Kirk asked to move all future Plus Beta discussion here.
Re: PM6 Search my Mac
Quote from: SAMouzon on November 10, 2019, 06:26:20 AM
I really want to make the new catalog system work, because PM5 is one of three mission-critical apps for which I'm now passing on upgrading to Catalina. If all my assumptions so far are correct and I'm not just missing something obvious, I have a few questions:
1. In order to get the same functionality as 5 has with Search My Mac, I assume I have to catalog my entire image library, right? I have somewhere close to 300,000 images in the main library, FWIW.
Yes. Though you'll get a lot more functionality and capability than the Spotlight integration ever provided.
300k images should be no problem for Photo Mechanic Plus. Our test data set is one million images in a single catalog and the performance is great.
This sounds promising! The key here is that for me, it really must be catalogs nested several levels deep. Typically the deepest in my folder structure is Image Type>By Location>Continent>Nation>State>City>Neighborhood>Specific Place, and then within each shoot there are three more levels of folders to keep the status in the workflow clear. So 11 levels deep is max, I believe. I could probably figure out a way of handling the last three using metadata, leaving the essential number of levels of nesting to 8 (counting the top level). I'm estimating that there could be up to 4,000 individual folders in this structure. Obviously, the ability of the catalog to nest makes a massive difference to me.
Quote from: SAMouzon on November 10, 2019, 06:26:20 AM
2. If that assumption is correct, then when things change in the library (almost daily) do I have to recatalog the entire library, or does Plus reindex automatically in the background like Spotlight does?
As long as the metadata changes are done within PM, you need do nothing to keep things up to date. If you make changes outside of PM that the catalog is aware of then simply browsing the folder containing the changed images will keep things up to date. If you add/remove files outside of PM then rescanning will be needed.
So if a folder originally contains just RAW images and I come back later and create JPG, then that would have to be cataloged again, or by browsing the folder to decide which images should have JPGs, PM would automatically do it?
Quote from: SAMouzon on November 10, 2019, 06:26:20 AM
3. The latest Plus docs go over some basics near the end, but is there a document somewhere that lays out the big picture of your design for Plus?
No.
This would obviously be greatly helpful. And while I understand that full manuals don't emerge until after the beta process, having a bit more of a trail of breadcrumbs would really help me (and I suspect others) to connect the dots.
Quote from: SAMouzon on November 10, 2019, 06:26:20 AM
As you know, the biggest set of questions when upgrading center around "how do I do what I did before."
The Search field in the Organizer is very powerful and supports a rich query language that far exceeds what Spotlight can do. But you may find that using the Browse tree or the Filter system to be a better way to find the images you're looking for. The Filter system is quite powerful and is getting more powerful as we continue to develop the product.
I'll spend some time with it this weekend. Just wish there were a few more clues.
Thanks in advance!!
Steve
