Family Historian User Group

Hi all,
Help !!
I have lost the 'Copy Media Files' Menu with the Copy/Don't Copy/Let me choose options.
The Manual (page 40/41)talks about the menu but not how to access it. It has suddenly stopped appearing when I 'Add Multimedia From File'.
Any ideas please
Regards
John

ID:4844

1. Make sure you are in Project Mode, the message will not show if you open the gedcom directly.

2. Make sure you have V4.1 installed, which helps prevent the above if you open a Project Gedcom directly.

Jane,
I am running V4.1.3.
How can I tell if I am in Project Mode?
The top right hand corner has the following wording on a blue bar:-
Family Historian Project - Yeates.ged [Focus Window]
(Yeates is the project name)
I have tried exiting the project and re-starting from the Project Window but no joy with the problem
Regards
John

I think it doesn't show that message if the media you are selecting is already in the media folder of your project. Could that be it?

Nick,
I have a directory system within the Media folder.
FH seem to be copying the media (not asking me - I used to select 'Don't Copy') to a new 'Dummy' Media folder. See screen shot



I hope the jpg file has uploaded all I can see is text.

Regards
John

I think I can see what is going on but just to be sure...

Please go to File->File Statistics and then copy the File Name (actually a file path) and paste it in to your reply. This will help to confirm where your project is on your computer.

Secondly when you are using 'Add Multimedia From File' and it isn't asking if you want to copy it, what is the file path of the picture you are adding?

Nick

Hi Nick,
The Data from the 'File statics' is:-
C:My Family TreeFamily Historian ProjectsYeates 09Yeates 09.fh_dataYeates 09.ged

I have have copied a screen shot of the Multimedia path.



You can see from the previous message the path to the various family lines which all atart at the root of drive 'C' and through a directory called 'My Family Tree'

The upload that didn't work has the same basic path but when you view it in 'Multimedia the path starts at 'Media'

I have been pasting the missing part of the path infront of 'Media' to those files I uploaded and linked yesterday.

If it would be easier for you to talk it through the my phone No. is 01737 211 584

Regards
John

Nick,
In re-reading the last mwssage that I sent, I think the path screen shot looks confusing so I am sending another.



John

As you've spotted, your files are stored in the Media folder of your project. This is why it doesn't ask you whether you want to copy the files into your media folder - I think you're already putting them in there before you add them to Family Historian so it doesn't offer to copy them as they're already there!

You would actually be better off using the 'relative addresses' (the ones that start with Media) rather than the 'absolute addresses' (the ones that start with C:) for 2 reasons that I can think of:

1) It means you can copy your entire project folder (Yeates 09) to any other location (e.g. another computer, another drive, a USB memory stick, a DVD) and your file would load correctly with all the images linked. Currently if you copied your project folder the links would still refer to the C drive and would need to be fixed.

2) It keeps the file paths in your GEDCOM file shorter - there is a maximum file path length of 256 which some people have had problems with.

So assuming you're confident in using a text editor such as Notepad (having made backups, etc.), I'd do a Search/Replace in your file.

FIND:

_FILE C:My Family TreeFamily Historian ProjectsYeates 09Yeates 09.fh_dataMedia

and REPLACE with:

_FILE Media

I hope this helps

Nick

Nick,
What you say makes sense.
When I think about it FH only started asking me whether to copy or not a couple of weeks ago and was happily using the 'C' path prefix.
I only noticed yesterday when I went to link some files in that some paths started with 'C' etc' and some started with'Media' which made me think and try some experiments which is where you came in.
I can't think why it happened.

I did move the project folder to the root about three months ago as I found that the backup software on the external drive was missing out some files which was because of the long path from Documents and Settings etc and I was aware of the 255 max length path in XP.

Anyway thanks for your help and advice.
Regards
John

I think there were some issues with v4.0 where sometimes the full path was used rather than the Media path. I believe this was fixed in one of the updates. I wonder if you installed the update in recent weeks?

Anyway I'm glad you're now on the right track and I'm sure you'll be able to sort it all out now.

Nick

P.S. Actually now I think about it of course using the relative path won't fix the issue with long file paths as this is an Operating System issue rather than a FH one.

Nick,
The FH was updated to 4.1.3 as soon as it was available, so maybe there is still some sort of bug.
I have noticed ( see a previous Post)that FH has created other directories and caused me to be editing the wrong database. To me it appears that FH dosen't like not running within 'Documents and Settings' or 'my documents'
I now know what to keep an eye on, I still can not get rid of the 'Dummy' or 'fantum' project folder using 'work with files' menu.

Have a nice week end, I'm of on a weeks break, hope I can find some Hot Spots for the old laptop.
Regards
John

I too lost my Copy Media menu until I read Jane's comment about being in Project Mode. When tiding up files in FH, I had moved the fh_proj file to an archive folder along with all the other stuff. Having done that, FH seemed to start as normal, so I did not associate the loss of the menu with that tiding up.
Having put it back, the 'Copy Media Files Menu' has appeared again, i.e. FH is in Project mode at startup.
You can check in FH using File->Project Window, your project should be ticked.

Howard

FH is quite happy with your project folder being anywhere you like, as long as you tell it where to look.
On the startup screen choose {more Tasks}, {project List}, {Choose Location..}.
FH will then default to your new location from then on unless you reset to installation settings.

This does not apply if you browse for a project, or open it directly by double clicking on the gedcom, or project file.

John