Transferer

Transferer (Ver 1.03.16) is a small application that tries to help simplify the transfer of photos/images from your digital camera (or card reader) to your PC. I wrote this for my own usage as I became irritated at the same procedure to move photos from my digital camera to my PC.

Transferer is not a highly intelligent program! It is designed to make the transfer of pictures from a digital camera / card reader nice and easy! Transferer will ONLY work if the card reader/digital camera creates a virtual drive on your PC when you plug it in (You may require the correct drivers for this, your camera/card manufacturer will provide these). For example when I plug my camera in I get a new drive letter “F:” (see screen shot below) and the photos are stored in the path DCIM\100KONIC, but I also have a “7 in 1” card reader, when I plug that in (with the correct drivers) I get 4 additional virtual drives (F/G/H/I), however I only use 2 of these (Sony Memory stick slot, and the Secure Digital slot) which for me are drives H/I. With my camera/card reader in place I can now teach Transferer where to look for pictures and where to put them on my hard drive. From now on all I have to do is run Transferer and select what I want to transfer, but it can be made even easier by using the “Auto popup” option and the ability to have it always running in the tool tray as well. When you first run Transferer you will see the screen below, however it will not have any folders to monitor, as you have obviously not set any up! Transferer does not load the jpgs and resave them, it does a bit for bit copy, so the operation is totally lossless.

Main screen

Screen explanation, top row of icons in the order left to right :-

• Exit : Closes Transferer completely (Note the the X in the top right of the main window does not shut down transfere, only shrinks it)
• Shrink : Hides Transferer into the system tool tray (where the time is in the bottom corner of the windows start bar). This will show as a blue arrow, and to restore the screen, simply click the icon in the tool tray
• Options : Allows you to set various options that effect the way Transferer works.
• Add : Allows you to add a new folder to monitor (detailed below)
• Update : Allows you to change the details of a folder you are monitoring (only available when you select a row)
• Delete : Allows you to delete one of the folders you are watching. You will be asked to confirm this! (only available when you select a row)
• Transfer : Starts a transfer screen! (only available when you select a row AND when there are pictures to be transferred)
• Eject : Eject the media for removal (used before you pull a card out f a reader)
• About : Shows a small about screen for this program.

Underneath the row of buttons you will have a list of folders that you want tranferer to watch. This area consists of 4 columns with the titles of each column at the top. The last column # is the number of files found in that folder being watched. In the screen above there are three folders that are being watched, the last one (Konica camera) has found 11 pictures waiting to be transfered. Only lines where there is a Green arrow on the front may/are waiting to transfer 🙂
At the bottom of the main screen is a grey bar, this is for application inforamtion.hints. For example if you put the mouse over the Exit icon, then you will see “Close down Transferer” appear in here. If you not sure about anything point, and this should tell you what it is.

Options

When selection the Options button from the main screen above, you will be presented with the following screen:-

• Starting Options :-
  • Load at startup : Will allow Transferer to start when you start your computer, normally used with the Start minimised option
  • Start Minimised : Makes Transferer only show the arrow icon in the tool tray of your system (same as hitting the shrink option)
• Transfer options :-
  • Manual : Transferer will detect and show in the main screen that there is files available to transfer but nothing else.
  • Auto popup for transfer : This option will make Transferer popup the transfer window as soon as it detects files to transfer. Very useful for when the Shrink option is in effect as once you plug a memory card/camera in and a watch is in place, it will just popup the transfer window and nothing else.
  • Auto popup and transfer :This option will make Transferer popup the transfer window as soon as it detects files to transfer, but also it will automatically transfer the files using the defaults, then CLOSE the window. Very useful for when the Shrink option is in effect as once you plug a memory card/camera in and a watch is in place, it will just popup the transfer window and nothing else. This makes it a totally hand free operation!
  • Overwrite existing : When copying files, if the file exists in the destination folder, Transferer will automatically append -X (where X is the next availble number). By selecting this option the files will just be overwritten.
  • “Beep” on completion : Sounds the defualt windows Beep when the transfer has completed
• Date format : Select the date format to use on the auto created dates, changing this will change the text in the brackets allowing you to see what you have selected. Either select from the list or enter your own formatting as shown below (note you can also add the time if you want).
  • ==== Date formatting ==========================
    d Displays the day as a number without a leading zero (1-31).
    dd Displays the day as a number with a leading zero (01-31).
    ddd Displays the day as an abbreviation (Sun-Sat)
    dddd Displays the day as a full name (Sunday-Saturday)
    m Displays the month as a number without a leading zero (1-12).
    mm Displays the month as a number with a leading zero (01-12).
    mmm Displays the month as an abbreviation (Jan-Dec)
    mmmm Displays the month as a full name (January-December)
    yy Displays the year as a two-digit number (00-99).
    yyyy Displays the year as a four-digit number (0000-9999).
  • ==== Time formatting ==========================
    h Displays the hour without a leading zero (0-23).
    hh Displays the hour with a leading zero (00-23).
    n Displays the minute without a leading zero (0-59).
    nn Displays the minute with a leading zero (00-59).
    s Displays the second without a leading zero (0-59).
    ss Displays the second with a leading zero (00-59).
    am/pm Uses the 12-hour clock for the preceding h or hh specifier (am/pm)
    a/p Uses the 12-hour clock for the preceding h or hh specifier (a/p)
• Extension support :- By default Transferer only watches for jpg extensions, from this section you can amend the list of extensions to look for, e.g. the above picture is showing 3 extension types Transferer is looking for. They MUST be added as one per line, otherwise the results will be unpredictable. From release 1.01.8 you can now trail the extension with a – or +. These dictate what the extension does as follows :
  Nothing trailing : Transfer and Delete the files with this extension.
  – (Minus sign) : Do NOT transfer but Delete only.
  +(Plus sign) : Transfer only don’t delete these files.
  Example extension list :
  • JPG
  • TIFF
  • RAW+
  • LID-
• If you entered this list, then all JPG and TIFF files would be transfered and deleted (If selected to do so), however RAW files would be transfered but NOT deleted. Lastly the LID files would not be Transfered but they would be deleted! For the most case, most people will use just “JPG” only and not need anything else, however this does allow more flexibility for the more advanced users.

Adding a folder to watch

To add a new folder to watch, involves two steps. First of all make sure you have some photos to be transfered and connect your camera or card reader (insert) card to the PC. This guide assumes that all cameras PC drivers/card reader drivers are installed and working correctly, if this is the case then from a Windows Explorer you should see a new driver letter (e.g. G:) for your digital camera.. Once that is done, simply select the Add option from the main icons. You will be presented with the following screen :-

Watch setup screen

Then fill in the following details :-

• Name : what you would like to call this would like to call this watch, e.g. “Digital camera”
• Source : This is where the photos will be when you plugin the camera/card reader/media. To make this simple select the “…” at the end of the box next to Source. You should be presented with a screen very similar to this :
  Now select the relevant drive (in my case F: and you will be shown the folders in that drive, there should be a DCIM folder, select this then in that folder you should see another folder which will normally start 100 followed by the manufacturer of your camera (e.g. 100Konic, 100kodak, 100canon etc.) select this folder then in the files you should see some files (Your photos!). Select OK to use this as the source folder
• Destination : This is obviously the other end of the copy 🙂 We have already set the source in the bullet above, now we need to set where the files we be stored on your pc. The selection for this is the same as above (or type it in if you know!). However when the transfer is invoked, Transferer will automatically add the date as a new folder, e.g. today is the 15 January 2004 so Transferer would open up with the folder you select and the date e.g. d:\mypictures\2004-01-15. The format is kept like this so that all the photos/folders stay in transferred order. When the transfer box comes up you can easily add a small description on, or even change the destination folder altogether.
• Auto add date : Add’s a new folder using the date format YYYY-MM-DD to put the transfered files into
• Delete : You can select this option to have Transferer automatically removes the files form the media after they have been copied.
• Eject after use : Ejects the media so that the card can be removed correctly from the card reader
• Scan one level of subfolders : This will include any files under the main folder and include them in the transfer etc. Useful for when your digital camera creates additional folders when a certain number of photos are saved. (New)

Now simply select Okay to save this new watch, or Cancel to lose any data you entered to this screen

Updating a folder to watch

If any of the details you entered where wrong, or you want to change them, then simply select the watch you want to update and select the Update icon. You will be presented with the same screen as when you add a folder to watch, however it will have all the current details in it.

Deleting a folder being watched

Simply select the line to delete from the main screen and select the Delete option from the top row of icons. You will be asked to confirm the deletion, simply select yes/no.

Transferring your photos

Once the watches have been set in place, the actual transfer can take one of two ways to initiate. 1) Manually by selecting the line to transfer and selecting the Transfer icon 2) Have the Auto popup for transfer enabled in which case the “Transferer – Copy files” window will show :-

Transfer

This screen will now ask you where to transfer the photos to, and also allows you to set if you want the files removed off the media after the transfer (set by default to what you put in the watch). You should note that the date has been added (as stated above) at this point. When you are happy with this, simply select Start and the screen will change to :-

Copy in progress

The files will now be copied over to the destination, and then (if selected) will delete the files on the media afterwards(shown by a recycle icon top left), lastly if needed it will process the eject facility and show an eject icon top right. Once the copy is complete the Close option will become valid. Note that you can not close Transfere while any of these screens are up.