[Shotwell] The DB debate

[Svetoslav Trochev]

Hi,

On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 5:19 AM, Peter DO Smith <pdo.smith at gmail.com> wrote:
> I see in earlier threads it was discussed whether the present system
> of storing photo data in a sqlite database should be retained.
>
> I much prefer the present system, please retain it.
>
> It is simple to write add-on programs that query/update the database.
> It took me fives minutes to inspect the database structure to
> understand it well enough so that I could query it and update it.
>
> This simplicity helped me to re-organise my photos after importing. A
> large group of my photos had no exif header, an artifact of a batch
> program I wrote. After importing several thousand photos I could not
> find them because they were not assigned to an event, having no date.
>
> Realising my mistake, I used jhead to create exif headers and assign
> dates. But now when I tried to import again I was told the photos were
> already in the database and therefore I could not import again. What
> to do?
>
> Fortunately, because you used a database, it was trivial for me to
> write a SQL query that located and deleted the photos from the
> database, allowing me to re-import them.
>
> So please, keep the present system. From my point of view it works really well.
>
> Arising out of this experience I would like to make two suggestions:-
>
> 1) Allow the user an option of forcing the import to accept the same
> photos again. This will allow to reorganise the folder structure of
> his photos.
> 2) Where the photos have no exif date create an 'unassigned' event and
> link these photos to that event.
>
> Peter
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I agree. In my early thread I showed how we need both. The trick is to
come with automatic method to update the DB after the user had used
tool that does not updated DB. Like moving the photos from one
directory to other using OS file manager. I had some ideas, but I need
to dig out my notes and I will share them here. If I remember
correctly I only needed two meta-tags attached to the each photo: ID
and CRC.

SAL-e