Manually rescan current folder only, without subfolders?

Started by Art, May 24, 2017, 05:21:47 PM

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Art

E.g. if some files are added to a folder with many subfolders (and many files in there) and I only want to have the current level rescanned when I invoke a manual rescan is there a way to achieve this?

IMatch is reasonably fast, but I can't continue working in IMatch during a manual rescan and with lots of subfolders with lots of files and being in a bit of a  hurry this can be inconvenient at times.

Mario

No such option. Why do you manually rescan folders? IMatch usually automatically detects changes and scans the folder in the background.
-- Mario
IMatch Developer
Forum Administrator
http://www.photools.com  -  Contact & Support - Follow me on 𝕏 - Like photools.com on Facebook

Art

Sometimes I need one folder to be updated right away when files have been added to it instead of waiting for the autoscan to kick in, and in such a case only that one folder and not all the subfolders (for the subfolders that may also have been added it can often wait for the autoscan to do its job).

My main "issue" is that when you invoke a manual rescan you cannot continue to use IMatch until that manual rescan has finished. Unless there is a way to make that behave like a background task so that I can continue to use IMatch (e.g. add categories to the new images or files, then search for already existing images/files with the same categories e.g. to see if they are the same or different, all or just some of them, before importing them into other software).

I'm using IMatch also for other images than "just" photos and e.g. A4 size scans (e.g. the very large TIFF files I recently asked about with regard to thumbnail previews) and if I have a bunch of those in subfolders then waiting for the manual rescan to finish may take much more time than I want/can afford at that moment.

Mario

This is a very special situation and requirement. Please understand that I cannot add features for each perculiar use case. Users always tell me "IMatch is too complicated, too many options" anyway.  Adding more options, keyboard shortcuts, special modes and suchlike will be not good. I actually try to remove options where possible.

Have you tried to disable "Include sub-folders" under Edit > Preferences > Indexing?
-- Mario
IMatch Developer
Forum Administrator
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Art

I understand it is not a common usage case, but I'm probably not a common user either  :)

I didn't try disabling subfolder indexing, because the help says that a manual rescan will rescan existing subfolders but not add new subfolders. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that not indexing new subfolders applies only to  first level subfolders of the folder for which a manual rescan is triggered, but that subfolders added to a first level subfolder will be scanned anyway.

E.g.  I have a working folder in which the working files reside, within that working folder there are several subfolders for e.g. output, temporary files, supporting files (not temporary, e.g. images) and whatever else I need sub-folders for. Let's say a new batch of images is added to the "supporting files" folder and they would reside in a sub-folder within the "supporting files" folder, would they get indexed  after all because the "supporting files" is an existing folder or would it get skipped because it is a new sub-folder (within the "supporting files" folder)? As mentioned I assume it is the former, but if it is the latter then I may have a possible workaround to test for those times I run into a situation as described in one of my previous posts in this topic.

If it is the latter, then it does raise the question whether the automatic scanning will index the new (sub-)sub-folders after a while or whether it requires enabling the include sub-folders again for that to happen. If the latter, is there perhaps a way to script this setting to enable/disable it and assign it to a custom button/menu/hotkey item so that I can toggle it in a relatively simple way?

Mario

I recommend you make a feature request in the Feature Request board. This allows other users to comment if they would also like such a feature.
-- Mario
IMatch Developer
Forum Administrator
http://www.photools.com  -  Contact & Support - Follow me on 𝕏 - Like photools.com on Facebook

Panther

It does seem a bit odd that you can't tell iMatch to scan a folder without scanning its subfolders, but in the meantime is there a reason you need to have subfolders under the folder you want to scan by itself?  Couldn't you create a new parent folder and make your target folder and all its subfolders be sibling folders under that new parent folder?  That wouild keep them all together in a group, but still give you a folder (with no subfolders) that presumably iMatch would scan all by itself.

ubacher

I have a simple script which initiates a rescan of the current folder.
I'll modify it to exclude subfolders and attach it to this post.
Hope this helps

Art

Quote from: Panther on May 26, 2017, 02:33:22 AM
It does seem a bit odd that you can't tell iMatch to scan a folder without scanning its subfolders, but in the meantime is there a reason you need to have subfolders under the folder you want to scan by itself?  Couldn't you create a new parent folder and make your target folder and all its subfolders be sibling folders under that new parent folder?  That wouild keep them all together in a group, but still give you a folder (with no subfolders) that presumably iMatch would scan all by itself.

Yes sometimes there is a reason to have the subfolders this way, as working files that reference to images need to be exchanged with others and then changing the (sub)folders setup is not always an option as it will break things that need to be fixed by either me or by others on their end. Or sometimes it is simply a required setup because of software being used or for other reasons.

I'm also using IMatch for other things than photography files, so my workflow can be a bit different from most people who are using it mostly or only for photography related purposes.

Art

Quote from: ubacher on May 26, 2017, 06:58:42 AM
I have a simple script which initiates a rescan of the current folder.
I'll modify it to exclude subfolders and attach it to this post.
Hope this helps

Thanks very much for the script, I'll do some testing with this in a few days and let you know how it works in my set-up. (I have migrated to IMatch 2017 now, but assume the script will still work)

Art

Quote from: Mario on May 25, 2017, 02:22:15 PM
I recommend you make a feature request in the Feature Request board. This allows other users to comment if they would also like such a feature.

Mario, will do this after doing some testing based on your suggestion in an earlier reply and ubacher's script.