GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 352669
Ideas for multiple Library support (includes photos.db location)
Last modified: 2018-07-12 00:06:26 UTC
F-spot could have multiple albums, each in a seperate directory with it's own photos.db file. This has several advantages: 1) The obvious seperation of photos into albums. For instance, users could have a home album, a work album, etc. 2) The user could create a new album on a remote machine (say, a laptop while on vacation) and tag his photos. He could then import the album when he gets home. 3) Users may not want to use a directory called Photos. The word "photos" means nothing to non-english speakers, and native English speakers may already have a directory called Photos. As each album is in it's own directory the directory named Photos (and hence the associated album) could be replaced by a dirrerent name. 4) Backing up the data would involve simply tarring the directory. 5) Albums could be passed around on CD-ROM to freinds, family, etc... I envision it like this: On first startup, F-spot would create a default album. F-spot should verify that there is no current directory named Photos. In the case that it does exist, then a directory named (for example) FspotPhotos would be created. In any case, this is the default (and currently only) album. The file photos.db would be inside this main directory. If the user wants to add another album, he would click File->New Album. The wizard would ask for the new albums' location, which would be another directory. Inside that directory would be another photos.db file. The user would switch albums under File -> Albums -> Home Album, Work Album, etc. The user could select files from Album1 and move or copy them to Album2. That would solve the problem of a user wanting to move his current Photos directory: he could simply create a new album and move the pictures there. There would be an Import Album feature where the user selects a directory that contains a photos.db file (created by another instance of F-spot, say on a laptop, and moved to the local machine) and have it added to the list of albums. As for current F-spot users who have photos.db in the ~/.gnome2/f-spot directory, the next few versions of F-spot (until the 1.0 release, for instance) could look there for the file, and move it automatically to ~/Photos (or whatever other directory was chosen).
I am rewriting this post to clean up some ideas, and to be consistent with the terms on the page: http://f-spot.org/Terminology F-spot could have multiple libraries, each in a seperate directory with it's own photos.db file. This has several advantages: 1) The obvious seperation of photos into libraries. For instance, users could have a "home" library, a "work" library, etc. 2) The user could create a new library on a remote machine (say, a laptop while on vacation) and tag his photos. He could then import the library when he gets home. 3) Users may not want to use a directory called Photos. The word "photos" means nothing to non-English speakers, and native English speakers may already have a directory called Photos. With each library is in it's own directory, the directory named Photos (and hence the associated library) could be replaced by a dirrerent name. 4) Backing up the data (The photos themselves and photos.db) would involve simply tarring the libraries directory. 5) Libraries could be passed around on CD-ROM to friends, family, etc... I envision it like this: On first startup, F-spot would create a default library ~/Photos like it currently does. In the case that ~/Photos already exists, then a different directory name would be used. In any case, this is the default (and currently only) library. The file photos.db would be inside this main directory. If the user wants to add another library, he would click File -> New Library. The wizard would ask for the new libraries' location, which would be another directory on the user's machine. Inside that directory would be another photos.db file. The user would switch libraries under File -> Libraries -> Home Library, Work Library, etc. The user could select files from one library and move or copy them to another. That would solve the problem of a user wanting to move his current Photos directory: he could simply create a new library and move the pictures there. There would be an Import Library feature where the user selects a directory that contains a photos.db file (created by another instance of F-spot, say on a laptop, and moved to the local machine) and have it added to the list of libraries. As for current F-spot users who have photos.db in the ~/.gnome2/f-spot directory, the next few versions of F-spot (until the 1.0 release, for instance) could look there for the file, and move it automatically to ~/Photos (or whatever other directory was chosen). As far as the UI is concerned, we add this new block to the File Menu: + File + Libraries + Photos Library + Work Library (user adds this, of course) + Larry's Library (user adds this, of course) + Linus's Library (user adds this, of course) + New Library + Import Library
I'd also like to multiple library support, albeit done a little different from Doten. Here is what I envision: * A default library is created at the F-Spot first-time run. If a previous version of F-Spot was installed move the previous library to the new default. Photos are imported to stored to a desired library in ~/Photos/<LibraryName>/.../PhotoX.jpg * The SQL database file for each library can be stored in ~/.config/f-spot/LibraryName.db * The sidebar could be revamped to list not just tags but libraries as well.
As an addition, it would be nice to see multi-destination import. That is, at import time you can specify N destinations. F-Spot copies the photos to each destination, and keeps track of all copies. Thus, if one drive fails (eg, USB drive), F-Spot has no trouble continuing. Use case: Taking pictures on vacation. At night, import to laptop disk and USB disk. Then wipe the memory card. The next day, you drop the USB disk, but you still have a safe copy on the laptop. Conversely, if the laptop is stolen (you are on vacation after all), the USB disk is safe back at the hotel. Things like that.
This sounds like a great idea. I like the idea of being able to make more than one album, and I really, REALLY, like the idea of photos.db being in the same place as the photos. Hiding it among the .gnome2 dotfiles is asking for it being lost when the user gets a new computer.
F-Spot has moved to https://github.com/f-spot/f-spot/issues If this Bugzilla ticket is still valid in a recent version of F-Spot, please feel free to post this topic as a ticket in the F-Spot project on GitHub. Closing this report as WONTFIX as part of Bugzilla Housekeeping as we are planning to shut down GNOME Bugzilla in favor of GNOME Gitlab.