Added checks to handle some (but not all) cases where file paths are too long for Windows to handle
- Added check to ensure that new template files will always have a .tdb suffix

v2.2.1.6

Bug fixes
- Critical fix: Timelapse didn’t run if Windows set to various non-English regions. Regions format numbers and dates differently. A portugese user had Timelapse aborting on startup. This is now fixed.
- Window positions weren’t remembered. Now fixed.
- DateTimePicker control fixed. Minor bug where calendar was not synced with the text.
User Interface
Added a warning to the Instructions pane that appears if you have Windows set to a region other than English (US) or English (Canada), as other regions could introduce issues.

v2.2.1.5

Minor changes

Feature addition
- Options | Adjust FilePlayer playback speed… raises a dialog box that lets you adjust how many images per second you would prefer to see when using the play forward/backwards buttons on the File Player.
Bug fixes
- Warns about very long file paths. Windows does not allow file paths longer than ~256 characters. Timelapse will warn you if you have files longer than that, but leaves it up to you to shorten your path (e.g., by moving or renaming your folders).
Internal code cleanup
- various small things

v2.2.1.4

Minor changes

Feature additions
- Timelapse checks if the root folder name stored in the database differs from the actual root folder. If so, it will ask the user if he/she wants to update the database to store the current root folder name instead.
Bug fixes
- fixed bug in importing old ImageData.xml files
Performance
- SQLite updated to the latest version

v2.2.1.3

New features
- Window Layouts, including window location and size plus location of panes are now saved between Timelapse sessions.
- A new Window menu (on menu bar) allows users to load default window layouts, or to save and load their own layouts
Bug and feature fixes
- Minor performance improvements
- Date corrections dialogs - many had a bug that stopped one from realizing the correction. This has been fixed.
- Classify Dark Images window now fits on standard laptop screens
- Double click in overview no longer creates marker on image if a counter was selected
- Fixed focus issues on Data Grid
- Fixed how data fields updates multiple selections under certain conditions
- End and Home shortcut keys removed at a user's request. They have little value and are too easy to hit accidentally.
- Bookmark state remembered between sessions (although zoom/pan may be off if the window size is changed between sessions)
- Excel export now always tries to save in US date/time format (may be problematic if foreign date/time settings are used)
- DateTimePicker fied to showing matching image numbers as one enters the new dates
- DataTable now updates and scrolls correctly
- and more!
User Manual
- Updated to describe the Window menu

v2.2.1.2

Important bug fix
- Counters sometimes did not correctly update their displayed valued during navigation. This usually happened if the data for the navigated to image had a ‘blank’ entries. This now-fixed bug was introduced in the last version.

v2.2.1.1

New features
- Data Table (one of the three tabs):
  - highlights currently selected file(s)
  - click row to navigate to an image
  - click column to sort on that data
- Overview provides better feedback
  - displays ellipsis in a control's data field when data differs due to multiple selections
Bug fixes
- Fixed misreading of dates (using creation time instead of metadata image taken time) that occasional occured when loading images
- Timelapse properly incorporates choice list changes made in the template
- A right mouse up on the markable image (rather than a marker) no longer creates a new marker
- overview enabling and disabling of controls work properly
- data entry tab tooltip now displays

v2.2.1.0

New features
- Overview added, which allows you to view and enter data for multiple images at a time. Switch to/from the overview by zooming out/in (via the scroll wheel, the ‘<’ or ‘>’ keys, or the zoom menu item).
Bug fixes
- Important: fixes very slow image navigation that occurs on some (but not all) machines
- Dialog boxes resized to fit within a typical laptop screen
- Choice box displays properly within old versions of Windows
User Manuals
- Updated to detail how to use the overview
Video Tutorials
- New video : Using the Overview

v2.2.0.9

Test version, not released

v2.2.0.8

New features
- File | Close Image Set closes the current image set, which allows you to open a new one without quitting Timelapse.
- Edit | Find, or entering <control>-c, raises a ‘Find’ box that lets you specify a search term and find the next or previous image that contains that term.
- Editor: File | Close closes the current template being edited, which allows you to create or open another template.
Bug fixes
- Important: Fixed an issue where changes to the template were not being propagated to Timelapse.
- Performance improvements in the Template Editor, for adding new rows and for altering the control or spreadsheet order
User Manual
- Updated to include the new 'Close' and 'Find' features above

v2.2.0.7

New features
- Major: If a template is changed to add / delete /rename controls, image sets opened with an earlier version of that template will detect those changes and incorporate them into the image set. A confirmation dialog box will be displayed.
- If a template's choice list is missing an item that exists in the choice list of the image set, a warning is displayed.
- Editor: template constrains the default values allowed in Choices, where it must match one of the items on the Choice list
- When a folder is loaded via the add.. menu, duplicate images are skipped - Timelapse now displays feedback on the fly about skipped images
- Check for updates altered so that it is checked once a day
Bug fixes
- Important: Fixed an issue where deleting multiple images could crash Timelapse.
- Important: Fixed an issue where the wrong value may be displayed in a Note field
- Editor - fixed an issue where fields that were not data labels were validated as data labels.
- Editor - Flag field widths are now disabled as changing that width doesn't do anything meaningful

v2.2.0.6

New menu: Options | Advanced | Delete Duplicates will check for duplicates and delete them (partially fixes the problem reported in v2.2.0.5 (but does not deal with missing images)

v2.2.0.5

We recently discovered an issue with Timelapse versions released from April onwards (numbered version 2.2.0.0 – 2.2.0.4). While it may not affect all users, you should update Timelapse now. The issue occurs when Timelapse loads an image set for the first time. Instead of reading all images, it may occasionally skip an image, where it instead creates a duplicate of a nearby image.

Important! To check if any of your recently loaded data sets were affected, as well as how to fix them, read Instructions

v2.2.0.4

Marker creation now works more consistently on button click vs. panning
Videos no longer are indicated as corrupted
Advanced UTC DateTime and Time Zone Offset visibility fixed. They are not displayed in Timelapse and in exported spreadsheets unless the UTCOffset visibility is set in the template.

v2.2.0.3

Template Editor: Important bug fix to update controls after its field was edited and to reduce potential crash

v2.2.0.2

Template Editor: Important bug fix to update controls after its field was edited
Timelapse: With counters, double clicking on image fixed to generate only one marker

v2.2.0.1

Counter’s appearance altered to make its function more apparent
Template Editor: Important bug fix to update controls after its field was edited
Bug fix: About Dialog - Check For Updates now works properly

v2.2.0.0

Sampling of major new features
- Tabs and Data entries panes
  - Data entry pane can be pulled out as separate window, or repositioned on the top, bottom or sides of the main window
  - Instructions and data table panes are now tabs that can be pulled out of the window
- A FilePlayer control lets you play your images backwards and forwards at various speeds
- Videos now appear in the main window rather than a separate window
- Images can be optionally presented in time-order vs. name order
- Note fields will autocomplete, where its predictions are based on previous entries
- Counters can be toggled on and off
- User manual updated to reflect changes

v2.1.0.8

Update recommended: various minor bug fixes, minor user interface improvements, and many internal changes

Visible changes
- Tooltips on data fields now display the entered value. This is useful for seeing values larger than the entry field.
- Some menu items now show icons next to them
- Date/Time handling improved somewhat
- Editor user interface is improved somewhat (e.g., tabbing is now possible within a row), and various bugs fixed
Internal changes
- Many changes made to clean up the code base.
- metadata management changed from ExifTool to MetadataExtractor
- various packages updated.

v2.1.0.7

Update very strongly recommended as it fixes a critical bug.

Important bug fixes
- Timelapse no longer crashes when loading older already analyzed image sets, i.e., older versions of the Timelapse .ddb file.

v2.1.0.6

Update very strongly recommended! This version fixes a nasty bug that caused Timelapse to crash when loading images, as well as other lesser bugs. It also changes when it tries to classify dark image. Details are below.

Important bug fixes
- Timelapse no longer crashes when loading image sets. This sometimes happened on older versions of windows or older machines.
- Timelapse editor no longer crashes when you try to re-order controls or spreadsheet columns
Important feature changes
- Timelapse no longer automatically classifies images as 'Dark' or 'Okay' on loading. Only some users needed this feature, and classification slows down loading. To do classification, you now select the menu option:** 2x speedup on image scrolling when using arrow keys
  - Edit→Classify dark images – invokes dark image classification, or
  - Options→Advanced→Timelapse Options lets you set Timelapse to automatically classify dark images on loading. This is the old behavior.
- Options→Advanced→Timelapse Options dialog now includes an Adjusting Performance section, which lets you tune image display for fast vs. slow computers. It allows you to tweak how fast images are displayed when first loading or when navigating through images.
Other changes
- Timelapse bug fixes
  - Double digit numbers entered into counters now work properly.
  - Tooltips on controls correctly display the text specified in the Timelapse Editor.
- Timelapse feature enhancement
  - Version update dialog has a new look.

Version History

Version History: Timelapse2

v2.1.0.3

New features
- Date correction for cameras with slow/fast clocks
Fixes
- 3x speedup on image loading
- 2x speedup on image scrolling when using arrow keys
- Counter data controls can be cleared (i.e., empty)
- Context menu (Copy Forward etc) now appears properly
- other minor bug fixes

v2.1.0.2

This is a major release with too many changes to list.
Major changes
- Videos now handled
  - .mp4, .avi files as produced by some cameras
  - a video player is included under the View menu
- New image handling
  - images can be stored and loaded from multiple sub-folders (ideally located under the root folder containing the template)
  - additional sub-folders can be added to a Timelapse image set at any time e.g., new batch of images can be added as they arrive
- Better management of special cases
  - handles the case where no images are loaded or all images are deleted
User Manual
- Manual is now up to date with this version
- a better tutorial image set was created and included to accompany this manual
Code changes
- much of the code has been refactored and modified for better maintenance and extensibility (Thanks to the effort of Todd West).
- Github site created

v2.0.2.4 (Not yet released)

Minor fixes
- Custom View Filter Dialog
  - minor changes in explanation text
  - removed 'Glob' expression from counts, as special characters cannot be entered

v2.0.2.3

New feature in the Edit menu: Populate a Field with Image Metadata.
- Cameras often record metadata into an image file, some of which could be useful to record using Timelapse. To do this, a dialog lists all your data fields (Notes, Data and Time), and the metadata fields found in one of your images. You then select the data field and metadata field of interest. That data field will then be populated (across all images) with a metadata value from the corresponding image file. For example, if your image files have a metadata field called 'Temperature' you can import that image's recorded temperature into one of your data fields (e.g., a Note field called 'Temperature' that you could create using the Template Editor).
- Thanks to Phil Harvey and his Exiftool project at http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/, which Timelapse uses to extract the metadata (you will see that program is now included in the Timelapse folder).
New feature in Filter menu: Custom Filter
- Raises a dialog box that gives you the ability to select one or more of your data fields, a search condition (e.g., =, <, > etc), and some value. As you create the expression, it tells you how many images match your search condition. When you are done, it will filter the images to show only those that match. It also allows you to reset your search to all images.
Changed feature: Export to CVS
- Now limits the export to the images currently displayed in a particular filtered view. Thus you can export any subset of your data (or all your data if you select ‘All Images’ as the filter).
Small fixes / enhancements
- corrected a date typo in ambiguous date dialog box
- corrected dialog box positioning for large dialog boxes on small displays, where the title bar should now remain visible

v2.0.2.2

Limited test release of features found in 2.0.2.3

v2.0.2.1

This is actually a rollback to 2.0.1.9
- A user reported a bug in the new Populate menu item, which puts the metadata in the wrong column
- This rollback removes that feature until I fix it.

v2.0.2.0

New feature in the Edit menu: Populate a Field with Image Metadata.
- Cameras often record metadata into an image file, some of which could be useful to record using Timelapse. To do this, a dialog lists all your data fields (Notes, Data and Time), and the metadata fields found in one of your images. You then select the data field and metadata field of interest. That data field will then be populated (across all images) with a metadata value from the corresponding image file. For example, if your image files have a metadata field called 'Temperature' you can import that image's recorded temperature into one of your data fields (e.g., a Note field called 'Temperature' that you could create using the Template Editor).
- Thanks to Phil Harvey and his Exiftool project at http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/, which Timelapse now users to extract the metadata (you will see that program is now included in the Timelapse folder).
Small enhancement
- The Reread Dates from Images now runs faster and with better feedback
Internal addition
- A database function allows multiple fields to be updated with multiple values in one operation. A speed improvement.

v2.0.1.9

Small enhancement
- Added a 'See Version History' button to the About Timelapse dialog, which brings the user to the web page describing version changes.

v2.0.1.8

Interface cleanup
- All dialog boxes are redone with a common look and feel

v2.0.1.7

Bug fixes
- Corrects a focus issue when editing notes and fixed choice, where characters were interpreted as shortcut keys if the cursor was moved outside the window.
Internal
- Message Dialog boxes have been redone as a single DlgMessageBox to provide a common look and feel.

v2.0.1.6

Bug fixes
- Fixed bug where fixed choice items called 'Unknown' were not appearing.

v2.0.1.5

Added feature:
- Under the File Menu, new item called "Rename the data file..." that allows you to rename the .ddb file on the fly, e.g., from the default TimelapseData.ddb to (for example) TimelapseData.Site0-Feb2-15.ddb .
- As part of handling renamed files, the system now:
  - looks for a .ddb file in the image folder and loads that
  - if more than one .ddb file exists, it raises a dialog asking the user to choose one
  - renames backup files and exported .csv files to match the new filename
- Timestamped backups of the .ddb and .csv are now created in the Backup folder on startup.
  - For example, TimelapseData.ddb backup is named TimelapseData.2016-02-03.13-57-28.ddb (if done at Feb 3, 2016 at time 13:57:28)
  - Older backup files are no longer over-written
- When a CVS file is exported, a dialog box (that can be optionally hidden) and a status bar notification confirms the operation.
Bug fix
- The color determination when judging dark images has been relaxed, as some cameras create what looks like grey scale images, but that actually have tinges of color in them.

v2.0.1.4

Added feature:
- Under Options menu, new item allowing a user to customize how Timelapse determines light vs. dark images.

v2.0.1.3

Added feature:
- Two new entries under the Edit / Date Correction menu
  - Re-Read Dates From Images restores the original date/time as recorded on each image
  - Check and Modify Ambiguous Dates lets you swap the day / month on a per day basis

v2.0.1.2

Added feature:
- Now warns the user with they try to run Timelapse out of its home folder (i.e., the one with the SQL files in it that it needs).

v2.0.1.0

Major bug fix:
- dates were sometimes recorded incorrectly when reading in a new image set. This should fix it on new image sets, but let me know if the problem persists.
Possible incompatible change:
- The time is now recorded presented in 24 hour format including seconds. e.g., 19:01:15 instead of 7:01 pm. This change will only appear on reading in new image sets.
Added features:
- Fixed choice menus now include an 'empty' menu item at its end. Select this to clear the current fixed choice entry.

v2.0.0.5

Minor bug fixes:
- Fixed the link to the tutorial manual to point to the newest version, as it mistakenly pointed to the Timelapse 1 version

v2.0.0.3

Minor feature enhancements:
- Remembers whether the controls were in a separate window, as well as the window size, and restores that the next time you load Timelapse
- Fixes the layout of that window a bit, where fields now wrap around the Copy Previous Item button (internally changed the layout to a much more flexible FlowDocument)
- Allows keyboard typing to select fixed choice items

v2.0.0.2

This is the candidate release of Timelapse2, distributed to users for testing
It is a major upgrade over Timelapse1. Because it uses a different file system, the files produced by Timelapse1 (CodeTemplateEditor.xml and ImageData.xml) must be converted to the new format before Timelapse2 can read them.

Version History: Timelapse2TemplateEditor