[KPhotoAlbum] can not deal with images not on disk

[Jean-Michel FAYARD]

2007/7/19, Jan Kundrát <jkt at gentoo.org
>:
> a) Delete Physical File -- if it's deletable, throw away all respective
> records in the DB and all thumbnails, otherwise leave DB as is
>
> b) Block Images from Display in KPA -- regardless of what the status of
> the file is, just add that file to the list of ignored files
>
> c) Forget about them -- delete images and all associated thumbnails etc
> from the DB. This means that if files exist, they'll be discovered upon
> next tree rescan.

Do we really need so many "delete" options ?


> Risto H. Kurppa wrote:
> > For example I have my large DB file on the
> > laptop but only a part of the actual image files there. I'd be happy
> > if KPA showed me only the images I actually have with me, but if I'd
> > add more images there (that already are in the DB), it'd be possible
> > to tell KPA to re-check which images are not on the disk and start
> > showing the images I just brought in..
>
> That's an interesting feature, indeed. Right now, KPA can do only the
> opposite :).

I think Risto H. Kurppa's use case is very interesting, this is the
direction in which KPhotoAlbum could be fixed.

Do we ever _need_ to delete DB records from a database ?
It seems to me to be just a feature allowing you to loss data.
Just make sure that DB records don't clutters kpa's brower by default
and in return add an entry menu
  "Tools > Show offline images"

Then when you plug your external hardrive / Samba or NFS folder is
connected again or when you find by chance the images you think were
deleted, kphotoalbum find their metadata in the DB, and hurrah !

I also don't think that it's right to do feature b) == "Block Images
from Display in KPA" on an image by image basis. Instead, we could
have a separate dialog like in Amarok with a hierarchy of your folders
where you would say which directories you want to scan and which you
want to block (typically ~/hidden/Playboy and ~/html ). (This new
dialog would also give an ihm to the kimdaba -c
another_directory/index.xml feature)

Then things becomes far less confusing with just one option :
       1) Delete Physical Files -- if deletable ; delete also the
thumbnail ; keep their metadata


My 2 cents,

   Jean-Michel Fayard