Several databases with digikam

[Jost Schenck]

Hi,

I've been looking in the documentation (and maybe I'm blind), but I can't find
a way to manage different separated photo databases with digikam. The command
line option --database-directory doesn't seem to do what I would like to: open
a different digikam4.db, this way keeping completely separated databases with
completely separated sets of tags etc.

To explain my motivation for doing this, there are three settings I would like
to use digikam in:
- our photo collection, standard digikam use
- my archive of photos, illustrations, snippets and sketches that I collect so
I can some time reuse them as material for drawing and painting
- I would like to build up a picture database of scanned magazine articles,
using tags to sort them by different topics

Each of these usages needs a completely different classification; while creating
a scanned document archive may not be the kind of task digikam was supposed to
do, I couldn't yet find any other Linux software that will do the job better.
Of course I could put everything into one huge digikam base, but it would make
tagging very confusing because of the vast amount of different tags.

Is there a way to realize what I want to do? Would it make sense to put this
on a wishlist? I would imagine a) a way to open a different digikam file in an
open-Dialog in the File menu and b) a way to specify a digikam-file on the
command line, so I could create different application launchers.

Thanks a lot for a wonderful software!
Jost

--
Jost Schenck
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[Micha? Smoczyk]

Jost Schenck wrote:

> [...] Of course I could put everything into one huge digikam base, but it would make
> tagging very confusing because of the vast amount of different tags.
>
> Is there a way to realize what I want to do? Would it make sense to put this
> on a wishlist? I would imagine a) a way to open a different digikam file in an
> open-Dialog in the File menu and b) a way to specify a digikam-file on the
> command line, so I could create different application launchers.

Hi Jost,
I think in this case there is no need to have more than one
database, you can use different _collections_ if your elements are
in different locations, and appropriate tree of subtags to describe
the content of your files.

I use quite complicated tree of tags with digiKam (more than 300
subtags grouped in a few main tag "branches") and it works good, I
can find desired photo if I want. Cheers,

--
/\/\ichal, admin [monkey] nocnyrzepin [dot] net



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[Paul Waldo]

Using different Albums may be of use to you.  I organize in a similar manner; When I download images from my camera, the files go into an album named Camera.  When I do any work on one of those images, that work goes into a different album called Developed.  Note that these albums point to different directories.  I want to keep my digital negatives as pristine as possible, hence the distinction.

If you have your three main categories of images in different directories, just go to the Digikam Settings and create an Album for each of the directories.  You now have visual separation of the types in Album View, and (IIRC) you can include the root album in any searches you create (e.g. caption=="cute puppy" and rootalbum==StockScans.  HTH!

Paul
----- "Jost Schenck" <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I've been looking in the documentation (and maybe I'm blind), but I
> can't find
> a way to manage different separated photo databases with digikam. The
> command
> line option --database-directory doesn't seem to do what I would like
> to: open
> a different digikam4.db, this way keeping completely separated
> databases with
> completely separated sets of tags etc.
>
> To explain my motivation for doing this, there are three settings I
> would like
> to use digikam in:
> - our photo collection, standard digikam use
> - my archive of photos, illustrations, snippets and sketches that I
> collect so
> I can some time reuse them as material for drawing and painting
> - I would like to build up a picture database of scanned magazine
> articles,
> using tags to sort them by different topics
>
> Each of these usages needs a completely different classification;
> while creating
> a scanned document archive may not be the kind of task digikam was
> supposed to
> do, I couldn't yet find any other Linux software that will do the job
> better.
> Of course I could put everything into one huge digikam base, but it
> would make
> tagging very confusing because of the vast amount of different tags.
>
> Is there a way to realize what I want to do? Would it make sense to
> put this
> on a wishlist? I would imagine a) a way to open a different digikam
> file in an
> open-Dialog in the File menu and b) a way to specify a digikam-file on
> the
> command line, so I could create different application launchers.
>
> Thanks a lot for a wonderful software!
> Jost
>
> --
> Jost Schenck
> [hidden email]
> _______________________________________________
> Digikam-users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/digikam-users

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On Tuesday 09 June 2009 16:26:15 Jost Schenck wrote:
>
> Is there a way to realize what I want to do? Would it make sense to put
> this on a wishlist? I would imagine a) a way to open a different digikam
> file in an open-Dialog in the File menu and b) a way to specify a
> digikam-file on the command line, so I could create different application
> launchers.
>
Apart from Michal solution you can use simple wrapper to replace digiKam
config files depending on your profile.

m.

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