[Digikam-users] Off-line Collection Browsing & DB cleanup

[Jean-François Rabasse]

On Sun, 13 May 2012, John Stumbles wrote:

> Sounds a good idea: I might set that up on my laptop which doesn't have space 
> for all my pictures.
>
> I guess you could do the swapping between reduced-size collection and 
> full-size collection with symlinks (on non-Windows systems) e.g. have your 
> digikam root directory be a symlink to either your reduced-size image tree or 
> the mount-point of your external drive. (You'd have to arrange things so your 
> digikam database isn't in the dk root directory)

Hi John,

If I follow your idea, you mean to trick Digikam with presentation of
images collection either as the full-size version, or reduce-size version ?
Well, could be a great idea if it works, but probably some point should be
tested before :
I don't know exactly how DK does decide, when scanning collections, what is
an existing image and what is a new image. If it's by full pathname check,
the idea would work. But if it uses also some image file specific signature
such as a MD5 or SHA digest, as files are different all images may be
considered as new ones, and all previous images as removed ones.
And the DB would then be reinit accordingly, loosing tags et al.

So, to be checked and if it works it could be a nice hint, especialy for
hotplug/udev gurus that could implement that simlinks swap upon plugging
and unplugging of USB devices.

I must admit I didn't investigate that point, for in most cases I use
both files trees at the same time; the reduced version with DK for browsing 
and searching, and possibly the full-size pluggable drive with a files 
browser, e.g. Dolphin, when images access is needed.

Regards,
Jean-François