[Digikam-users] Technical newbie questions

[Henning Spruth]

Hi,

I'm new to digikam and would like to better understand its underlying 
principles before entrusting it with my digital photo collection.

From playing with the tool and looking into the database schema with the 
sqlite3 utility, I'm making the following educated guesses about digikam's 
album management:

1. In essence, digikam manages image files in a directory structure under 
its "Album Library Path".

2. An album is identical to a directory below the album library path. Any 
change to the album hierarchy in digikam is directly reflected to a change in 
directory structure.

3. When adding images or importing folders, the images are copied into the 
album library path.

4. A central function of digikam is to maintain an index of the files in the 
album library and the image properties (tags etc.) in its sqlite database.

5. Thumbnails for the album view are not stored on disk, but always generated 
on the fly.

6. When setting the "album library path" to an existing directory structure 
containing images in a hierarchy, it will scan the structure and recognize 
the existing levels as albums. It will not modify the directory structure 
except for creating a digikam3.db at its root.

I'd be grateful if somebody could tell me if my assumptions are correct.

Sorry if this is already clarified elsewhere - I browsed the documentation and 
FAQ section on digikam.org but couldn't find it.

Many thanks!

Henning