Ability to assign thumbnail to album when no direct files available

[orichardt]

consider the following folder structure:
1991 (no files, only subfolders)
 - 1991-06 (no files, only subfolders)
   - 1991-06-01 (files)

Only the folder 1991-06-01 contains files (so there will be a thumbnail on this folder)
1991-06 does not have any files, so as a consequence the when I view album 1991 there is no thumbnail on the 1991-06 folder, and I have not been able to find anything in the documentation about the ability to assign one.

If this is correct, then I would put this forward as a feature request, as it would be a great help and give a very aesthetic view if it was possible to choose one of the files in the sub-folders to assign as thumbnail to the top folder.

[Mario]

The Album View engages when a folder has no files, but sub-folders. I t relies on the folder thumbnails of the sub-folders.
When you structure your folders so that you have multiple levels of empty folders, the Album View will not work all to well. IMatch has no feature to somehow assign and store a file/image to represent an empty folder with empty sub-folders in the Album View and I believe that is not something many users will ever need. Let's see how many Likes this gets.

[orichardt]

Thank you for reviewing it. For me it makes so much logical sense to have this setup as it allows a very good overview so I don't have to start specific applications but they are available directly from explorer (when you have well over 100K pictures, search in this case is a drag). And as I do a lot of scanning of negatives, I don't have exact dates to go by. For me it also seems logical that the year and the month are "empty" as all pictures are assigned to dates :-)

Each person, each methodology and logic - thank you for reviewing and taking this feature request serious, I guess this is the best way of adding ideas for possible future functionality :-)

[Mario]

For me it also seems logical that the year and the month are "empty" as all pictures are assigned to dates :-)

Why not pick one file to represent the year and month each? This way you get an Album View on the year, month and day level.
The folders will no longer be empty, though.

Adding a feature that somehow would enable IMatch to use a folder/category thumbnail from an image that is not actually part of the folder/category would be possible, but there may be unexpected side effect, as it is sometimes the case. Checks that look for non-existing folder/category thumbnails, diagnosis steps for the same, deleting a file in folder A would require to check all folders in the database to see if one refers the file in folder A for a thumbnail and such things. Way more effort than one thinks up-front.

Plus, the user interface for this would require some work. Like, "Make the selected file in this folder the thumbnail for that folder". Where that is the part that needs some kind of selection dialog or some drag & drop solution or similar.
Let's see if this request gets a number of likes before I spend time thinking about this in more detail.

Another solution for this I considered when designing the Album View was to dive-down into sub-folders / sub-categories when there is no thumbnail available for a folder/category - until a folder/category with a thumbnail is found.
In your case, this would mean that both the years and the months would be represented by the folder thumbnail of the folder thumbnail of the first (?) day folder.

I guess that users would immediately require some kind of mechanism to select the folder that is chosen as the proxy thumbnail provider for the parent folder(s) and their parent folder(s), recursively. And, since the Album tile would still show "empty folder", but an image, would that not be irritating? Would an explanation of sorts be needed, e.g. in form of a topoltip that explains "Picket the folder of folder A 3 levels down"...?

I have that solution still in my notes, because I've released the Album View using a MVP (minimum viable product) approach.
If users don't like the Album View, I've spent only the minimum time required to get it out of the door.
If users like it and see things missing, they will let me know (as you did!) via a feature request or in General Discussions.

[sinus]

For me it also seems logical that the year and the month are "empty" as all pictures are assigned to dates :-)

Why not pick one file to represent the year and month each? This way you get an Album View on the year, month and day level.
The folders will no longer be empty, though....

This is exactly what I would do. 
I have lerned over the years, that a DAM cannot solve every problem or wish. 

Therefore I did from time to time things, what works for me very good. 

And what Mario suggests, I did for several occasions. 
I simply added a thumb (sometimes with big letters or numbers, that I could read it even as thumbs) to represent something, what IMatch could not native, because it was simply too special. 

[Mario]

sinus' approach would also be my first approach. Creating a 'representative' image for the year and each month, maybe with some additional text or something.

I've toyed a bit with my idea of drilling down to find an image for empty folders. The benefit of IMatch apps that they can be changed quickly, to try things out

I like it and I think I'll make this the default or an option.
When Album View does not find a thumbnail in a folder / category and there are no files, it drills-down into the sub-folders / child-categories until it finds a thumbnail.

If such a proxy image is used, the thumbnail is displayed muted, to communicate this to the user.
Here, the "Empty Folder" is using such a proxy image. The image comes from a sub-folders two levels below.



And for the other layout mode:



I think this is a workable approach.

[orichardt]

Hi both, thank you for your thoughts and your input.

I also had the approach of placing a "dummy" picture in the "empty" top level folders to show, but was thinking of a way to not duplicate pictures.

My thought also that a DAM can not solve every need, but "grows" with input and the subsequent conscientious decision to include or exclude a function :-)
 
My line of thoughts of a solution was going on having a function to be able to choose the file, like the functionality to assign a specific picture to depict persons, but if the "album" is dynamically created and not a static file (folder) structure then I can see that its going to be a lot to change to add static information (link to image to use as thumb)

The drill down functionality that you propose, Mario, would give visual improvements in my opinion and be a real boon for the solution. Thank you for considering my proposal.