[Bug 230060] New: Delete Album is an absolutely terrifying procedure

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=230060

           Summary: Delete Album is an absolutely terrifying procedure
           Product: digikam
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: Ubuntu Packages
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: wishlist
          Priority: NOR
         Component: general
        AssignedTo: [hidden email]
        ReportedBy: [hidden email]


Version:            (using KDE 4.4.1)
OS:                Linux
Installed from:    Ubuntu Packages

Open digikam.  Import folder as album.

Subsequently, move images out of folder, outside digikam's purview.

Result: digikam now has my entire "documents" structure recorded, with zero
images... so I'd like to get rid of the album.  Easy, just "delete album" -
which promptly threatens to wipe everything off my drive.

No, I don't want you to even *touch* the files.  I want you to delete the
*album*, leave the files - even if they're images - alone.  If I wanted to
delete the files, I'd have said so.

Long and short: I now have a huge "album" structure recorded which I don't dare
remove, for fear of losing every file I have that's worth anything.

Maybe digikam's notion of "delete" only applies to its own "internal knowledge"
of the files, but you'd never tell this from the UI, which suggests that what
should be a trivial cleanup task is in fact potentially disastrous.

Basically, having encountered this, I *cannot* trust digikam at all.  If it's
that draconian about files and chooses to threaten to nuke everything in sight
simply because I'm trying to clean up empty albums, it's far too dangerous to
be trusted around my data.

Maybe this is a UI issue, it's threats to delete everything in sight really
*does* mean just its internal knowledge of the data... but would *you* trust a
UI that says it's going to wipe everything?

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[Gilles Caulier-4]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=230060


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--- Comment #1 from Gilles Caulier <caulier gilles gmail com>  2010-03-09 10:52:46 ---
Which digiKam release you use. I never seen this problem before.

Gilles Caulier

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--- Comment #2 from Julien Narboux <Julien narboux fr>  2010-03-09 12:55:38 ---
I think that in Digikam an album is a directory, so if you ask to delete an
album it will delete everything in this directory.

Julien

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[Marcel Wiesweg]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=230060





--- Comment #3 from Marcel Wiesweg <marcel wiesweg gmx de>  2010-03-09 19:29:22 ---
From what I get, he copied some images in his collection, then moved them away
again, has now an empty folder and there is still a warning about really
deleting the files.

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--- Comment #4 from Kelsey Bjarnason <kbjarnason gmail com>  2010-03-26 05:56:48 ---
Actually, what I did was:

1) Create a folder structure of images
2) Tell digikam to build an album there
3) Moved the files elsewhere
4) Told digikam to delete the now empty album

The issue I have is that there is a *huge* difference between "delete digikam's
notions of what is in an album, such as meta tags, descrptions, etc" and
"delete the actual files off the disk".

Digikam doesn't want to simply delete its *own* data, it wants to nuke
everything it can find.

That is such indescribably bad behaviour for an application I can't imagine how
it would ever have made it into a first draft spec, let alone an implementation
- yet experiments show this is _exactly_ what it does - it summarily nukes
everything it can.

Hands off my files, dammit.  If I wanted it to delete all my files, I'd have
said so, say by selecting "delete all files".  Not by selecting "delete album"
which, from how the UI works, suggests only removal of digikam's own data.

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[Gilles Caulier-4]

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            Version|unspecified                 |1.4.0




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--- Comment #5 from Gilles Caulier <caulier gilles gmail com>  2011-12-13 09:29:57 ---
Kelsey,

This entry still valid with 2.x serie ?

Gilles Caulier

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             Status|UNCONFIRMED                 |RESOLVED
         Resolution|---                         |WAITINGFORINFO

--- Comment #6 from Gilles Caulier <[hidden email]> ---
Kelsey,

This entry still valid with 3.5.0 release ?

Gilles Caulier

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--- Comment #7 from Kelsey Bjarnason <[hidden email]> ---
No clue; the few times I've used dk since was for face/dupes checking.
Easy test, though:  add all your irreplaceable images to an album and
delete the album.  If there are no suicidal or homicidal feelings brought
on by this, then bug fixed.
On 2013-11-25 6:42 AM, "Gilles Caulier" <[hidden email]> wrote:

> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=230060
>
> Gilles Caulier <[hidden email]> changed:
>
>            What    |Removed                     |Added
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>              Status|UNCONFIRMED                 |RESOLVED
>          Resolution|---                         |WAITINGFORINFO
>
> --- Comment #6 from Gilles Caulier <[hidden email]> ---
> Kelsey,
>
> This entry still valid with 3.5.0 release ?
>
> Gilles Caulier
>
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--- Comment #8 from Gilles Caulier <[hidden email]> ---
Thanks Kelsey

I close this file as work for me. If necessary, don't hesitate to re-open.

Gilles Caulier

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   Version Fixed In|                            |4.0.0

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[Andrew Goodbody-3]

On 25/11/13 20:58, Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:
> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=230060
>
> --- Comment #7 from Kelsey Bjarnason <[hidden email]> ---
> No clue; the few times I've used dk since was for face/dupes checking.
> Easy test, though:  add all your irreplaceable images to an album and
> delete the album.  If there are no suicidal or homicidal feelings brought
> on by this, then bug fixed.

Kelsey,

I have read the back comments on this bug report and I think that you
mis-understand the way that digikam works. It is fundamentally a view of
the file-system with added metadata. Albums are actually the directories
and files. If you delete an album, it will delete the directory and
files. If you have moved the files out of a directory and no longer wish
it to be there then simple remove the directory as well. Digikam will
notice the missing files and will eventually remove the metadata itself,
there is nothing you have to do, no cleanup is needed. However if you
leave the directory in place then it will be visible in digikam. You
cannot make digikam's view differ from the underlying filesystem.

As far as I can tell you believe that the functionality described in
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=123097 is actually present in
digikam. Many people would like this to be the case but despite this bug
being over 7 years old, there is no sign of it being implemented. Until
that bug is fixed then assume that digikam's view is equal to the
filesystem's view and any actions in digikam will directly affect the
file system. Deleting an album containing irreplaceable images will
delete those images.

Andrew


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[Andrew Goodbody-3]

On 30/11/13 20:05, Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:

> Kinda my point.  If digikam is a file manager, then it is lying about
> its purpose in life.  If it is a tool for cataloguing images, then
> deleting the descriptive data - tags, albums and the like - should be
> nondestructive.  Indeed, the data is in a database; the logic being
> espoused here is that dropping a table in a database should have
> catastrophic effects on objects not contained within the database, and
> somehow this is deemed a sensible thing.
>
> I don't get it, and until digikam learns the difference between object
> and description, it can't be trusted nit to make other, equally bizarre
> associations which are also massively destructive.  It simply cannot be
> trusted.

You are projecting your expectations onto digiKam and complaining when
it does not meet those expectations. An album in digiKam is not
descriptive data it is the actual directory and files.

digiKam manages both the actual files and the metadata. It does not lie
about its purpose in life. "Manage your photographs as a professional
with the power of open source" does not seem to me to have anything that
is not true in it.

You can trust digiKam (as much as any other large piece of software ie
take backups regularly) but you must take the time to understand how it
actually works rather than how you would like it to work or how you
assume it works based on how other programs work. When it says it will
delete files you can trust it to actually delete those files.

Andrew
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