Cannot Synchronize Catalog From Disk

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metal450
Posts: 132
Joined: Sun Apr 28, 2019 6:01 am

Cannot Synchronize Catalog From Disk

Post by metal450 »

XnView description

This is a re-post of the part of viewtopic.php?p=172031 that didn't get addressed, as requested. Full discussion is there, but for a more concise summary...

Summary:
When using the catalog, if some files/folders are added, deleted, or renamed/moved beneath the catalog's base path, there's no way to recursively "update" the catalog accordingly.

Repro:
1) Settings->Catalog->Enable Catalog
2) Settings->Catalog->Base path of your pictures->Select a folder that contains a few subfolders of photos (with keywords). e.g. add D:\Pics, which contains D:\Pics\sub1 and D:\Pics\sub2.
3) Settings->Catalog->Import folder->Select the same base dir, e.g. D:\Pics
4) Use Categories Filter to confirm that it found some photos with keywords
5) Navigate to D:\Pics in Windows File Explorer. Rename D:\Pics\sub2 to D:\Pics\sub3, and add a new D:\Pics\sub4.
6) At this point, XnView's catalog is out of date - we need to do something to re-synchronize it with what's actually within your photo collection on disk. However, Settings->Catalog->Synchronize Folders doesn't work: it did not find any of these changes (i.e. sub3 & sub4 have not been added, sub2 has not been removed).

Desired solution:
We need some option to scan within D:\Pics (the Catalog's Base path), drop the files that were removed & add files that are new (and update any changed metadata in files that remain). The ideal place for such an option is in the folder tree (that's where Lightroom has it - screenshot below) : you just right-click a folder & select "Synchronze," and it will scan & synchronize recursively down the tree from whichever level it's run. Being able to do this from the folder tree has 2 benefits: You can synchronize easily without needing to dig through the settings, and you can synchronize more selectively. If you right-click the highest-level root folder in your catalog it will synchronize everything below that, but you can also right click a lower-level folder & synchronise from there. In other words, rather than synchronizing from D:\Pics (the entire catalog), you can right click D:\Pics\Trips, and synchronice just the tree from that level. With a very large catalog, this can save a lot of time. In any case, after Synchronize Folders is run, then everything below that folder will be updated so that the catalog again exactly matches whatever is on disk.

Screenshot:
Image

Why this is needed:
There are many cases where it's not feasible to exclusively use XnView for managing the files - i.e. dual boot sytems that share a partition, or when managing media on a removable device that is sometimes used from other systems. Thus, after manipulating the file structure on disk, it's necessary to have some way to tell XnView to update its catalog accordingly.

Thanks again! :)
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xnview
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Re: Cannot Synchronize Catalog From Disk

Post by xnview »

so a way to synchronize a specific folder without going in Settings>Catalog?
Pierre.
metal450
Posts: 132
Joined: Sun Apr 28, 2019 6:01 am

Re: Cannot Synchronize Catalog From Disk

Post by metal450 »

Currently, there is no working way to synchronize all changes from disk to the catelog (as described, Settings->Catalog->Synchronize doesn't do it).

So a way to synchronize changes from disk to catelog.

It would be cool/ideal if the UI would let you do it directly from the tree, especially because you could then synchronize only specific subtrees rather than the entire of the catalog (which can be very large). But even if it could be done by going in Settings>Catalog, that would be better than nothing, as currently it cannot be done at all.
metal450
Posts: 132
Joined: Sun Apr 28, 2019 6:01 am

Re: Cannot Synchronize Catalog From Disk

Post by metal450 »

Any thoughts/progress on this?
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xnview
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Re: Cannot Synchronize Catalog From Disk

Post by xnview »

so the same as 'Update catalog from files' but on a folder, right?
Pierre.
metal450
Posts: 132
Joined: Sun Apr 28, 2019 6:01 am

Re: Cannot Synchronize Catalog From Disk

Post by metal450 »

I wouldn't define it based on "Update catalog from files," as I'm not entirely clear how that actually behaves. I'd just define it based on the 1st post above.

(It sounds like "Update catalog from files" might just re-read keywords in the already-added files, which would be very different from this. This needs to recursively remove files/folders from the catalog that were deleted from disk, add files/folders to the catalog that are new on disk, etc - full details above)
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