Clarification of folder lists in Versioning rules

[DavidOfMA]

I realized I'm not clear on how IMatch uses the list of folders in Versioning rules. My folders are set up so all masters are in a single [Masters] folder with subfolders by year, month, and day. What I want is for IMatch to regard only the files in these folders as Masters and to regard any other folders as containing potential versions. The way I've currently set up the Versioning rules, I've listed the other main folders as the folders to search for versions. Then I scanned the Masters folder tree and asked IMatch to find versions for all files in the [Masters] folders and subfolders. This worked with my initial version-finding, but when I add folders to the database through saving or copying into the non-Masters folders, IMatch searches the whole database for masters for the new files, often mistakenly matching them to other versions instead of to masters

How can I restrict the search for masters only to files in my [Masters] folder and subfolders?

David

[Ferdinand]

How can I restrict the search for masters only to files in my [Masters] folder and subfolders?

You can't.  There may be a feature request for this, IIRC (if I recall correctly).  If not, you can make one.

The file relations logic is that IMatch doesn't search for masters, it searches for versions.  So for each file in the database, that file is regarded as a master if IMatch is able to locate a version using the versioning definitions.  There's an internal DB table that lists masters and versions and when a match is found - because file relations have been refreshed either manually or automatically - that file is listed as a master and the versions IMatch found are listed as a version. 

There must be a partial exception to this, because under preferences > background processing there is an option to automatically locate masters and versions for new and updated files, but I don't know how this operates.

[Mario]

When IMatch updates relations (because files have been added, removed, moved, copied, renamed or updated) it looks at the folder containing the files. For each file it applies the relation rules to find out if the file is a master. If a file is found to be a master, IMatch looks in the folders specified in the version rule to find all versions. There is no option to restrict IMatch to look for masters only in specific folders.

If this is a real problem for you, disable automatic relation updates and then run a manual update only on your master folder when you think that you have changed something that requires this.

[DavidOfMA]

The ability to identify a master folder as the only place to look for masters would be a great help. To scan my masters folder of 66,000 images each time I create a version is very time-consuming. It takes several hours.

I'll put in a feature request and see if others also have this issue.