Why does IMatch not show the complete directory structure of the disk?

[RobiWan]

Hi,

It this not possible? I can not do anything with that

Cheers Robert

[RobiWan]

OK I think I have found it.
Not fine but OK

[Arthur]

Do you really want to put the whole disk structure into your catalog/database? Even your windows directory?
The more files/directories you put in the bigger the searching space gets. This does not improve performance...

Normally there is something like a database root. My is E:\Media for example. This is where IMatch handles its operations.

Or what do you mean by "show the complete directory structure"?

[RobiWan]

I mean - the structure from my fist screenshot is not readable X times RAW???

This shows much better but I mean is not optimal. I noticed it too late

[thrinn]

It looks like you use multiple external drives (or SD cards). Is this correct? And each of them contains an equally named folder "RAW"?
One option would be to set a "Friendly name" in the properties of each folder which is different for each folder. You also have to activate "Show friendly names" in the Media & Folders panel configuration.
Does this help?

[Mario]

This looks really weird. Please show us your file system in a screen shot of Windows Explorer.

[RobiWan]

@thrinn,
no this help not here, because if I set "friendly name" then it changes only color but nothing else.

@Mario
No Problem.

First I save images on small external hard drives (ExtHDD2501, ExtHDD2503, ExtHDD2504 ...). Then the whole structure is copied to a large disk (DSLR). So every hard drive has the same structure.

CameraBody/RAW/Year/Month/Day

The last screenshot is how it looks in LR

Robert

[Mario]

IMatch adds folders to the database exactly as you add them. If you only add selected sub-folders, that's fine for IMatch. If you add 20 top-level folders, that's also fine for IMatch, but you may end up with a structure that is not as easy to manage as a standard digital workflow structure with one or two root folders, and then all managed folders below them.

If you have a structure like

c:\
|- data
   |- images
      |- folder-1
      |- folder-2


And you add only folder-1 and folder-2 to your database, IMatch will show them as:

C:
|- folder-1
|- folder-2


If you want it different, you also need to add images and data. IMatch is a DAM, not a file system browser. It allows you to manage specific sections of your file system. Most users just do the right thing and maintain all the images under one or two root folders per media. And then add these root folders to the database, recursively.

I, for example, always have a root folder named 'data' on each disk, and below that I collect all files. This simplifies many things, from backup to drive switches, virtualization and mount points.


The friendly name allows you to use a custom name for a folder. And to indicate that you are not seeing the real folder name, IMatch displays friendly names in a different color. The default friendly name is the original folder name of course. You need to enter a custom 'friendly' name yourself to see a change.

I recommend reading the IMatch help on friendly folder names to learn how they are used, how to control the colors for folders and more. Just type the word friendly into the IMatch help system index to find the related info.