use of soft links for collections

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use of soft links for collections

jdd@dodin.org
Hello,

I have my collections spread on an usb disk by date, one by year

This begin to make many collections :-)

I try to make only one collection with inside links to real collections

collection
collection/linkto2017
collection/linkto2016
...

this don't works, when it works perfectly on the system, for example
with dolphin

normal?
thanks
jdd
--
http://dodin.org
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Re: use of soft links for collections

Elle Stone-2
On 11/15/2017 10:55 AM, [hidden email] wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I have my collections spread on an usb disk by date, one by year
>
> This begin to make many collections :-)
>
> I try to make only one collection with inside links to real collections
>
> collection
> collection/linkto2017
> collection/linkto2016
> ...
>
> this don't works, when it works perfectly on the system, for example
> with dolphin
>

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking. But currently I have my actual
image files in a partition on a large drive, and my Linux root and $HOME
folders on a second, smaller drive. The digiKam database is in
$HOME/digiKam.

My "Collections" folders are soft links in the $HOME/digiKam folder to
the actual folders on the partition on the large drive, which is mounted
at "/store".

So these are the folder paths where the images are actually located:

/store/camera_files
/store/paintings_and_edited_images
/store/to_be_deleted

And these are the corresponding soft links that digiKam sees as the
Collections folders:

$HOME/digiKam/camera_files
$HOME/digiKam/paintings_and_edited_images
$HOME/digiKam/to_be_deleted

So far this seems to be working, but I only set it up a couple weeks
ago. I've been using digiKam to do a lot of dragging and dropping of
files between various subfolders and also into the "to_be_deleted"
folder, which I've been periodically reviewing and emptying using Dolphin.

So far nothing seems to have gone wrong. But I'm still a bit leery of
unknown traps and issues that might surface . . . Anyone with more
long-term experience with using soft-links as Collections folders?

Best,
Elle

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Re: use of soft links for collections

jdd@dodin.org
Le 15/11/2017 à 17:55, Elle Stone a écrit :

> And these are the corresponding soft links that digiKam sees as the
> Collections folders:

well..

I tested again, and it worked. Don't know what I did wrong in the first
place :-(

thanks!
jdd
--
http://dodin.org
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Re: use of soft links for collections

Remco Viëtor
In reply to this post by Elle Stone-2
On mercredi 15 novembre 2017 17:55:47 CET Elle Stone wrote:

> On 11/15/2017 10:55 AM, [hidden email] wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I have my collections spread on an usb disk by date, one by year
> >
> > This begin to make many collections :-)
> >
> > I try to make only one collection with inside links to real collections
> >
> > collection
> > collection/linkto2017
> > collection/linkto2016
> > ...
> >
> > this don't works, when it works perfectly on the system, for example
> > with dolphin
>
> I'm not sure exactly what you are asking. But currently I have my actual
> image files in a partition on a large drive, and my Linux root and $HOME
> folders on a second, smaller drive. The digiKam database is in
> $HOME/digiKam.
>
> My "Collections" folders are soft links in the $HOME/digiKam folder to
> the actual folders on the partition on the large drive, which is mounted
> at "/store".
>
> So these are the folder paths where the images are actually located:
>
> /store/camera_files
> /store/paintings_and_edited_images
> /store/to_be_deleted
>
> And these are the corresponding soft links that digiKam sees as the
> Collections folders:
>
> $HOME/digiKam/camera_files
> $HOME/digiKam/paintings_and_edited_images
> $HOME/digiKam/to_be_deleted
>
> So far this seems to be working, but I only set it up a couple weeks
> ago. I've been using digiKam to do a lot of dragging and dropping of
> files between various subfolders and also into the "to_be_deleted"
> folder, which I've been periodically reviewing and emptying using Dolphin.
>
> So far nothing seems to have gone wrong. But I'm still a bit leery of
> unknown traps and issues that might surface . . . Anyone with more
> long-term experience with using soft-links as Collections folders?
>
> Best,
> Elle
How does Digikam react to missing directories/collections?

It looks like jdd never has more than a few of the collections mounted, while
Elle has all the configured directories available at all times. As Digikam now
optionally verifies directory changes and cleans up the database, unmounted
directories might cause trouble.
Trouble as in "images in unmounted directories/collections are purged from the
database", this won't remove any actual files, but could lead to loss of tags,
captions and titles, if those aren't written to sidecars.

Don't forget that links to mount points point to (subdirectories of) actual
directories, so Digikam will see a directory (which is probably empty if the
drive isn't mounted, but that's not necessary; using a non-empty directory as
a mount point just hides any files there for the duration), but without the
expected image files...

Disabling the two mentioned startup checks through the Digikam configuration
dialog might prevent this.

Oh, and @jdd: "this doesn't work" isn't very descriptive, so I had to take a
guess at what "didn't work".

Remco
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Re: use of soft links for collections

jdd@dodin.org
Le 15/11/2017 à 18:24, Remco Viëtor a écrit :

> Oh, and @jdd: "this doesn't work" isn't very descriptive, so I had to take a
> guess at what "didn't work".
>

it's adding a collection that worked - or not. But it's not always easy
to know because in some moment digikam works silently and suddenly the
albums come visible.

also the fact that I had a rsync running that lowered much the usb3 speed

with the link system, I will have only one collection to add (the link
home), much easier.

thanks
jdd