Problems with Media & Folders Display

Started by Fredrigani, August 18, 2016, 05:41:31 PM

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Fredrigani

I have been using Imatch 3.6 for years to Catalogue and archive my Stock Library and my clients Commercial Images. They are all saved to CD/DVD/BD. Each Disc in my Archive is labelled with the friendly names that used to display on Imatch 3.6 for each disc.

Imatch 5 has removed the ability to prevent the display of the unfriendly disc name. The Tree display has been further complicated by the addition of drive letter nodes for offline media. The disks in my archive were created under several different configurations so I now have my database separated into five different drive letters.

Please can we have a way of turning the display of unfriendly names off ?

Please can we have a way of turning off dive nodes for offline media ? ( or re-allocating the discs to the same dive letter)

In the meantime I can go on using Imatch 3.6 which still rocks!

Mario

You can enable the display of friendly names (hiding the Windows physical folder names) via the Media & Folders options. Click on the Gear button in the toolbar above the folder tree and yet "Show friendly names" to yes.

Tip: When you search for friendly in the IMatch help system index (<F1> while in IMatch) you'll find the corresponding info right away.

There is no way to remove the drive nodes. IMatch links all folders on a drive under the corresponding drive node. It will also display media nodes if you have indexed several media from the same drive. This is a design decision I made in 2014 when IMatch 5 was initially released. So far I don't remember users reporting problems with that.

Frankly, I doubt that there are many users who still manage their image archives images on CD/DVD (there are always exceptions, though).
Most have or will soon migrate from CD/DVD to other, more reliable and faster storage. Reports show that CD/DVD storage is prone to errors and bit rot and not really a long-term storage media. Most people I know (myself included) have already moved their CD/DVD/BR-D archives onto faster and more convenient media, like hard disks or USB sticks.

A 2 TB hard 2.5" USB hard disk costs about 100 US$ and can hold the data from ~ 400 (!) DVDs.
-- Mario
IMatch Developer
Forum Administrator
http://www.photools.com  -  Contact & Support - Follow me on 𝕏 - Like photools.com on Facebook

BanjoTom

Mario noted that:

QuoteA 2 TB hard 2.5" USB hard disk costs about 100 US$ and can hold the data from ~ 400 (!) DVDs.

I'm curious about which particular 2 Tb 2.5" USB hard drives might recommend . . .  and perhaps which to avoid . . .
— Tom, in Lexington, Kentucky, USA

Mario

Quote from: BanjoTom on August 19, 2016, 06:44:28 PM
Mario noted that:

QuoteA 2 TB hard 2.5" USB hard disk costs about 100 US$ and can hold the data from ~ 400 (!) DVDs.

I'm curious about which particular 2 Tb 2.5" USB hard drives might recommend . . .  and perhaps which to avoid . . .
That's impossible to do  :)
What I have bought six month ago as surely been replaced by whatever 'new model' is now current...

I currently use 2 TB 2.5" WD Elements for daily backup purposes - several of them in order to be able to swap them daily.

=> "Western Digital Elements 2TB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive" , about 90 US$.

So far they have performed flawlessly for about 8 months. They are only used twice a day, when the automatic backups run.
They are almost noiseless and very small and fast.

When these disks are 3 years old (my replacement period) I expect that 2 TB SSD storage will be the standard thing.
Samsung just released an 4 TB (!) SSD. Street price about $1400, $650 for the 2 TB model. In two years time this should be down to $100... :)

-- Mario
IMatch Developer
Forum Administrator
http://www.photools.com  -  Contact & Support - Follow me on 𝕏 - Like photools.com on Facebook