Folder Monitoring

Hotfolder Prints works by monitoring a folder of incoming images (the “hot folder”). This folder needs to be set before you can process images.

In this Guide

Set the Hot Folder

Select the folder to monitor by pressing the “…” browse button to the right of the text area headed “Folder to monitor for new images”.

The folder path can also include date-based tokens e.g. C:\Photobooth\%Y-%m-%D. The folder path is checked every 60 seconds and updated if it has changed. Select the “Auto create folder” option if you want Hotfolder Prints to create the folder to be monitored if it doesn’t exist.

Specify Number of images

Specify the number of images to be used in each layout. When Hotfolder Prints is running, it will monitor the folder for new files. Once it has detected the required number of images, it will automatically format and print them.

Filename Match

Filename Match uses Regular Expressions to tell Hotfolder to only process certain images added to the folder being monitored. For example, to process even-numbered files and ignore odd-numbered files, the regular expression should be set to .*[02468]\.JPG.

Processing Mode

The Processing Mode tells Hotfolder what file type to wait for before processing starts. For example. if JPEG is selected, then Hotfolder waits for the required number of JPEG images before it processes them. If Wait for XML file is selected, it will wait until the XML file and the required number of images before processing them.

Wait for JPEGs
Hotfolder Prints will monitor the folder for new JPEG images and will process them when enough images are available.

Wait for PNGs
Hotfolder Prints will monitor the folder for new PNG images and will process them when enough images are available

Wait for JPEGs or PNGs
Hotfolder Prints will monitor the folder for new JPEG or PNG images and will process them when enough images are available.

Wait for videos
Hotfolder Prints will monitor the folder for new MP4 or MOV videos and will process them when enough videos are available by extracting a still image from each video. Use the “Secs into video” setting to specify where in the video the still image should be extracted (e.g., if the video has a 3-second intro section, “Secs into video” could be set to 4 seconds to skip the intro).

Wait for XML file
Hotfolder Prints will monitor the folder for new XML files. Hotfolder Prints will then read the XML file for a list of JPEG images to process. The XML file should be in the same format as the XML summary file written by Breeze Systems’ photo booth software. This is the recommended option if you are using Hotfolder Prints with our photo booth software.

Wait for XML file with timeout
This is the same as the “Wait for JPEGs” option except that Hotfolder Prints will wait for an XML file with the same name as the first JPEG in the set. The JPEG images will be processed if the timeout occurs before the XML file is found.

Delay Before Processing

The delay before processing images can be set to any value from 0 to 120 seconds. Normally, a value of 1 second should be fine, but it may be necessary to use a larger delay if images take a long time to copy to the hot folder. A longer delay may also be required to allow users time to enter their email address when using Hotfolder Prints with the touchscreen keyboard option in our photo booth software. Alternatively, select the “Wait for XML file” processing option, and Hotfolder Prints will wait until the photo booth software has written the XML file containing the user’s email address before it starts processing the images.

Don’t Process Files

The “Don’t process files if output file already exists” option is useful when using the File->Rescan XML files option. When “Don’t process files if output file already exists” is set, Hotfolder Prints checks the output filename, and if it already exists, it doesn’t process the file again. If “Don’t process files if output file already exists” is not set, Hotfolder Prints will create a new copy of the file (with a _1 suffix) if the output file already exists.

Example Photo Booth Summary XML File

The sample photo booth summary XML file below was created using Breeze Systems’ Webcam Photobooth software. The XML summary files written by our other photo booth software (DSLR Remote Pro for Windows, NKRemote, and PSRemote) have similar formats:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<breeze_systems_photobooth version="1.1">
<photo_information>
  <date>2013/04/16</date>
  <time>09:16:20</time>
  <user_data>"contact@breezesoftware.com":mailto://contact@breezesoftware.com</user_data>
  <prints>1</prints>
  <photobooth_images_folder>C:\Users\Chris\Documents\PhotoboothImages\example</photobooth_images_folder>
  <caption1></caption1>
  <caption2></caption2>
  <bw_mode hue="200" saturation="200">2</bw_mode>
  <photos>
    <photo image="1">20130416_091620.jpg</photo>
    <photo image="2">20130416_091625.jpg</photo>
    <photo image="3">20130416_091630.jpg</photo>
    <photo image="4">20130416_091635.jpg</photo>
    <output>prints\130416_091620.jpg</output>
  </photos>
</photo_information>
</breeze_systems_photobooth>

The {user_data}@@ used in the email command will read the value “contact@breezesoftware.com” from the tag. The auto prints option will read the value 1 from the tag. The auto color/B&W option will read the value 2 and the attributes hue=200 and saturation from the tag. This will print the photos as B&W toned with a hue of 200 and saturation of 40 to give a monochrome sepia look. The tag can also be set to 0 for color or 1 for B&W without toning.

When the processing mode is set to “Wait for XML file,” the following filenames of images to process will be read from the XML file: 20130416_091620.jpg, 20130416_091625.jpg, 20130416_091630.jpg, 20130416_091635.jpg.

Getting Started

Output Settings