Re: Last Import patch

[Stephane Delcroix <stephane delcroix org>]

On Fri, 2006-05-19 at 13:44 +0200, Thomas Van Machelen wrote:
> Hi Bengt,
> 
> Although i think it would be nice to have an import history, i have
> some comments on your patch.
> 
> 2006/5/19, Bengt Thuree <bengt thuree com>:
> > Hi Guys
> >
> > I played around abit with Gunnar's "Last Import" patch, and added a bit
> > here and there...
> >
> > The current version tracks the last 6 imports with the following tag
> > structure.
> >
> > Last Imports
> >   __0
> >   __1
> >   __2
> >   __3
> >   __4
> >   __5
> >
> > The reason for the __0 etc is that the tags has to be unique, and wanted
> > to minimize the risk that the user had already created a tag like this.
> >
> 
> IMHO using tags to mark the last 6 imports is not a very good way to
> implement some kind of "import history".
> 
> First of all, i think we should avoid using tags with a special status
> (like the hidden tag).  The first version of the duplicates patch also
> used a special tag, but votes were quite anonymous that we should
> avoid this.  See next comments for more reasons.
> 
> > 1) Ensure that no new tags can be created that contains the above tag names.
> > 2) Ensure that the above tag names do not show up in the "Attach tag
> > during import" list.
> >
> 
> As you can see in your own comments, using tags is not the best way.
> Because you use special tags, you have to implement some kind of
> "exception logic" for them: they cannot be added during import by the
> user, and you have to create them if they do not exist yet.  Next to
> that you have to shift older import tags to higher numbers if you do a
> new import (0 becomes 1, 1 becomes 2,...).  Imagine what this would do
> to performance if your last 5 imports, imported 1000 each.  Things
> would probably become even worse when you have xmp tagging enabled:
> that would cause 5000 photos to be changed on disk.  I fear this might
> take quite a while.
> 
> > Any comments?
> > Is it overkill with tracking 6 imports?
> > I do think only have the last is not enough though.
> >
> 
> While i do think that 5-6 imports is a nice default, i can easily
> imagine that people want to track _all_ their imports, or only the
> last one.  Either your implementation is too simple, or it is too
> complicated.
> 
> A better approach would be too add 1 or 2 tables to the database.  For
> example one table that keeps track of the imports performed, and
> another one that ties photos to a certain import.
> 
> If you do so, you will not have to use any special tags, performing
> new imports will not suffer too much from previous imports and
> querying imports can be come more flexible (for example: give me an
> overview of the last 5 imports, give me an overview of the imports
> performed in the last week or the ones performed in march, ...).
> Also, you wil not have to cope with incrementing the numbers of
> previous imports.
> 
> That's it!  I hope to have given a good overview of why i think this
> can be done better.  Give it some dedication, and i think this can
> become very useful.
> 
> What are other people's comments on this?  Unfortunately my opinion
> still is only an opinion ;-)
> 

I like your database oriented approach.
But I really like the Tags thing in f-spot. Maybe it's possible to keep
an history of all imports(in the db) and display them like tags for the
last few ones ?

It's not yet very clear in my mind, but I already share this with you...

rgds,

Stephane


> Best Regards,
> Thomas
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-- 
Stephane Delcroix
stephane delcroix org