Noob questions about xnview's database?

[freebooter]

I am trying xnview as a non kde alternative to Digikam. With Digikam and other photo and music 'collection' managing programs they often have a target directory. This is usually set on first use and the program scans all the contents of that directory, builds its database and then keeps track of changes to the directory; often scanning on start up.

So far I haven't managed to find how to get xnview to do similar. It seems to add files to its database of any folder opened via the browser but not to scan recursively.

I did find the option in Browser/Database of 'Base path of your pictures' and have set that to my Photos folder but it doesn't seem to have altered anything.

Is there a way of getting xnview to 'watch' specified folders and automatically update for changes made in other programs? Is there anyway of scanning a folder and its sub folders or do I have to open each folder manually?

thanks

[m.Th.]

There are several answers to this, chose the ones which fits you best:

1. XnView MP doesn't have a "watched root (and subdirs)" engine. I'm not the XnView MP's programmer but it happens to have some experience with such engines: they tend to kick-in when you don't expect and take important resources from you (this is a big problem especially when we speak about big sub-trees to scan), to be buggy (especially cross-platform), slow and rather cumblesome to program. Even if it is handy, I disable (if I can) these engines from other DAMs which I have.

2. You can open each folder manually. The XnView's scanning engine is very very fast (fastest which I've seen).

3. You can go to Settings | Database | Add folder... (if the root + subtrees is/are big it will take a while till it will import everything. You can do it overnight).

4. You can go to your desired folder in the Folders Pane, right-click and select 'Show all folders (recursive)'.


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"Base Path of your Pictures" has other meaning:

It means that it will store in the DB only the remainder of the path.

For example if my pictures are located in C:\MyPic\2014\01\, ...\02\, ...\03\, ... , ...\12\ then setting up the base path to c:\myPic then in DB will be stored only 2014\01 (etc.). Useful for relocation. (IOW if you want to move your data warehouse somewhere else).

[Rincewind]

This is a realy old thread but is there anything changed abepout this topic because I would need this feature too?
In the moment I often delete all folders and categories too add the main folder new. That's far to complicate and I would prefer if changes in files and folders (and categories) inthe set main folder would be watched automatically.