Screenshot of imgupv2 ready to upload multiple images with indicators for completed alt text

I pushed out imgupv2 0.9.1. It’s what I’d call feature complete:

  • multi-image posting to Flickr, Smugmug, Bluesky, and Mastodon
  • world’s crabbiest, most indifferent caching strategy
  • GUI for posting straight from Apple Photos or Finder selection

I kinda like where it ended up with multi-images from the command line. They were super clunky using standard command line switches and positional arguments, and I think that’s a weird use case for the command line, but it’s a normal use case for automation, so the tool biases in favor of machines talking at each other in those instances:

# Create JSON and pipe it
echo '{
  "images": [
    {
      "path": "/path/to/image1.jpg",
      "title": "Sunset",
      "description": "Beautiful sunset",
      "tags": ["sunset", "photography"],
      "alt": "Orange sunset over mountains"
    },
    {
      "path": "/path/to/image2.jpg",
      "title": "Moon",
      "description": "Full moon",
      "tags": ["moon", "night"],
      "alt": "Full moon in clear sky"
    }
  ],
  "social": {
    "mastodon": {
      "enabled": true,
      "text": "Some photos",
      "visibility": "public"
    },
    "bluesky": {
      "enabled": true,
      "text": "Hello, thirst-trap bots."
    }
  }
}' | imgup upload --json

The GUI poster is sort of nice: Little thumbnails so you can catch it if you meant to upload from Finder but have Photos selected (and v/v), and while it won’t force you to add alt text, you get an affirming little green check if you add it to each of your multi-post images so that you don’t have to go back and check.

The caching thing … it’s okay. Basically, you upload something and its URL and some metadata get written into a sqlite db, so if you ever try to upload the same image again, you just get your snippet back without a duplicate. If you delete the image from SmugMug or Flickr, you’ll just get a broken image link in your clipboard, so if you’re a volatile Flickr or SmugMug user, just:

imgup config set default.duplicate_check false

And it’s installable with Homebrew:

brew tap pdxmph/tap
brew install --cask pdxmph/tap/imgupv2

… assign the imgupv2-gui.app a keyboard shortcut from Shortcuts or FastScripts or whatever you care to do and invoke it on a Photos or Finder photo selection.