Intelligent Contact Sheet Maker - csm

This program is used to make good-looking "Contact Sheets," or image files containing thumbnail representations of a list of images. It has a GUI and command-line interface. You can start the GUI by simply running csm.exe. Supported inputs are directories, .zip, .7z, and .rar files.

Main GUI

If you want to save your settings, you can click Save Settings, File -> Save Settings, or File -> Save Settings As… The Save Settings options will save to the currently open settings file (shown next to the button) or default.xml if no file is open. You can later load your settings files with File -> Load Settings. iCSM will always open default.xml on load if it exists. You can view helpful information about most of the options by mousing over their titles. You can find the same information in this document under Parameters.

File View

Use Tools -> View Files, the corresponding button, or ctrl-F to make any changes to the file list. You can select multiple rows and exclude them with the Delete key or the Remove button. Click Reset to rest to the default inclusion for all files. The selected cover file and any files that are similarly named to the output file are excluded automatically.

Making the Contact Sheet from the GUI

When you’re happy with your settings and the files, click Run, select Tools -> Draw Sheet, or hit F5. The Size column will be updated with the new thumbnail sizes, and the drawing progress will be shown in the status bar. The program will remain open until you close it (unless otherwise specified), so you can run again with different settings, and also change the directory using Choose Folder or Choose Archive in the Tools menu, or the corresponding button.

Batch Processing

Once you like the way your output files look and you want to make a lot of them with the same settings at once, open up the Batch Processing GUI from the Tools menu or hit ctrl-B. Here you can add all of the items (archives and subdirectories) in a directory, or select single or multiple archive files and add them to the list for processing.

Set the Max Concurrent Load and Max Cuncurrent Draw spinners to your liking; lower numbers will put less strain on your computer and larger numbers will make the process go faster (to a point.)

You can also remove sources from the list with the Remove Selected button or the Del key, as long as they are in either the PreLoad or Completed state.

The Pause button will stop moving states from PreLoad to Loading or Queued to Drawing, but sources already in the Loading and Drawing states will continue processing until the next state, i.e. Queued and Completed/Failed respectively.

Command Line

csm is also a fully functional command-line program. In order to use it without the GUI, you must start it with the –nogui=true option.

Usage: csm [path to image directory or archive] [param1=val1] [param2=val2] [...]

You can actually put the path anywhere in the command, as long as it's in quotes. If you omit the path, then the current executable directory will be used. Parameters may be in any order, and they don't all have to be used.

For Windows users who would like to do some batch processing without the GUI, there is an example batch file batch.bat. Open it in a text editor before trying to use it.

Parameters

Parameter	Name	Type	Default	Description
-nogui	Don't Launch GUI	true/false	false	Prevents the GUI (Graphical User Interface) from being launched. (Not loaded from settings)
-fregx	File Name Pattern	Regex	\.(jpg|jpeg|png)$	A regular expression used to match on file names to be included from the source.
-mindiminput	Minimum Input Dimension (Height and Width)	px	0	The minimum width and height for input images to be included in the output sheet. (Changing this option reloads the file list).
-width	Width of Contact Sheet	px	900	The width of the contact sheet in pixels.
-cols	Maximum Images per Row	Number	6	The maximum number of images per row. Rows with mixed aspect ratios will probably have fewer images.
-mindim	Minimum Thumbnail Dimension (Height and Width)	px	0	All thumbnails' widths and heights will be at least this value.
-border	Image Border Width	px	0	The border width around an image. The border will be black.
-shiftbuffer	Row Shift Buffer	%	5	The percentage of the "max row height" to consider as a buffer for determining if an outlier row height is too tall and requires adjustment. Smaller values will result in more uniform row heights, but large values may result in more interesting row layouts.
-qual	Image Quality	%	90	The Jpeg compression quality of the output image.
-maxrand	Max Random Images	Number	0	If more than 0, only up to this many images (randomly selected) will be included in the output.
-exit	Exit on Complete	true/false	false	Close the GUI when the sheet is finished. Doesn't apply to the command-line.
-openoutdir	Open Output Directory on Complete	true/false	true	Open the output directory in Windows Explorer when completed (GUI mode only).
-preview	Preview Layout Only	true/false	false	Only draw the layout, not the images. Near instantaneous.
-outfile	Output File	File Path	ContactSheet.jpg	File name or path of the output contact sheet file. Path can be absolute or relative to the source's parent directory. Use {title} to include the header title in the file name. (Changing this option reloads the file list).
-header	Show Header	true/false	false	Shows the title of the sheet and other info at the top of the sheet.
-hsize	Header Font Size	pt	12	The font size of the header text.
-hbold	Bold Header	true/false	false	Makes the header text bold.
-htitle	Header Title	Words	Title	The name of the image set. (Not loaded from settings)
-hstats	Show Statistics	true/false	false	Show statistics about the images, e.g. "(x100) max 1200x600px".
-labels	Show Image Labels	true/false	false	Shows the filename for each image.
-lsize	Image Label Font Size	pt	8	The font size of the image label text.
-cover	Show Cover	true/false	false	Show a cover at the top of the sheet. (Changing this option reloads the file list).
-cregx	Cover Pattern	Regex	cover\.	The primary regular expression used to match cover files. (Changing this option reloads the file list).
-cfile	Cover File	file	[none]	The path to the file to use as the cover. (Changing this option reloads the file list). (Not loaded from settings)
-cfill	Attempt to Fill Cover Gaps	true/false	false	Fill any gaps on the sides of the cover with thumbnails; moves the cover to the left side.
-cmaxw	Maximum cover width	%	75	The maximum percentage of the sheet width that the cover's width can be (approximate)
-sfile	Settings file path	File Path	default.aspx	The path to a settings file. Can be absolute or relative.
-help	View help message (no value required)	None	N/A	Show a help message on the command line with parameter documentation.

Tips

• csm will not recognize image files with the Hidden attribute. It will recognize them for covers.
• To create a shortcut that you can drag folders onto with your preferred parameters, first create a shortcut to csm.exe, then right-click the shortcut and select Properties. Once there, add your parameters to the end of the Target field, e.g. C:\csm\csm.exe -nogui=true -sfile=mysettings.xml. The source path will be passed in automatically if you drag the folder or archive onto the shortcut.
• The csm GUI will always try to load default.xml at start if -sfile isn't specified in the command line arguments, but you can load other files afterwards.
• Use {title} in -outfile to include the archive/directory/header title in the output file name or path. For example, -outfile="../{title} CS.jpg" will put the output file in the parent directory of the directory containing the source file or directory, with a name like "My Favorite Photos CS.jpg".
• All file sources are checked for images recursively. If your sources contain small files that you don't want to include in the output, use the -mindiminput parameter to filter out small images.
• The -cregx parameter uses Regular Expressions. If you want to match on multiple cover name possibilities, you can use something like (cover|big|max|square|folder)\.(jpg|png)$.
• The -fregx parameter also uses Regular Expressions so you can match on multiple file types.
• Try regexr.com to experiment with Regular Expressions.
• The appsettings.json file is used for configuration that doesn't make sense to include in the sheet settings. Right now it only has a Serilog node, which can be modified to change the logging template or logging level. csm logs at Debug, Information, and Error levels. Setting MinimumLevel to Error may increase performance in GUI mode, but there won't be much output on the console.

Linux

The linux command-line only version of this app requires the dotnet 6 runtime. This appears to be the most reliable way to install it.

You may also need to install these packages with apt-get:

• libc6-dev
• libgdiplus
• libx11-dev