Additional file metadata

[Andreas Schleth]

Hi together,

as Joe's mail comes up as an attachment here, I took the liberty to copy
it here to answer in his text:

Am 16.11.21 um 13:03 schrieb Joe via KPhotoAlbum:

> File date is similar to the file creation date on Linux. Too many ways for
> it to become meaningless.
==> true, but ... if you know what you are doing it is often quite helpful, esp. in the short time range.
I am not thinking about archival or long time retention, but more along the lines "what was the thing I did last time?"

> File added date would be better than nothing, but there's nothing to
> prevent people from adding batches of images out of time order. There are
> some cases where this would be natural. E.g. if someone was collecting
> images from other people and added them whenever they arrived regardless
> of the dates they were created.
==> may be, but then: what about all the X*10k images already in the database (added with older versions without this feature)?
Also I do not think it would be helpful to add more complexity to the database.
If I would need this, I just could add a custom category and enter my add date as a text field (hey, this might even be an idea!)

> It would, however, answer the question, What did I add last ... if
> something looks wrong and I want to reconstruct what I did. E.g. If I want
> to restore from a backup and start re-adding, how far back do I need to
> go.
==> yes, that is the main use case. Useful if you add something one day and a few days later you want to continue where you left off.
But this does not justify adding a permanent "add date" to KPA. The ephemeral file meta data are just good enough for that.

> That's a pretty specialized situation, (hopefully!) not likely to come up
> often, so I'm not sure it's worth the effort or the additional option to
> think about in whatever menu it appears.
=> I beg to differ: We often exchange kim files in the family (all my grown up kids use KPA). So we do add images with their own KPA calender dates which get new Linux timestamps on import. As soon as they are imported, they "disappear" on the timeline among all the other images.
I would need to create a new folder for each import to make finding easier (by folder). But in most cases I just have a new folder for each year.

However, the new feature, which Tobias implemented (and which is now in the main branch, building nicely as always), already gives a good shortcut by including a link to the file manager to open the respective folder. So, if I find one of the new images, I can track down all of them via the file manager (only, not filter to tag them in KPA).

So, this is a nice feature but still only a first step to what I had in mind:

I think from a user's perspective the most elegant way would be, if we could switch the timeline from KPA date to file modification date on the fly (Andreas, dream on!). But, but, but ... I can imagine a whole lot of counter arguments. One being, that the file system date might change anytime as Joe pointed out - and this in turn would mean, you would need to re-scan the whole tree again and again to keep the file system dates in sync with the info stored in the database. So, I guess it might well stay a dream for the time being.

Anyway - I see the (new) list has again found some people who listen in - that alone is nice to see.

Happy tagging, Andreas