* Switching census record filing from Head-based to Sheet-based

[Gary_G]

"KFN";

Thank you for the suggestion. I'm not sure, however, that this would work for FH7 running on a Mac via Parallels.
Amongst other issues, I've found the path+filenames frequently are too long for Windows.

[KFN]

"KFN";

Thank you for the suggestion. I'm not sure, however, that this would work for FH7 running on a Mac via Parallels.
Amongst other issues, I've found the path+filenames frequently are too long for Windows.

Yes, I agree with the very real limit in some applications regarding path in Windows. This is why I don't name any of my genealogy files with more than a random unique file name of about 20 character! (7E845A3B2845E69B.jpg)

I also use a server (it could just be a 2nd inboard or outboard drive) to store my data, which reduces the Windows path requirements like:
C:\Users\16303\OneDrive\Documents\
before I even get to the folder structure that contains my images, becoming:
\\Station24\home\

[Gary_G]

"KFN";
Do you happen to know if the project media directory can be located on an external drive? I've found that FH7 is very good at searching that directory to re-locate files and it also is rather nice to have the backups be able to capture all the media as well. However; to do this, I may need a fast SSD drive to take full advantage of the Macs USB-C transfer speeds. To get funds for that, I have to ask "she who must be obeyed".

Right now, I'm transferring all my images to an ad hoc structure in my project media directory. Once I see how big the problem actually is, I'll have address file naming. At the moment I'm using the name given to the downloaded files by the site. It's usually meaningful and short. I'm also adding notes to the images, so I don't lose some of the info about who's the person or persons of interest from the old filenames. Once that's all done; I will likely streamline the directory structure, so I minimize the presence of long pathnames as well. I will likely also trash some of the extra images I saved, as I now know better what I need to save to cite things correctly. All said; the crucial issue is that I have to be so careful to preserve any associated info during the transition from one system to another.

[KFN]

"KFN";
Do you happen to know if the project media directory can be located on an external drive?

I put the whole project on my server. When you create a new project, just below the list of projects is a file path for the location of the project. Click that and create a new path!

[Gary_G]

"KFN";
Do you happen to know if the project media directory can be located on an external drive?

I put the whole project on my server. When you create a new project, just below the list of projects is a file path for the location of the project. Click that and create a new path!

That works for me!
Now I just have to see about a fast enough drive.
I "think" I have a spare network drive, in case I can't see my way clear to getting an SSD.

[Little.auk]

I used to use shortcuts a lot - before I moved to FH - but now I rarely do so! There can be a massive amount of work involved in creating all the shortcuts needed.

I have found that investing that time into creating effective sources in FH and using FH Queries gives all the indexing, cross-referencing and access I need without having to work in the Media directory. It is also a lot more flexible.

I have some large families in my family tree, and some of my census records have eight or ten persons of interest in a household. Creating a single source record and linking it to all those people takes very little time (especially using AS).

[Gary_G]

Peter;

I don't use shortcuts either. My issue is more that I can't implement what you suggest until I enter the data into the media gallery.

My existing person/head-based filing system includes duplicate images. I need to re-organize this system and remove the duplicate images prior to importing the images into FH7, but I need to ensure that I don't lose track of the person(s) reflected in the record(s). FH7 queries and filters will help later, but it's the noted up-front work that's causing me issues at the moment. To ensure I've removed all duplicates, I more-or-less need to first re-file the images in directories that reflect the physical documents or collections from which they were extracted. Once that is done, I can easily remove the duplicates and rename the images to whatever file naming convention seems logical. Finally; I can get them into FH7 and give them some reasonable names that reflect them being part of a set of images.

[KFN]

Peter;

I don't use shortcuts either. My issue is more that I can't implement what you suggest until I enter the data into the media gallery..

I don’t use shortcuts at this time either, although I did when I was first presented with the problem of creating a file structure that supported organizing data using Windows folders and file names in combination so that I could know the contents of a file without opening it and without duplication of files.

I feel the following features is important:
1) Only one copy of a file should be present within the storage system
2) Files need to be organized so that we know its content without opening the file
3) File names must be unique and short within the storage system
4) These features must be easy to implement

I’m not a very good Lua programmer, surely not good enough to create an AS like plugin but I would like to see the following in FH:

Some form of “image driven entry” removed from fact entry functions. This should include the following functions and probably others.

1) Adding metadata information to the imported image
2) File name creation, should be unique and short, not content based
3) Managed file repository
4) Updating any image management system from FH with new metadata.

I’m sure other things need to happen to make this work, but for me, I truly believe that a better way to add, name, and manage/organize images is needed. Library systems use computer catalogs, finding systems, unique item identifiers and item metadata to store their objects, why can’t FH as well?

[Gary_G]

Peter;

Libraries and professional photographers typically use dedicated Digital Asset Management (DAM) software for what you hope to do. This is not something that is easy to implement, in general, and even a very well-respected program like PhotoMechanic put it off for a long while. So; while I tend to agree with your list of important feature, I somehow doubt that CP would consider trying to effectively implement a DAM within FH7.

However; just reading and writing IPTC metadata is quite possible and not that complicated from my PERL experience, but I'm not an FH7 plugin guru. I know I've seen some extensions to LUA that appear to attempt to do it. It might even be possible to invoke Phil Harvey's EXIFTOOL from a plugin in order to read/write image metadata. I also am aware that there's been a wish raised for that read/write capability.

[KFN]

Gary,

At one time I used Adobe Bridge to organize my images and PDFs. I’m not sure if it’s is still available, Adobe has move to a subscription based environment that is too rich for me!

[Little.auk]

Peter;

I don't use shortcuts either. My issue is more that I can't implement what you suggest until I enter the data into the media gallery.

To ensure I've removed all duplicates, I more-or-less need to first re-file the images in directories that reflect the physical documents or collections from which they were extracted.

I had a similar problem which I solved with the aid of a "Directory List and Print" App and an Excel Spreadsheet - as per the screen clip.

image.png (140.93 KiB) Viewed 171 times

It makes it very easy to identify duplicates, provided the file name is the same in all locations. If they are then sorting the exported Excel file by file name puts identically named files next to each other. If you use conditional formatting to highlight files having the same name as the one below or above clearly identifies duplicates.

Of course you still have to move / delete them yourself.

[Gary_G]

I appreciate everyone's' help and suggestions.
It's a lot of work, but things seem to be moving along, now.

Example

Screenshot 2024-04-06 at 1.25.55 PM.png (389.66 KiB) Viewed 168 times