[Digikam-users] Review of Digikam

[Duncan Hill]

> it lacks also a real save/restore to disk (cd/dvd) utility. 
> I mean a way to keep the database and the images in sync 
> between several installs (save on 10.0, restore on 10.2, 
> with may be different folders). May be it would be better to 
> have the data in the same folder than images (may be only on 
> backups). I also lose data this way.

There are tools for doing backups that do them very well.  The beauty of 
the Unix philosophy of tools is to have a tool that does a job, and does 
it well.  Multi-purpose tools are all well and good, but normally cannot 
match a dedicated tool for the same purpose.  What digiKam should 
possibly do is make it easy to use those dedicated tools to do their job.

> of course the better way should be to have data stored IN 
> the image, but this seems to be unlikely

There was at least one poster in the past few weeks who was absolutely 
horrified at the concept of changing ANY data in the image, including 
meta-data.  Your better way is his worst way :)

The benefit of the sqlite database file is that you have on central 
location to easily store and retrieve the information.  This also makes 
it faster than scanning 8000 photos to find all photos matching 
'london'.  The benefit of a standardised image meta-data is of course 
that any other application (if it knows the standard) could read the 
information without needing the sqlite DB.  Pros and cons for each approach.