Caption and Story Annotation
The most strongly supported suggestion (currently under Pix-Star review) relates to picture captioning enhancement. I strongly support this concept, but I’d like to see it go further, to provide greater flexibility. The extended system would allow annotation of each picture with an entire story, if desired. The caption and story collection for a Pix-Star frame would reside in a database file. The system architecture is as follows:
• In frame setup, a user could specify the location of a single database file. A Pix-Star frame would not require a database file if its user did not need the associated features. The database file would be neither in the frame nor in the Pix-Star server. The user could assign it to consumer cloud storage such as Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive. If the designated file is unavailable during frame operation, the frame still works – just the feature goes away.
• Whenever the frame user encounters a picture, either during a slide show or during some album maintenance activity, there would be an easy way to use the remote control to access the caption/story associated with that picture. For instance, while viewing a picture in a slide show, one might click the “+” button on the wireless remote. That would cause the frame to look for the picture’s caption story in the database file. If the file is not available, or if the file has no caption/story for this picture, then the button click is ignored. But if a caption/story is available, it is retrieved from the database and displayed on the frame in place of the picture. The “+” and “-“ buttons control scrolling. The user clicks the “OK” button to return to display of the picture.
• The link between a picture and its caption/story in the database is a unique picture ID, which is a checksum of the picture’s pixels, computed by the Pix-Star server. It is automatically attached to the picture’s metadata whenever it distributes a picture to a Pix-Star frame. (Note: the same checksum picture ID is also used to prevent accidental picture duplication in a Pix-Star frame. This is described in a separate suggestion I made.)
• The database file is written in plain ASCII. It is thus fully editable by any ASCII text editor, such as Microsoft Notepad.
• A frame user (or administrator) creates and maintains his caption/story file as desired. Suppose the frame contains 100 pictures. For one of the pictures, the user wants to tell a story. He enters his story into the database file with his text editor, adhering to a fixed format that looks something like this:
o [[xxxxxxxx]]
o <<Stony Creek Catch, 7-11-21>>
o They say there aren’t any fish in Stoney Creek. Well, this here picture begs to differ.
The 8 characters inside double square brackets are the 32-bit checksum picture ID, expressed in hexadecimal ASCII. The story writer copies this number from the picture’s metadata available from the frame.
The same caption/story can be assigned to multiple pictures by adding picture ID entries:
[[xxxxxxxx]]
[[yyyyyyyy]]
The optional entry inside double angle brackets is the picture’s caption that is displayed with the picture in a slide show whenever that feature is enabled.
The rest of the entry is the optional story.
Here are some benefits of the proposed architecture:
• The architecture allows a user to use it easily just a little, a lot, or not at all. A database file might contain only captions, only stories, or both, as desired.
• Usage is completely optional. A missing or improperly formatted database file will never compromise normal frame operation. And necessary cloud storage is essentially free.
• Because it is separately located, a large database file makes no storage demands on either the frame or the server.
• Cloud storage assures that the database file is automatically backed up and protected.
• The database format makes it easy to maintain the file with readily available text editor tools. Leaving file maintenance to the user drastically reduces the complexity of a Pix-Star implementation.
• Nothing prevents a database file from being edited while a frame is using it.
• Because the database file is located in the cloud, normal controls allow access to only authorized persons and frames.
• Multiple frames could be linked to the same database file. An extended family might share a large collection of pictures which they display on several geographically distributed Pix-Star frames. One (or more) member of the family who is computer literate maintains the caption/story file which supports all of the family frames. When the user of a subscribing frame deletes one of his frame’s pictures, or adds a new picture, the system is not compromised.