Hiding buddy files hides versions?

[Pawel]

Hi,
I defined buddy and version file relations and IMatch correctly recognizes the buddy and the version files. However, whenever I hide the buddy files using the filter panel, the version files are hid as well. Is it by design? I know IMatch doesn't recognize the version files as buddy files because the {File.BuddyFiles} doesn't contain the version files.

Pawel

[Mario]

This filter only hides buddy files.
Please check your version setup and make sure that your versions are not also buddy files.

[Pawel]

I rechecked it several times.
The situation is as follows:

These are the raw files:
e:\images.raw\Canon EOS 5D Mark II\SILKYPIX Developer Studio PRO 5\processed\2012_09_08\IMG_3322.CR2
e:\images.raw\Canon EOS 5D Mark II\SILKYPIX Developer Studio PRO 5\processed\2012_09_08\IMG_3327.CR2
e:\images.raw\Canon EOS 5D Mark II\SILKYPIX Developer Studio PRO 5\processed\2012_09_08\IMG_3328.CR2

These are the buddy files:
e:\images.raw\Canon EOS 5D Mark II\SILKYPIX Developer Studio PRO 5\processed\2012_09_08\SILKYPIX_DS\IMG_3322.CR2.5.spd
e:\images.raw\Canon EOS 5D Mark II\SILKYPIX Developer Studio PRO 5\processed\2012_09_08\SILKYPIX_DS\IMG_3327.CR2.5.spd
e:\images.raw\Canon EOS 5D Mark II\SILKYPIX Developer Studio PRO 5\processed\2012_09_08\SILKYPIX_DS\IMG_3328.CR2.5.spd

These are the version files:
e:\images.raw\Canon EOS 5D Mark II\SILKYPIX Developer Studio PRO 5\processed\2012_09_08\jpg\IMG_3322.JPG
e:\images.raw\Canon EOS 5D Mark II\SILKYPIX Developer Studio PRO 5\processed\2012_09_08\jpg\IMG_3327.JPG
e:\images.raw\Canon EOS 5D Mark II\SILKYPIX Developer Studio PRO 5\processed\2012_09_08\jpg\IMG_3328.JPG

This is buddy files definition:
CR2 Buddy Files:
Master Expression: \.(cr2)$
Replacement Expression: ^_*//
Link Expression: ^(_*{name})[+\-_]*[0-9|a-z]*\.(cr2\.5\.spd)$
Where to search: Master Folder
Direction: Down
Levels: 1

This is version files definition:
CR2 Versioning:
Master Expression: \.(cr2)$
Replacement Expression: ^_*//
Link Expression: ^(_*{name})[+\-_]*[0-9|a-z]*\.(jpg|jpeg|dng)$
Where to search: Master Folder
Direction: Down
Levels: 1

I also added Silkypix SPD file format definition (without it IMatch didn't see anything in SILKYPIX_DS folder):
Class: Auxiliary Files
Format Tag: SILKYPIX 5
Name: Silkypix Settings File
Extensions: .5.SPD

When in Show Hierarchy/Show All Levels view, IMatch properly displays *.CR2 and *.JPG as versions, together with *.CR2.5.SPD files.
As soon as I switch "Hide Buddy Files" filter on, the *.CR2.5.SPD files disappear however *.JPG files disappear as well.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks
Paweł

[P.Jones]

This is buddy files definition:
CR2 Buddy Files:
Master Expression: \.(cr2)$
Replacement Expression: ^_*//
Link Expression: ^(_*{name})[+\-_]*[0-9|a-z]*\.(cr2\.5\.spd)$
Where to search: Master Folder
Direction: Down
Levels: 1


What am I doing wrong?

Thanks
Paweł

Not 100% sure but should it be

Link Expression: ^(_*{name})[+\-_]*[0-9|a-z]*\.(cr2|.5|.spd)$

[Pawel]

Wouldn't it mean that the extension can be either ".cr2" OR ".5" OR ".spd" then? I didn't want it as the buddy files (SILKYPIX settings) are named exactly "<filename>.cr2.5.spd" so ".cr2.5.spd" is the SILKYPIX file extension.

BTW: I tried also
Link Expression: ^(_*{name})[+\-_]*[0-9|a-z]*\.(cr2.5.spd)$ - there was no difference in IMatch behaviour.

[P.Jones]

Yes sorry my mistake. You need the \ because of using a .

[herman]

Did you use the expression tester to test that your expressions are correct?
Personally I tend to keep the expressions as simple as possible.
I tested two expressions which seem to match your requirements, see attachments.

I also added Silkypix SPD file format definition (without it IMatch didn't see anything in SILKYPIX_DS folder):
Class: Auxiliary Files
Format Tag: SILKYPIX 5
Name: Silkypix Settings File
Extensions: .5.SPD

This is only necessary when you want to see the SP5 buddy files as images.
Normally this would not be required, it only adds 'noise' to your file window.
When the buddy file expression works as expected I would delete this file format definition.

Hope this helps,

[Mario]

I have tried to reproduce this, following Pawels detailed setup (thanks for being that clear).

I created CR2, JPEG and .5.SPD files with the same names, and put them into a identical folder hierarchy.

I added 5.SPD  (not that there is no leading . for file extensions in that screen) as a new format so IMatch also ingests the settings files. This is usually not recommend because  this kind of files are proprietary to a specific application and does not belong into a DAM. But IMatch can handle it anyway.

IMatch correctly detects the JPEG as a version, and the .5.SPD file as a buddy file. {File.BuddyFiles} also lists only the .5.SPD file.

When I bring all files into the scope by enabling the hierarchical display in the file window, and then use the "Hide buddies" filter, the .5.SPD file vanishes, but the .CR2 and .JPG files remain.

Looks good to me.


Side note: If people need to handle cases like this, I wonder how they do this in other software....? Is this easy to do? Do other products support that at all? I tried a few of the big or at least widely used DAMs recently, but none seems to have this level of support for buddy file management, versioning or custom file format support.

[Pawel]

Thanks for all the replies.

I got IMatch working the way it is supposed to work. Mario's reply did the trick as I noticed that trying to reproduce the error, Mario did one thing differently than me: when I was originally defining SILKYPIX file format I've put ".5.SPD" in the preferences dialog, not "5.SPD" (I did use leading "."). Now, I've removed the leading "." from the format definition, did a full rescan and now IMatch is working - hiding buddy files hides only the buddy files, the version JPGs are visible.

Why have I defined the additional format? Because I couldn't find any way to confirm that IMatch is indeed detecting and managing the buddy files, apart from the {File.BuddyFiles} variable. Is there any dialog or properties window for that?

Why did I put the leading "." into the format definition? Because all the predefined formats are displayed with the "." in the format list, and when I tried to define the format without the leading ".", IMatch was displaying "my" definition differently than all the predefined ones, so I went back and added the leading ". 

As to the question about different software - I don't do things like that in any other software as I don't know of any other software that would be available and accessible and that would allow me do things like automatic version discovery, format definition etc. That is why, after 3 years break, I consider returning to using IMatch (I was using IMatch 3.x from 2004 to 2013).

[Mario]

I tried also with .5.SDP as the file extension and it works here as well. I think IMatch just strips the leading . internally anyway.
IMatch displays user-defined file formats in a different color schema so you can find them easier, that's normal.

There is no dialog for buddy files. What would you expect to see? IMatch determines buddy files dynamically, when it performs certain functions (e.g. renaming or deleting files). It has no knowledge about buddy files until to that moment, because it cannot assume that buddy files are not added/removed at any time.

The {File.BuddyFiles} variable actually goes 'out' and searches the file system for files matching the buddy file rules set for the currently selected file. I added this variable so users have a quick way to determine the buddy files for a given file at a specific moment in time, e.g., in the App Panel.

[Pawel]

I am recreating my test database so I will check if I can reproduce the error. If not - I am happy it works, if yes - I will let you know.

As to the buddy files feature, I was looking for confirmation that IMatch does "see" the non-standard SILKYPIX buddy files because the last thing I would like to do would be entering some complex file rearrangement process and "disconnect" the RAWs from their buddy files... I expected:

• to see buddy files' list sowewhere in the Metadata panel (to be sure IMatch does identify the buddy files),
• to see buddy files in Renamer tool (a preview of the rename being specified).

Without this functionality I wasn't sure if IMatch does "see" the buddy files I defined, so I created the buddy file format definition in "File Formats" tab. Without the format defined I was seeing empty directories, while I knew for sure that: a) there are buddy files there; b) I instructed IMatch to identify these files (on "File Relations" tab). And, the filter "Hide Buddy Files" was a hint, that these files have to be displayes somewhere if there is a filter to hide them!