Softabar PhotoCon

Softabar PhotoCon is a tool to consolidate digital photographs. Tool has two components: client and server. Visit www.softabar.com for more information about this and other products.

Installation

Unzip client and server packages to a directory. Execute client from client directory using command PhotoConClient.cmd. Server has command PhotoConServer.cmd.
Add program shortcuts to the Startup-menu in order to start PhotoCon automatically when logging in to the computer.

Quickstart

• Install Softabar PhotoCon Server to a single computer.
• Install Softabar PhotoCon Client to one or more computer.
• Enter license key to Softabar PhotoCon Server and all Softabar PhotoCon Clients.
• Copy digital images to directory c:\photo_upload in computers where Softabar PhotoCon Client is installed.
• Digital images are automatically consolidated to directory c:\my_photos in computer here Softabar PhotoCon Server is installed.

Softabar PhotoCon v1.0.0 was developed and tested using Windows XP.

When running Softabar PhotoCon on Windows Vista it is recommended to execute the program using Windows XP SP 2 compatibility mode.

Softabar PhotoCon requires network connectivity, both UDP and TCP. UDP is used by PhotoCon Clients to discover PhotoCon Server. Server uses UDP port 63822 to listen client connections. TCP port 4369 is used to send images from clients to server.

Note: make sure that firewall allows traffic in these ports.

Softabar PhotoCon Server

The server component automatically consolidates images to directory c:\my_photos. Images are in subdirectories based on year, month and date.
Image files are renamed to format "YYYYMMDD-hhmmss-(make)" where date is the create date of the image and make is the camera manufacturer. Images with same date (multiple shots at the same second) have sequence number in the file name. Duplicate images are deleted from the c:\my_photos directory.

When Softabar PhotoCon Server is started icon will appear on the system tray:

When right clicking system tray icon a menu opens:

Here you can enter license key.

Softabar PhotoCon Client

The client component automatically reads images from directory c:\photo_upload and then sends images to server component which consolidates images to directory c:\my_photos.

Client component may be located in different computer than the server component and principle is that there is single server within a network (for example, home network) and several clients in different computers (for example, desktop as server and laptops of family members).
Using Softabar PhotoCon images from various computer can be consolidated automatically to single server.
System tray icon of the Softabar PhotoCon Client is like this:

Right clicking the system tray icon opens the same menu as in server component.

Entering license key

License key is purchased from the Softabar Order page. After the purchase, email confirmation is received and it includes license information: email address and license key.
License key must be entered in server and each client in the network. License dialog is opened from system tray menu item "License key", it opens following dialog:

License information, email and license key, is entered in the fields in the dialog.

Note: multiple servers may exist in the network but results are unpredictable if using same license key in each server. It is recommended to use only one PhotoCon Server in your network.