[Shotwell] We want your feedback: user-configurable directory structure

[Adam Dingle]

Kent,

On 01/24/2011 01:21 PM, Kent Tenney wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 3:00 PM, Eric Gregory<eric at yorba.org>  wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> We're working on an often-requested new feature, a user configurable
>> directory structure, and would like community feedback on how this would
>> best suit your needs.
>>
>> This feature allows you to set a directory structure for your photos instead
>> of being forced to use Shotwell's default.
>>
>> For now, we're wondering if we want to support hard-coded options only, for
>> example, we might have the following options:
>> YYYY/MM/DD
>> YYYY/MM-DD
>> YYYY/MM
>> YYYY_MM_DD
>>
>> Perhaps there's others you'd like to see?
> Not sure if I follow, but ... I have many years of photos in a directory
> structure I've evolved, and has meaning to me, so I import "In Place"
> ("importing in place" sounds like an oxymoron to me) ... links aren't involved
> ... I choose not to duplicate all the files.
>
> I would like the option of the tree panel showing _my_ directory structure.
> Currently, structure is only time-based: "Events" (which I'd call something
> more like "Timeline") I'm thinking of structure reflecting "Location" where
> Location consists of directories, some time-based, some project-based some
> source-based ...

Yes - we'd also like Shotwell to have a folder tree in the sidebar 
showing where photos are physically located on disk.  But that's a 
separate feature, namely http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/1594 , and will 
not make 0.9.  For 0.9, we're only planning to implement 
http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/1597 , which will let the user control 
where Shotwell places photos which are imported from a camera or copied 
into your library directory.

> I think Shotwell intends tags to provide the structure I'm describing, and
> they probably can, though I don't know if tags accommodate nesting.
> I would like if they were hierarchal.

Tags in Shotwell cannot be nested today, though we're hoping to 
implement hierarchical tags for 0.9: see 
http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/1401 .  We don't intend tags to be used to 
reflect photos' physical locations on disk; instead we want a separate 
sidebar tree for that as I mentioned above.

>> Another option is to support a free-form entry with date formatting
>> characters to make your own directory structure.  For example, you might
>> type in something like
>> %Y%/%M%/%D%
>> to achieve the current directory structure.
>>
>> Additionally, we're looking to add a feature where you can assign a name to
>> your import.  This could also be added to the directory structure.
> I'd like each import to persist by default, now we only have the last
> import available.

Agreed: that's http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/1793 .  This is also 
unlikely to make 0.9, however.

adam