LibreRef

NOTE: This is a M$ github mirror of LibreRef's main repository which is hosted on Gitlab. Please see the Gitlab version to keep up to date with the latest version of LibreRef.

LibreRef is a free as in freedom digital referencing tool for artists.

Usage:

• Middle-mouse to move view
• Left click to select images
• Right click to open menu
• Drag and drop images into display

Download

LibreRef is distributed as an AppImage for easy use:

• X86_64: libre-ref-x86_64

Screenshots

(A picture is worth a thousand words)

Videos

Building from Source

To build this project from source, you will need to have the Opam OCaml package manager installed on your system, with a 4.12.0 OCaml compiler switch.

Make sure the following OCaml packages are installed (opam install <package-name>):

• cmdliner
• data-encoding
• lablgtk3
• stb_image
• bos
• piaf

To build LibreRef from source, simply execute the following command from the project root:

opam exec -- dune build ./libre_ref.exe

Additionally, to produce a deployable AppImage file for LibreRef, simply run the build_appimage.sh script from the project root.

Note: you will have to have the linuxdeploy and appimagetool appimages on your path.

Project Architecture

The LibreRef project is structured as follows:

./
|-- resources                         - application resources
|-- LICENSE                           - LICENSE for source code (AGPL)
|-- libre-ref.opam                    - opam project description
|-- dune                              - build tool (dune) project description
|-- dune-project
|-- build_appimage.sh                 - deployment script
|-- readme.md                         - readme (this document)
|
|                                     - application files:
|-- libre_ref.ml
|-- scene.ml
|-- gui.ml(i)
|-- config.ml
|
|                                     - library files:
|-- camera.ml
|-- error.ml
|-- image.ml
|-- serialized.ml
|-- quadtree.ml
|-- utils.ml
`-- web.ml

The source code files in this project can be broadly split into two categories:

• Application files -- these are application specific files that form the core of Libre-ref's implementation and functionality
• Library files -- these are small modular reusable (usually purely functional) components that provide generic features used by LibreRef.

To understand how LibreRef works, when initially exploring the repository, you should stick to just the core application implementation files, whereas the library files may be of interest to be reused in other projects (under copy-left licenses of course).

Below, we provide a brief description of the purpose of each of the core application files:

• libre_ref.ml -- The core entry-point for the application. Handles parsing the command-line arguments and then starting the GUI
• scene.ml -- The functional logical core of libre-ref that represents a collection of scalable and movable images
• gui.ml -- The imperative~ish glue that hooks the functional core of libre-ref to the Cairo GUI library
• config.ml -- A small imperative/mutable component that encapsulates retrieving and saving config information to and from disk