QuickDesk Workflow Automation

QuickDesk can be integrated into various LAB workflow tools like ROES using the ‘manifest file’ system described below.  ROES Server can be configured to generate these manifest files and launch QuickDesk using it’s QuickDesk Listener Agent.  The notes below can be used if you need to build your own integration with QuickDesk- and we use the term ‘LAB Workflow Software’ to represent any external system used to process jobs at your lab.

Details about the ROES / QuickDesk Listener Agent can be found here on the ROES-U site.  With this integration with ROES, you can click one button in ROES to open a job in QuickDesk with all the job parameters already setup.  Just review the corrections and click ‘Save All’ and QuickDesk will inform ROES when it’s done and the corrected images are ready.

General Integration Process

LAB Workflow Software will communicate job configuration data and image list to QuickDesk via a simple text manifest file. LAB Workflow Software will write this manifest file, then will run QuickDesk with the path of this file as a command line parameter:

[path to QuickDesk executable] -j [path to manifest file]

The QuickDesk executable will be one of the following:

MAC:

/Applications/Athentech/Perfectly\ Clear\ QuickDesk.app/Contents/MacOS/Perfectly\ Clear\ QuickDesk

WINDOWS:

Path to QuickDesk can be found in registry value ‘exePath’

HKCU/Software/Athentech/Perfectly Clear QuickDesk v3

When QuickDesk is called this way, it will:

1. Validate the contents of the manifest file.  If the contents are incomplete or invalid, it will log the missing data, and display this to the user in a dialog box.
2. Determine if QuickDesk is already running.  
   1. If QuickDesk is running but is not already processing images (zero open files), then proceed loading the job from the manifest.
   2. If QuickDesk is running and is already processing images, display a message to the user about how to proceed:
      1. QuickDesk was asked to start a new job.  Should QuickDesk close the current job and open the new job?  Yes = close current job, proceed with manifest file.  No = ignore manifest and continue with current job.
3. If QuickDesk is not running, then proceed loading the job from the manifest

Loading a job from the manifest:

When using this method to load jobs, QuickDesk will bypass the ‘Session Configuration’ dialog, and will load the images specified in the manifest. If folders are listed in the manifest, QuickDesk will open all the images in the folders. If a trigger file is specified in the manifest, and if it exists at the time the job it loaded, then QuickDesk will delete the trigger file once the files are all loaded.

Job Complete Trigger File:

QuickDesk will write an empty file to a path & filename specified in the manifest.  This informs LAB Workflow Software that the corrections are complete. When the job is complete (last image saved and closed), if a job_complete_triggerfile path and filename is specified in the manifest file, then QuickDesk will write an empty file to this location.

If the value is empty, or refers to a path that does not exist or is unwritable, then no trigger file will be created.  Typically, the trigger file location should be the same folder where the images are located.

Manifest File Options:

manifest_format_version:	1
preset_group:	Literal name of the group containing the preset to be applied
preset_name:	Literal name of the preset to apply by default to all images in the job
output_files:	One of the following: •”overwrite originals” •Absolute path to output folder
original_files:	One of the following: •”delete” •”leave”                 •Absolute path to backup folder where to move originals after processing
include_subfolders:	One of the following: •yes •no
job_complete_triggerfile:	Path and filename for the optional job complete trigger file
job_images:	One or more of the following: •Absolute path to single folder to process •Absolute paths to individual images and folders to process.

If this list contains only a single folder path and nothing else, the job will be handled exactly as a job loaded from single folder in QuickDesk: output and backup images will be stored with preserved subfolder hierarchy. In all other cases output and backup images will all be written to the root of respective destination folder (unless “overwrite originals”) thus possibly causing name collisions.

Sample Manifest file contents:

# Perfectly Clear QuickDesk Job Manifest file
# lines starting with # are ignored
manifest_format_version: 1
preset_group: Perfectly Clear Essentials
preset_name: Intelligent Auto
output_files: overwrite originals
original_files: delete
include_subfolders: no
job_complete_triggerfile: ~/Server/Original_Photos/R00010/QuickDesk_complete.txt
job_images:
/Server/Original_Photos/R00010/img_0001.jpg
/Server/Original_Photos/R00010/img_0002.jpg
/Server/Original_Photos/R00010/folder_one
…
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