Photos to Flickr

Menulet for uploading Mac OS X Photos to Flickr.

Provided as-is, with no warranty that it'll be working as expected.

Warning, it might even delete elements from your Flickr account!

Libraries / Pods Used

• objectiveflickr to communicate with the Flickr API
• ReactiveCocoa to make the code reactive
• Underscore.m for functional programming i.e. applying map/reduce operations to arrays

Design - Signals

operationsToPerformSignal = mediaObjectsLoadedSignal.map(determineOperationForMediaObject)

flickrUploaderReadySignal = everySecondSignal.zip(previousOperationDoneSignal);

operationsToPerformSignal.zip(flickrUploaderReadySignal).subscribeNext(operation, ready) {
    operation.execute();
}

Design - Operations

                                    +----------------+
                                    | P2FOperation   |
                                    |----------------|
                                    | execute()      |
                                    | getSizeBytes() |
                                    | isDone()       |
                                    +----------------+
                                             ^
                                             |
             /—————————––––––––––––––––––––––+––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-\
             |                               |                             |
+--------------------------+   +--------------------------+   +--------------------------+
| P2FUploadMediumOperation |   | P2FUpdateMediumOperation |   | P2FUpdateFolderOperation |
|--------------------------|   |--------------------------|   |--------------------------|
|                          |   |                          |   |                          |
|––––––––––––––––––––––––––|   |--------------------------|   |--------------------------|
|                          |   |                          |   |                          |
+--------------------------+   +--------------------------+   +--------------------------+

Design - Progress Indication

Progress computation:

• Goal: Progress indication with time remaining (e.g. 1:20 hour remaining)
• Assumption: Stable network connection
• Percent indication over total size in MB
• Use pic size in MB
• Assume 0.05 MB for all other requests
• Display "Estimating time remaining" until first MB uploaded
• Time remaining computed using average throughput during time elapsed

Operations performed:

• Fetch picture list from Flickr, including metadata

  • Max. 500 pics / request (Flickr API limit)
  • Progress can be computed only after this operation
  • Status indication: "Getting picture list from Flickr..."

• For pics deleted since last upload: Delete picture from Flickr

• For new pics & pics changed since last upload: Upload pictures and set metadata

  • Upload order: oldest first
  • Use size in MB for determining progress
  • Progress indication: "Uploading Photos to Flickr..." + overall time remaining
  • Debug info: Uploading : MB of MB uploaded + ( % completed)

• For existing pics: Update pic metadata if changed

  • Progress indication: "Uploading Photos to Flickr..." + overall time remaining
  • Debug info: Updating ( of ) + ( % completed)

• Create albums & assign pics to albums

  • Progress indication: "Uploading Photos to Flickr..." + overall time remaining
  • Debug info: Updating album ( of ) + ( % completed)

• Sort albums: Out of scope

• Done!

  • Progress indication: "Last upload to Flickr on dd.mm.yyyy hh:mm"

Status bar:

• One-line progress indication
• Button to upload now / Button to abort

Backlog

High priority:

• Feature: Upload Shared albums

Medium priority:

• Feature: Retry failed operations (and mark completed operations as done)
• Feature: Automatically upload to Flickr whenever media library is updated
• Feature: Persist and display last upload completion timestamp (x minutes ago)
• Feature: Use OFFlickrAPIRequest cancel to interrupt request in progress
• Feature: Update tags on Flickr when they're updated in Photos

Low priority:

• Refactor: Make FlickrClient reactive/asynchronous (not only its upload method)
• Feature: Sort albums