2 Requirements, Download and Installation

Big Change with MacOS 27 (Golden Gate)

From MacOS 27 on a lot of formerly supported applications will need Rosetta to run and it is already announced that with the next major version (MacOS 28) also Rosetta wil not supported any more. For that reason, we decided to say Good-Bye to ActiveTcl and Python from python.org. The new way is to go on with homebrew for Tcl/Tk and python.

More details follow in the MacOS section.

2.1 Requirements

2.1.1 Operating systems

MacOS High Sierra (10.13) or higher
OpenSuse Linux 42.2 or higher
Microsoft Windows 10/11

older versions may also work (64-bit OSes assumed; 32-bit Linux installations should work, 32-bit Windows-Variants might work but cannot be supported due to a lack of reference installations on our side)

2.1.2 Software requirements

Tcl/Tk: Tcl/Tk 8.6.8
libtcl: according to the installed Tcl/Tk version (already included in the MacOS and the Microsoft Windows Tcl/Tk packages)
exiftool: Version 10.79 or newer

2.2 Download

PFotos can be found on our private webserver: Download

2.3 Installation

The installation procedures are currently not as comfortable as we are looking for. But the first goal was to make the application available. We are looking for installers for the different operating systems to make things easier and fail-safe with follow-up versions.

2.3.1 Linux

First, install the packages Tcl/Tk , libtcl and exiftool according to the procedures of your Linux distribution. Then, copy the file pfotos.tar.gz to the directory where you want to install it (and where you do have the necessary permissions). Extract it by

tar -xzvf pfotos.tar.gz

Open a command terminal in the directory PFOTOS and type the command

./pfotos.tcl

For more convenience, please generate a so called starter icon for your desktop according to the procedure for your Linux distribution.

2.3.2 MacOS

Install the exiftool from the installation package. To check the correct installation of exiftool open a Terminal window and execute the command exiftool. The manual page of exiftool shall be shown.

It was announced and realized by Apple that the Tcl/Tk package will be removed from the standard installation of MacOS with MacOS 27; also the support of Intel based applications bye Rosetta is announced to be stopped with MacOS 28.

Thus, we announce and recommend to install Tcl/Tk 8.6.9 (or higher) from the homebrew repositories (see below).
In case that from former versions of PFotos Tcl/Tk was installed as formerly required from ActiveState, those installation may stay, because PFotos is directly linked to the homebrew path.
But the better way is to clean up the old things, because they might not work any longer on MacOS 28.

2.3.2.1 Removal of old Stuff

To get rid of the old Tcl/Tk as few commandline actions are required.

Open the terminal application on your Mac and run the following commands:
This command uninstalls the Tcl/Tk:

/Library/Frameworks/Tcl.framework/Versions/8.6/Resources/Scripts/uninstall

2.3.2.2 Installation of Tcl/Tk with homebrew

To install Tcl/Tk package from homebrew the following few steps are necessary:

2.3.2.2.1 Install Homebrew

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

2.3.2.2.2 Adjust the Environment

JOHNDOE must be replaced by your user name.

echo >> /Users/JOHNDOE/.zprofile
echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv zsh)"' >> /Users/JOHNDOE/.zprofile
eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv zsh)"

Close and restart the Terminal application.

brew install --cask miniforge

With miniforge we already have Tcl/Tk available. If you like, link them to /usr/local/bin

sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/Caskroom/miniforge/base/bin/tclsh /usr/local/bin
sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/Caskroom/miniforge/base/bin/wish /usr/local/bin

Finally, copy the application container PFotos.app either to the system’s application Folder Programs or to any other desired location and simply start the application like any other one.

Rosetta Issue

If apps using ActiveTcl were installed under previous macOS versions, apps newly built with Homebrew may also prompt you to install Rosetta.

In such cases, open the app’s Info window (right-click) in the Applications folder and uncheck the “Open using Rosetta” option.

2.3.3 Windows

Unpack the pfotos.zip archive and run pfotos_setup.exe to install PFotos. Install the exiftool Download ExifTool and take care to rename it from exiftool(k).exe to exiftool.exe. Otherwise the tool will only show its help pages.

2.4 What is new (History)

PFotos 1.5
After a new cross platform ExifToolGUI was released at ExifTool-GUI the decision was made to enable PFotos to transfer images to that tool. It must be considered, that those pieces of software are made to modify image meta data. So please take care of your image originals.
Unfortunately, the author informed that the development of and the support for ExifTool- GUI has stopped. Please check whether one of the still available installation packages fits for your operating system.
Also new in the preferences tab is the possibility to to make use of ImageMagick and DCraw in PFotos as far as they are installed on your computer.
Since it is not possible to select executables in application containers on MacOS it was obvious to enable direct path entries for the external tools used by PFotos . This is visible in the preferences tab which have been rearranged a little for better overview. As a consequence, it is no longer necessary to include the exiftool by Phil Harvey in the PFotos package for Microsoft Windows . See the Windows section above. Additionally, the preferences tab of PFotos has been re-rearranged for a little better overview.

PFotos 1.4
New feature: New tab for histograms for hour of day – 24 for each hour of a day Update: exiftool: Version 12.25 included in the Microsoft Windows package

PFotos 1.3
New feature: Histogram of image quantity over time
Bugfix: Export of current selection corrected (mismatch to internal data structure re- paired)
Update: exiftool: Version 11.76 included in the Microsoft Windows package

PFotos 1.2
New feature: EXIF information of individual images can be stored as plain text
New feature: The operating system’s default file browser can be launched at the indi- vidual images’ parent directories

PFotos 1.1
New feature: User customizable settings for foreground (text) and background color
New feature: Search and Marking functionality in the detailed EXIF information window
Update: exiftool version 11.23 included in the Microsoft Windows package

PFotos 1.0
New feature: In the tiled selection view, mouse over gets the short EXIF information displayed as tool tip.
Fixed UTF-8 issue for Microsoft Windows when displaying detailed EXIF information.