With the current release of Shotwell (0.7.2), you are correct -- the organizational data you've associated with the photos (as well as any transformations you've made) would be lost. When you run Shotwell, all the photos you've moved will appear in the "Missing Files" page.
In Shotwell 0.8, we're implementing additional features to deal with how your photos are stored on disk. It will attempt to find files that have been moved (to a different directory and/or renamed) and re-associate that file with the photo in the database -- no information lost. If Shotwell detects that the photo has been altered (i.e. by an outside image editor), Shotwell will do an in-place reimport; you won't lose tags or events, but you will lose image edits (i.e. enhance, crop) because those transformations were made against a different image. Neither of these quite solves your problem because Shotwell 0.8 currently only does these things in your library directory (i.e. ~/Pictures, or whatever you've got set in your Shotwell Preferences dialog). If you move the photos outside of the library directory, then Shotwell will treat them as Missing Files. I think what you're asking for is one of two things. One would be to allow Shotwell to expand it's scope of what a library directory can be -- multiple directories, perhaps, or allowing you to place a symbolic link in your Pictures directory that Shotwell honors. The other thing I think you're suggesting (in your last paragraph) is that Shotwell does the file moving for you. Is this what you're asking for? I'm trying to work out exactly what use-case you're envisioning here. -- Jim On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 2:09 AM, Michael Hendry <hendry.mich...@gmail.com>wrote: > Apologies if this has been dealt with already - I've browsed the archive > for similar queries, but found none. > > I have my images organised in various directories and subdirectories, > but moved most of these directories into a single "Pictures" folder > before importing them to Shotwell recently. > > Many files need to stay in their original directories, because the > directory name indicates which 35mm film the scanned images came from, > and the filenames are IMG001.jpg, IMG002.jpg to indicate the negative > numbers, but I also have a lot of files imported from my Nikon D70 which > are uniquely names, but which have been imported by Nikon software into > a new subdirectory for each upload. These could all be moved into a > single D70 directory. > > As well as simple housekeeping like this, there will come a time when I > outgrow the USB drive I currently use, or when it needs replacement. > > If I understand the setup correctly, if I move any file from the > directory it was in when imported by Shotwell, that I will lose all the > tagging information attached to it by Shotwell, and that the file would > have to be re-imported and tagged again. > > The mass movement of the directory structure to a new hard disc could > presumably be covered by a relative simple database operation, but > simpler housekeeping using this method is likely to be tedious and > error-prone. > > I'd favour putting Shotwell in charge of the management of this sort of > housekeeping on the directory structure which contains the images - is > this feasible? > > Michael > > _______________________________________________ > Shotwell mailing list > Shotwell@lists.yorba.org > http://lists.yorba.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/shotwell > _______________________________________________ Shotwell mailing list Shotwell@lists.yorba.org http://lists.yorba.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/shotwell
