versioning for new master file

[jln]

Part of my database consists of photos scanned from old negatives. The scanner produces tif files, and I use DXO to edit them and produce jpg files. Each set of negatives is in a folder tree with the top folder having a project name and two subfolders, tif and jpg as shown below. I realize this is not the recommended file structure, but I have a lot of files already using it.

\Scanned\  folder
        \Project Name folder\ (a subfolder for each set of negatives.)
                 /tif/ subfolder  (Master files from scanner are here. These are all tif files with the Project Name followed by a number)
                 /jpg/ subfolder (Files produced by DXO (jpgs with an occasional dng) are here with the same names as the master files.)

I filled the "File Relations" as shown in the attachment.

When I clicked OK, a window popped up saying, among other things, "You have changed the relations rules for your database. To apply these rules use the 'Refresh Relations' command..." After researching the help files system, I remain uncertain what this means.

1) Have I done this correctly? How can I tell short of renaming some master files?
2) Is there a way this can be limited to the "\Scanned\" folder, since I do have some tif files in other places in my database?
3) How should I respond to the window directing 'Refresh Relations'?

Thanks for helping a beginner work his way through the program.

[Mario]

When I understand you correctly, the TIF is the master and the JPG the version.
The problem you are facing is that your masters and versions are in unrelated folders, as siblings.

Your "Scanned tif" configuration is not enabled, so it does nothing right now.
If you enable it, IMatch will look in folders for TIF files. And then search that folder and one sub-folder below it for versions.

In your folder layout, this will not work.
Because your versions are not in the same folder as the master folder or in a sub-folder of the master folder, but in a sibling-folder for the master.
Your setup would work when your folders would look like this:

Scanned
|-TIF
    |-JPG

For your specific folder layout you need to tell IMatch to search for versions in the JPEG sibling folder of the folder containing the master. This is uncommon and complicates things.
You can use a folder pattern to tell IMatch to search the folder JPEG which is up one level and then down one level from the folder containing the master.

Switch to "List of Folders" and add the pattern:

{p1}\JPEG

(See Where to Search for more info).

should do the trick I guess. Not tried, but you can try it on your system. If the versions are detected, all is well.
Change the rule, select the Scanned folder and press <F4>,<R> to update the file relations in this folder and all sub-folders. Don't forget to enable your version rule by ticking the box in front of it.

[jln]

Thank you. That seems to work and has helped me understand file relations in iMatch.

[jln]

For some reason, my problem has returned, and I cannot create the master--version relationship. It worked with many folders until now. Obviously I have changed something but I can't figure out what.

I'm attaching a screen shot showing the file structure of the relevant folders and the relationship window. Pressing F4 R does not create the icons specifying master and version. The tif folder contains the masters and the jpg folder contains the versions.

What is wrong?

Thanks for you help.

[Mario]

Why do you use {p1}?
{p1} returns the parent folder of the folder containing the master (in this case, the parent folder of Paul's Pictures). This does not seem to be right.
If you want to find JPG and TIFF versions of files contained in Paul's Pictures, just use



which is the default. This searches for versions in the folder containing the master, and one level of sub-folders below (so, Paul's Pictures and the tif/jpg folders below it).

[herman]

[...]
The tif folder contains the masters and the jpg folder contains the versions.

From your folder screenshot it seems that master folder (tif) and version folder (jpg) are at the same level, they are siblings.
The smartest thing to do is to place the version folder (jpg) under the master folder (tif), so make the jpg folder a child of the tif folder.
In that setup you don't have to fiddle with {p1} or whatever, just let IMatch search in n folders below the master as Mario pointed out in the reply above.

[Mario]

I've overlooked that the tif folder contains the masters.

In that case, new versions should be found using your setup when you refresh the relations in the TIF folder via F4,R?

Under which exact conditions does IMatch not find new versions? Because, usually this is all a setup once correctly and forget feature.
If this fails sometimes, you need to figure out under which conditions it fails. If there is any warning or error logged to the log file.
What did you do before this happened?

There is so much going on and version management is complex. For example, sometimes users add versions before the masters (or, Windows does not inform IMatch correctly about folder changes, or in the wrong order or whatnot). When you rescan the master folder with F4,R all versions should be found. If not, something with the rule setup is wrong.

[jln]

1) I created a new set of folders in windows, scanned a few new negatives in the tif folder.
2) used an editor to create versions of those files and put them in the jpg folder
3) had iMatch add the new set of folders to its database and also had it refresh the set of folders where I had previously seen the problem.

At this point iMatch did not create the master-version link.

4) I selected the tif folder and pressed F4,R and picked the default to ignore manually linked files.

IMatch still did not create the master-version link.

5) I downloaded and have attached the log file.

[Mario]

IMatch did not scan for relations and did not perform any updates.
Please repeat your test but make sure debug logging is enabled (see log file).
IMatch then logs if it checks a folder for masters, if relations are found etc.

Please check that you have enabled the automatic update of relations under Edit > Preferences > Background Processing.

[herman]

4) I selected the tif folder and pressed F4,R and picked the default to ignore manually linked files.

Did you select files to be versioned?
I usually do CTRL-A (select all files) before the F4,R sequence.

[Mario]

If you run this from the folder tree, all files in the folder are considered.

[jln]

I set logging to debug. I checked the background processing tab, and relations were set to build automatically. This time I opened the tif (master) file and selected all the files (ctrl-A) as suggested by Herman.

The log file is attached.

[Mario]

I see

FindRelated: 22 masters, 7 definitions, 0 links found. 0 files analyzed.

in the log. This would indicate that IMatch could not find any versions based on the 7 active definitions in use.
But it reports that 0 files where analyzed, which indicates that no files were found which could be checked for potential version statues.
Double-check where IMatch is set to find files to check for versions in your relation definitions.
Make your version folder a child of the master folder and update your relation definitions. Then F4,R again.

[jln]

I made my version folder a child of the master folder (see snip from media & folders pane).

I deleted the relational definitions I had created for "Scanned tif." I recreated the versions folder by copying from the Nef folder provided by iMatch.
It still did not work.

Another anomaly: I was unable to create a new buddy relationship. See the window with my attempt. "OK" is grayed out.

I'm attaching the debug log.

[Mario]

There is already a buddy relation with that name, hence OK is grayed out. Use a unique name.

The log tells us

#FindRelated: 12 masters, 5 definitions, 0 links found. 0 files analyzed.

So IMatch did not find any files matching. If you did a F4,R while the "tif" folder was selected, check the file names and make sure your relation definition works.
Show us some master file names and tiff file names you are using.

[jln]

I found the problem. I feel foolish. I had originally configured the scanner to produce tif files, but some change caused it to switch to scanning to jpg. Hence the master files were jpg files rather than tif files.

I apologize for not catching this sooner. It certainly had me stumped

[Mario]

Well, then. Good that you could solve it.