Reveal in finder

[DavidHoffmanuk]

I have multiple files selected in a contact sheet & select 'Reveal in finder'. Only the file I click is revealed, not the other selected files. Is there a way that I can get PM+ to reveal a group of selected files in a single operation?

Thanks
David Hoffman

[Kirk Baker]

David,

I have multiple files selected in a contact sheet & select 'Reveal in finder'. Only the file I click is revealed, not the other selected files. Is there a way that I can get PM+ to reveal a group of selected files in a single operation?

No.  It only works with a single path.

-Kirk

[DavidHoffmanuk]

DavidHoffmanuk on Today at 07:08:10 AM
I have multiple files selected in a contact sheet & select 'Reveal in finder'. Only the file I click is revealed, not the other selected files. Is there a way that I can get PM+ to reveal a group of selected files in a single operation?

Kirk

No.  It only works with a single path.

My workaround is to drag all the selected files into a new Media Pro catalog, select all, reveal from that app & then delete the MP catalog, a minor nuisance. I'll make this function a feature request too.

David

[Mick O (Camera Bits)]

Depending on what you are doing with that group of files, you could also use the Exporter to export a text list of all selected files with complete paths.
What are you doing with those files after you have them selected in Finder?

Mick

[DavidHoffmanuk]

Thanks Mick

An xml file of the paths might work, though a bit more of a hassle than dragging from a revealed file. It would be better for large numbers of files. Media Pro (MP) has an 'import from xml' menu item though my attempts to use that option with a text file converted online to xml have failed so I'm not sure that I could use a plain text file. I couldn't find the 'exporter' you mention in a PM menu or the manual.

Some of the tasks I'm thinking of:

Sorting vertical/square/horizontal formats and keywording them appropriately. PM can't find/sort by aspect but I can do this in MP. If I could reveal a bunch of files I could quickly do this in a temp MP catalog and then sync in PM.

Many of my legacy files are keyworded 'landscape' or 'portrait'. Find and exchange in PM is unusably slow but I can change them to 'horizontal' & 'vertical' quickly in MP. If I could reveal the pictures I could quickly import them in a temp MP catalog.

I have multiple variants of the same image but only the metadata in my current working set is up to date. In MP I can add all the images into a catalog, select the ones in the master set and, in a single task, sync those metadata into all the variants with the same name irrespective of location or file format. In PM I think I can only do that image by image.

With no more than a few hundred files in a PM contact sheet I can select them and drag them directly into an MP catalog which is the best way and avoids the need for 'reveal' - but with anything more than that PM doesn't show the number & red circle when I click on the set and I can't drag them. PM seems to have problems generally with large numbers of files in collections and metadata operations.

David

[Kirk Baker]

David,

An xml file of the paths might work, though a bit more of a hassle than dragging from a revealed file. It would be better for large numbers of files. Media Pro (MP) has an 'import from xml' menu item though my attempts to use that option with a text file converted online to xml have failed so I'm not sure that I could use a plain text file. I couldn't find the 'exporter' you mention in a PM menu or the manual.

https://docs.camerabits.com/support/solutions/articles/48000341413-exporting-photos-to-web-galleries

It's the Text Exporter that you would use.

Some of the tasks I'm thinking of:

Sorting vertical/square/horizontal formats and keywording them appropriately. PM can't find/sort by aspect but I can do this in MP. If I could reveal a bunch of files I could quickly do this in a temp MP catalog and then sync in PM.

I could make the Reveal command go in a loop and ask the system to reveal each one, but if they're each in different folders, many windows would be created on the desktop.  How you would then operate on them all in a simple way is not likely possible.

Many of my legacy files are keyworded 'landscape' or 'portrait'. Find and exchange in PM is unusably slow but I can change them to 'horizontal' & 'vertical' quickly in MP. If I could reveal the pictures I could quickly import them in a temp MP catalog.

Is MP updating the metadata in the files when you make those kinds of changes?

With no more than a few hundred files in a PM contact sheet I can select them and drag them directly into an MP catalog which is the best way and avoids the need for 'reveal' - but with anything more than that PM doesn't show the number & red circle when I click on the set and I can't drag them. PM seems to have problems generally with large numbers of files in collections and metadata operations.

The drag is stopped because your contact sheet with many items (thousands, tens of thousands?) hasn't finished getting the metadata for your images.  PM doesn't yet know the names of the images, their attached files (XMP, WAV, etc.) so it cannot build the list of items to begin the drag.

-Kirk

[DavidHoffmanuk]

Quote from: DavidHoffmanuk on Yesterday at 10:55:38 AM

An xml file of the paths might work, though a bit more of a hassle than dragging from a revealed file. It would be better for large numbers of files. Media Pro (MP) has an 'import from xml' menu item though my attempts to use that option with a text file converted online to xml have failed so I'm not sure that I could use a plain text file. I couldn't find the 'exporter' you mention in a PM menu or the manual.

https://docs.camerabits.com/support/solutions/articles/48000341413-exporting-photos-to-web-galleries

It's the Text Exporter that you would use.

Thanks, I've tried this now. It does generate an xml but Media Pro won't import it, doesn't recognise it as valid. I can try to edit it but does anyone already know what the problem is?

Quote from: DavidHoffmanuk on Yesterday at 10:55:38 AM

Some of the tasks I'm thinking of:

Sorting vertical/square/horizontal formats and keywording them appropriately. PM can't find/sort by aspect but I can do this in MP. If I could reveal a bunch of files I could quickly do this in a temp MP catalog and then sync in PM.

Kirk:

I could make the Reveal command go in a loop and ask the system to reveal each one, but if they're each in different folders, many windows would be created on the desktop.  How you would then operate on them all in a simple way is not likely possible.

That's right. This would be for maybe up to ten or so folders maximum. So long as PM can't drag large numbers of files the xml file solution would be the way to go. I need to do this fairly often.

Quote from: DavidHoffmanuk on Yesterday at 10:55:38 AM

Many of my legacy files are keyworded 'landscape' or 'portrait'. Find and exchange in PM is unusably slow but I can change them to 'horizontal' & 'vertical' quickly in MP. If I could reveal the pictures I could quickly import them in a temp MP catalog.

Kirk:

Is MP updating the metadata in the files when you make those kinds of changes?

The initial metadata changes are only in the MP database but there's an 'Export annotations' menu item that does this fairly quickly. There are options to include custom fields, catalog sets (collections), hierarchical keywords and GPS fields. It will update embedded metadata and update or create xmp files too.

Quote from: DavidHoffmanuk on Yesterday at 10:55:38 AM

With no more than a few hundred files in a PM contact sheet I can select them and drag them directly into an MP catalog which is the best way and avoids the need for 'reveal' - but with anything more than that PM doesn't show the number & red circle when I click on the set and I can't drag them. PM seems to have problems generally with large numbers of files in collections and metadata operations.

Kirk:

The drag is stopped because your contact sheet with many items (thousands, tens of thousands?) hasn't finished getting the metadata for your images.  PM doesn't yet know the names of the images, their attached files (XMP, WAV, etc.) so it cannot build the list of items to begin the drag.

But why does PM need to get the metadata? Doesn't it only needs to 'tell' the receiving app the paths? That app can do what it needs re metadata. I just tried dragging 2500 files from MP, there was a pause of 15 seconds while MP got itself ready and then I could drag them to a folder, web page, other catalog etc. With a few hundred it seems instant. There are many instances where PM takes a really long time gathering metadata before it can do an operation but it's not clear to me why it needs to do that or hasn't at least cached some of the recently gathered data.

David

[Kirk Baker]

David,

But why does PM need to get the metadata? Doesn't it only needs to 'tell' the receiving app the paths? That app can do what it needs re metadata. I just tried dragging 2500 files from MP, there was a pause of 15 seconds while MP got itself ready and then I could drag them to a folder, web page, other catalog etc. With a few hundred it seems instant. There are many instances where PM takes a really long time gathering metadata before it can do an operation but it's not clear to me why it needs to do that or hasn't at least cached some of the recently gathered data.

The filename, attached filenames, etc. and other metadata arrive in a 'blob' of data from the catalog.  The catalog doesn't provide the filenames separate from the other metadata in the blob.

Isn't the base problem that you can't sort by image orientation and if that were solved, you wouldn't be doing large drag and drop operations?  I'd rather address that than have to completely overhaul how the catalog system provides the search results to PM.

-Kirk

[DavidHoffmanuk]

Hi Kirk

Kirk:

The filename, attached filenames, etc. and other metadata arrive in a 'blob' of data from the catalog.  The catalog doesn't provide the filenames separate from the other metadata in the blob.

I assume this is why so many operations have a long waiting period with a 'getting metadata' dialog and high cpu usage when there appears to be little metadata needed.

Kirk:

Isn't the base problem that you can't sort by image orientation and if that were solved, you wouldn't be doing large drag and drop operations?  I'd rather address that than have to completely overhaul how the catalog system provides the search results to PM.

Finding/sorting by orientation was the biggest problem and solving it would be great but there are other operations where the inability to drag more than a few hundred files is a problem. Uploading large numbers from different folders to my website is most easily done by dragging files into a web page. In my reply to Mick I mentioned some of the MP operations that have no PM equivalent and that dragging in bulk would enable:

I have multiple variants of the same image but only the metadata in my current working set is up to date. In MP I can add all the images into a catalog, select the ones in the master set and, in a single task, sync those metadata into all the variants with the same name irrespective of location or file format. In PM I think I can only do that image by image.

Find and exchange in PM is frustratingly, sometimes unusably, slow for large numbers as are other bulk metadata operations which I can be do more quickly in a temp MP catalog.

I understand your reluctance to take on the job of making the 'blob' system more granular and selective but would this not have a welcome payoff in speeding up many other operations across the whole system?

For now I think my best alternative to bulk dragging will be to find a way to edit the PM exported xml file into a form that MP can ingest. I have no idea how to do this but I think it should be possible.

David

[Kirk Baker]

David,

The filename, attached filenames, etc. and other metadata arrive in a 'blob' of data from the catalog.  The catalog doesn't provide the filenames separate from the other metadata in the blob.

I assume this is why so many operations have a long waiting period with a 'getting metadata' dialog and high cpu usage when there appears to be little metadata needed.

How can Photo Mechanic Plus determine what you'll want to do with the search results?  You may want to change the metadata, you may want to rename, you may want to drag and drop.

If it could tell that all you wanted was a read-only list of names to pass to another app then sure, it could be optimized.  But what if some of those files are not currently online?  Should they be part of the list?  Determining if those files are available means hitting up the disk(s) to see if the files still exist at that location.  This is not a fast operation.

Isn't the base problem that you can't sort by image orientation and if that were solved, you wouldn't be doing large drag and drop operations?  I'd rather address that than have to completely overhaul how the catalog system provides the search results to PM.

The next build will respect the orientation of the image when the {aspect} variable is used in a custom sort.

Finding/sorting by orientation was the biggest problem and solving it would be great but there are other operations where the inability to drag more than a few hundred files is a problem. Uploading large numbers from different folders to my website is most easily done by dragging files into a web page. In my reply to Mick I mentioned some of the MP operations that have no PM equivalent and that dragging in bulk would enable:

I have multiple variants of the same image but only the metadata in my current working set is up to date. In MP I can add all the images into a catalog, select the ones in the master set and, in a single task, sync those metadata into all the variants with the same name irrespective of location or file format. In PM I think I can only do that image by image.

Find and exchange in PM is frustratingly, sometimes unusably, slow for large numbers as are other bulk metadata operations which I can be do more quickly in a temp MP catalog.

Build 6424 should improve the preloading of metadata which on earlier builds had the unfortunate ability to timeout silently.

I understand your reluctance to take on the job of making the 'blob' system more granular and selective but would this not have a welcome payoff in speeding up many other operations across the whole system?

It could speed up the ability to do large drag and drop operations, but not much else.

For now I think my best alternative to bulk dragging will be to find a way to edit the PM exported xml file into a form that MP can ingest. I have no idea how to do this but I think it should be possible.

I suggest using the Text exporter and then wrapping it with the XML tags that your software needs.  I expect that to be much easier than manipulating the XML from the XML exporter template.

-Kirk

[Kirk Baker]

David,

Finding/sorting by orientation was the biggest problem and solving it would be great but there are other operations where the inability to drag more than a few hundred files is a problem. Uploading large numbers from different folders to my website is most easily done by dragging files into a web page.

Is there some reason you can't use one of the Uploader templates offered by Photo Mechanic Plus?  What kind of website do you have?

Using the appropriate Uploader template directly in Photo Mechanic Plus would be far more convenient than drag and drop among multiple folders onto a web-based upload system.

Unless I'm missing something?

-Kirk

[DavidHoffmanuk]

Quote from: DavidHoffmanuk on April 14, 2022, 01:59:47 AM

Finding/sorting by orientation was the biggest problem and solving it would be great but there are other operations where the inability to drag more than a few hundred files is a problem. Uploading large numbers from different folders to my website is most easily done by dragging files into a web page.

Kirk:

Is there some reason you can't use one of the Uploader templates offered by Photo Mechanic Plus?  What kind of website do you have?

Using the appropriate Uploader template directly in Photo Mechanic Plus would be far more convenient than drag and drop among multiple folders onto a web-based upload system.

Unless I'm missing something?

When I was first using PM I looked for but didn't see a Photodeck option in the uploaders. Either I missed it or it has been added since but I hadn't thought that this was a possibility. I've looked again and there is a PM uploader that does what I need very easily. If we can get sorting/finding by orientation in a future PM version then that will remove most of my needs to revert to MP. Most - but not quite all. There are still a few things (bulk renaming and data transfer) that I can do best with MP but these are not needed often and I'll try your suggestion of starting with a text file and adding the tags MP needs.

David

[Kirk Baker]

David,

The next build will allow sorting by aspect ratio to work as you expect.  It will also allow flat renaming of a group of files that reside in different folders.

-Kirk

[DavidHoffmanuk]

Thanks Kirk, that's excellent news!

David