Move deleted files into a Deleted subdir

[tourist]

Instead of removing files (or sending them to a recycle bin) I would prefer instead if PM would allow the option of having the trashed files moved into a Deleted subdir.   This way the trashed files can be easily be synced across backup resources.   It also makes it easier to retrieve the trashed files if needed and they are always there for review in the future should the need arise. 

[Kirk Baker]

Instead of removing files (or sending them to a recycle bin) I would prefer instead if PM would allow the option of having the trashed files moved into a Deleted subdir.   This way the trashed files can be easily be synced across backup resources.   It also makes it easier to retrieve the trashed files if needed and they are always there for review in the future should the need arise.

Would this "Deleted" folder be in a central location, or as a subfolder of the currently browsed folder?  Please note that PM allows multiple folders to be viewed in the same Contact Sheet window, so a subfolder would likely mean several 'like' subfolders, one for each folder being currently viewed.

-Kirk

[tourist]

Instead of removing files (or sending them to a recycle bin) I would prefer instead if PM would allow the option of having the trashed files moved into a Deleted subdir.   This way the trashed files can be easily be synced across backup resources.   It also makes it easier to retrieve the trashed files if needed and they are always there for review in the future should the need arise.

Would this "Deleted" folder be in a central location, or as a subfolder of the currently browsed folder?  Please note that PM allows multiple folders to be viewed in the same Contact Sheet window, so a subfolder would likely mean several 'like' subfolders, one for each folder being currently viewed.

-Kirk

I would prefer them to be a subfolder of their current location.  It would also be nice to have an option to ignore this folder when opening contact sheets with the open subfolders options selected.

[Kirk Baker]

Instead of removing files (or sending them to a recycle bin) I would prefer instead if PM would allow the option of having the trashed files moved into a Deleted subdir.   This way the trashed files can be easily be synced across backup resources.   It also makes it easier to retrieve the trashed files if needed and they are always there for review in the future should the need arise.

Would this "Deleted" folder be in a central location, or as a subfolder of the currently browsed folder?  Please note that PM allows multiple folders to be viewed in the same Contact Sheet window, so a subfolder would likely mean several 'like' subfolders, one for each folder being currently viewed.

I would prefer them to be a subfolder of their current location.  It would also be nice to have an option to ignore this folder when opening contact sheets with the open subfolders options selected.

Makes sense.  But you do realize that in a given edit session that if you're working with multiple folders, your deleted items will potentially be in several different locations, right?

-Kirk

[IanGoldstein]

Perhaps we could have a Preference item were we could set a path to such a "deleted" directory that could be either a relative or absolute path? Some might want to setup a single location for all deleted shots, much like a trash bin just for images, whereas others would prefer to have subdirectories under each directory just for such deletions. It also should included the following capabilities...

(1) Other than just setting the path to the "deleted" directory, we should be able to set the actual name. The ability to use a relative subdirectory such as "Outakes" would be very nice.

(2) We would still need the ability to actually delete an image, without having to resort to using the OS. While there are many reasons to keep "deleted" shots, there are always some shots that probably should have been just deleted in-camera. When deleting an image because the flash didn't fire or someone stepped in front of you and blocked your shot, you most likely really want it to be deleted.  Perhaps, the delete key can send it to the configured "delete" destination, while option/shift-delete would always perform an actual delete (i.e. to the trash bin).

(3) Ideally, it would be good if we could setup a global "delete" destination as well as optional local destinations for specific folders. IOW, there should be a preference item to set the default (global) destination, but for each directory we should be able to set an alternate destination. While this might be more difficult to implement in terms of the user interface (at least intially), you could easily just read an optional and simple .pmpreference file in a directory that would specify the local delete destination. I have other ideas for such a local preference file, so perhaps this is best left for it's own feature request.

-Ian

[Hayo Baan]

Ian and others.  Though I really like PM to have lots of configurable options, are we not trying to get PM to do too much, and much too specialised, catered for only a few users?

All that is described here, is already possible with PM by making use of tagging, rating, colour coding, and filtering on those attributes.    Yes, this would mean a slight modification of the preferred workflow, but it is certainly possible.

I think there are many much better features to ask Kirk and the others to spend time on!

Note: perhaps a solution to this and other highly specialised requests for a few users could lie in providing some sort of scripting interface to the images and their attributes.
Of course you can already use something like exiftool to extract certain data elements, and program a little script around this.  So in a way this is already possible, but it could potentially be useful to be able to directly interface with the PM data/program.

Note to Kirk and the others: I am not asking for this interface, just pointing out that this may be a solution to some of the more specialised request people might have.

[IanGoldstein]

Ian and others.  Though I really like PM to have lots of configurable options, are we not trying to get PM to do too much, and much too specialised, catered for only a few users?

I didn't suggest this was a critical item, nor do I know how many people it would benefit. In fact, I never really thought about such a feature until tourist suggested it. I saw how it could fit into my workflow and felt if it were ever to be implemented, some flexibility to meet everyone's needs would be best. I think Kirk has made it clear that it is a priority for them that features not be added to PM at the expense of performance.  If such a feature is ever added to PM, I highly doubt it will have any negative impact on PM.

All that is described here, is already possible with PM by making use of tagging, rating, colour coding, and filtering on those attributes.    Yes, this would mean a slight modification of the preferred workflow, but it is certainly possible.

For some events I already do use such a workflow. I use a specific color class for "outakes" and later move these to their own subdirectory. This currently works fine for me. However, if the ability to send deleted files into specific subdirs was added I wouldn't dismiss it. It would just streamline my workflow a little bit more, and that's what PM is all about, isn't it?

I think there are many much better features to ask Kirk and the others to spend time on!

While I do agree there are more important features I'd like to see implemented, I'm sure everyone on this forum would have their own personal preferences as to how the feature requests should be prioritized. Likewise, I'm sure there are plenty of items on this collective "wishlist" that may never be implemented. Nevertheless, there's little harm in discussing them. I don't think anyone in this thread suggested this feature be give any higher importance than any other feature.  This is just a discussion about a possible feature that some may want to see added to PM one day.

Note: perhaps a solution to this and other highly specialised requests for a few users could lie in providing some sort of scripting interface to the images and their attributes.
Of course you can already use something like exiftool to extract certain data elements, and program a little script around this.  So in a way this is already possible, but it could potentially be useful to be able to directly interface with the PM data/program.

Note to Kirk and the others: I am not asking for this interface, just pointing out that this may be a solution to some of the more specialised request people might have.

While we already have a scriptable interface for file uploads and the ability to adjust the html output templates, more comprehensive scripting capabilities and/or some sort of API are features that some of us do want to see one day. As a software developer, it is something I would really appreciate. Unfortunately, it will likely be a large undertaking. However, even if such a programming interface to PM existed, the ability to trap and modify any and all PM actions -- such as a file delete -- might not be realistically feasible or practical.  It would be nice, but I fear implementation of such a comprehensive API is the type of item that could potentially affect the performance of PM and would take too much time from more important PM development.

-Ian

[Hayo Baan]

Ian, fully agree with all your comments.  Just to make sure: I did not want to stop any suggestions, discussions, requests, etc., heck I even asked for some more or less exotic features myself    Just thought we were getting a bit out of hand with this one

While we already have a scriptable interface for file uploads and the ability to adjust the html output templates, more comprehensive scripting capabilities and/or some sort of API are features that some of us do want to see one day. As a software developer, it is something I would really appreciate. Unfortunately, it will likely be a large undertaking. However, even if such a programming interface to PM existed, the ability to trap and modify any and all PM actions -- such as a file delete -- might not be realistically feasible or practical.  It would be nice, but I fear implementation of such a comprehensive API is the type of item that could potentially affect the performance of PM and would take too much time from more important PM development.

I've been a software developer myself (and still do some scripting here and there, heck, I even wrote a script to extract EXIF data).

A complete interface to PM may have its benefits, but is indeed very hard to implement.  But how about something much simpler.  Basically only the ability to program e.g. a button, shortcut, etc in PM that would allow you to fire off a script.  The only "interface" with PM that would be necessary would be the ability to have access to:
1) the selected images, and
2) the full EXIF/IPTC/XMP data as already gathered by PM.
The first thing would allow you to determine on what files to run the script, the second part would enable you to base actions inside the script on the values of the fields.  Of course e.g. exiftool could be used to gather the data, but providing it from PM would be a lot faster.  The interface could simply be a txt file (this way any scripting language could be used, without PM having to know any specifics).
Above would certainly allow for the implementation of the delete function as mentioned in this thread.

Again just brainstorming the idea, not particularly asking for it 

[tourist]

Ian and others.  Though I really like PM to have lots of configurable options, are we not trying to get PM to do too much, and much too specialised, catered for only a few users?

All that is described here, is already possible with PM by making use of tagging, rating, colour coding, and filtering on those attributes.    Yes, this would mean a slight modification of the preferred workflow, but it is certainly possible.

Of course there are other ways to do it, but I buy software tools to fit my workflow.   Isn't that what PM is all about?  I want to open a contact sheet and quickly cull and rate my photos.  Once that is done I keyword and then files are distributed to whatever destination they require.  I really don't want to spend time tagging, selecting, moving photos that are to be deleted.  I also would like to avoid having to select all the images after that and adjusting all the timestamps to once again match the EXIF.  PM is a workflow and productivity tool, it seems consistent for it to address workflow issues like these.

For just a few photos or as a casual user these things are probably acceptable as they are.  For those who need to process huge numbers of images it is these kinds of extra steps that can get really, really tedious.  If you want to take your thoughts to there conclusion there would be no need for PM since everything that PM does can be approximated by using a file browser and an EXIF tool with a change to workflow.  But these things also come at a cost of productivity. ;-)

[tourist]

Perhaps we could have a Preference item were we could set a path to such a "deleted" directory that could be either a relative or absolute path? Some might want to setup a single location for all deleted shots, much like a trash bin just for images, whereas others would prefer to have subdirectories under each directory just for such deletions. It also should included the following capabilities...

(1) Other than just setting the path to the "deleted" directory, we should be able to set the actual name. The ability to use a relative subdirectory such as "Outakes" would be very nice.

(2) We would still need the ability to actually delete an image, without having to resort to using the OS. While there are many reasons to keep "deleted" shots, there are always some shots that probably should have been just deleted in-camera. When deleting an image because the flash didn't fire or someone stepped in front of you and blocked your shot, you most likely really want it to be deleted.  Perhaps, the delete key can send it to the configured "delete" destination, while option/shift-delete would always perform an actual delete (i.e. to the trash bin).

(3) Ideally, it would be good if we could setup a global "delete" destination as well as optional local destinations for specific folders. IOW, there should be a preference item to set the default (global) destination, but for each directory we should be able to set an alternate destination. While this might be more difficult to implement in terms of the user interface (at least intially), you could easily just read an optional and simple .pmpreference file in a directory that would specify the local delete destination. I have other ideas for such a local preference file, so perhaps this is best left for it's own feature request.

-Ian

I like the way you think Ian.  :-)   As outlined above would be perfect. 

[Kirk Baker]

Ian and others.  Though I really like PM to have lots of configurable options, are we not trying to get PM to do too much, and much too specialised, catered for only a few users?

All that is described here, is already possible with PM by making use of tagging, rating, colour coding, and filtering on those attributes.    Yes, this would mean a slight modification of the preferred workflow, but it is certainly possible.

Of course there are other ways to do it, but I buy software tools to fit my workflow.   Isn't that what PM is all about?  I want to open a contact sheet and quickly cull and rate my photos.  Once that is done I keyword and then files are distributed to whatever destination they require.  I really don't want to spend time tagging, selecting, moving photos that are to be deleted.  I also would like to avoid having to select all the images after that and adjusting all the timestamps to once again match the EXIF.  PM is a workflow and productivity tool, it seems consistent for it to address workflow issues like these.

For just a few photos or as a casual user these things are probably acceptable as they are.  For those who need to process huge numbers of images it is these kinds of extra steps that can get really, really tedious.  If you want to take your thoughts to there conclusion there would be no need for PM since everything that PM does can be approximated by using a file browser and an EXIF tool with a change to workflow.  But these things also come at a cost of productivity. ;-)

It may just be that you're used to a specific workflow that is just not the same on PM.  For instance if you were to set one of your Color Classes as "Deleted" and use that Color Class to mark your 'to be deleted' images then if you use the Color Class filter in the bottom right corner of the window to not show "Deleted" items, they would just disappear from view.  Nothing at all would need to be moved/copied/deleted.  Later when you want to really delete them, just show only the "Deleted" Color Class and then select all followed by a delete.

Just a different way of doing things.

We'll consider your request, but like all requests, there is no promise to implement.

-Kirk

[tourist]

Ian and others.  Though I really like PM to have lots of configurable options, are we not trying to get PM to do too much, and much too specialised, catered for only a few users?

All that is described here, is already possible with PM by making use of tagging, rating, colour coding, and filtering on those attributes.    Yes, this would mean a slight modification of the preferred workflow, but it is certainly possible.

Of course there are other ways to do it, but I buy software tools to fit my workflow.   Isn't that what PM is all about?  I want to open a contact sheet and quickly cull and rate my photos.  Once that is done I keyword and then files are distributed to whatever destination they require.  I really don't want to spend time tagging, selecting, moving photos that are to be deleted.  I also would like to avoid having to select all the images after that and adjusting all the timestamps to once again match the EXIF.  PM is a workflow and productivity tool, it seems consistent for it to address workflow issues like these.

For just a few photos or as a casual user these things are probably acceptable as they are.  For those who need to process huge numbers of images it is these kinds of extra steps that can get really, really tedious.  If you want to take your thoughts to there conclusion there would be no need for PM since everything that PM does can be approximated by using a file browser and an EXIF tool with a change to workflow.  But these things also come at a cost of productivity. ;-)

It may just be that you're used to a specific workflow that is just not the same on PM.  For instance if you were to set one of your Color Classes as "Deleted" and use that Color Class to mark your 'to be deleted' images then if you use the Color Class filter in the bottom right corner of the window to not show "Deleted" items, they would just disappear from view.  Nothing at all would need to be moved/copied/deleted.  Later when you want to really delete them, just show only the "Deleted" Color Class and then select all followed by a delete.

Just a different way of doing things.

We'll consider your request, but like all requests, there is no promise to implement.

-Kirk

The problem with this is that it would not keep my images in sync on the two NAS arrays or the other PC (where I run BBPro).  Currently I use the color tags to mark the deletes and at the end select them all and move them to a Deleted folder.  I was not aware of the color class filter which will speed up the select/move process I am currently using.  :-)

I understand there are no promises but would surely welcome its addition.  :-)
g

[IanGoldstein]

A complete interface to PM may have its benefits, but is indeed very hard to implement.  But how about something much simpler.  Basically only the ability to program e.g. a button, shortcut, etc in PM that would allow you to fire off a script. 

For the most part, we already have such a feature using the "Edit photo with..." and "Edit selected photos with..." right-click menu option. All one has to do is go to Launching tab of the Preferences dialog and setup any such custom script to be one of the custom editors.  PM will pass the filename(s) as parameters. While this method doesn't provide the EXIF/IPTC/XMP data you suggested, as you indicated it is already in the file(s) and readily available. I have exiftool setup in such a manner, as well as the flickr upload tool. It works quite well.

Unfortunately, right-clicking on an image and selecting an option from a submenu will never be quite as easy or quick as a simple shortcut key. For some users, it seems shortcut keys really help make PM suit their workflow needs.

-Ian

[Hayo Baan]

For the most part, we already have such a feature using the "Edit photo with..." and "Edit selected photos with..." right-click menu option. All one has to do is go to Launching tab of the Preferences dialog and setup any such custom script to be one of the custom editors.  PM will pass the filename(s) as parameters. While this method doesn't provide the EXIF/IPTC/XMP data you suggested, as you indicated it is already in the file(s) and readily available. I have exiftool setup in such a manner, as well as the flickr upload tool. It works quite well.

Ah, true of course.  Good thinking Ian!

Unfortunately, right-clicking on an image and selecting an option from a submenu will never be quite as easy or quick as a simple shortcut key. For some users, it seems shortcut keys really help make PM suit their workflow needs.

Yes, but at least it is possible.  Scripting can be oh so powerful and I'm sure this way tourist would be able to implement the "delete" strategy

Cheers

[vAfotoriporter]

For instance if you were to set one of your Color Classes as "Deleted" and use that Color Class to mark your 'to be deleted' images then if you use the Color Class filter in the bottom right corner of the window to not show "Deleted" items, they would just disappear from view.  Nothing at all would need to be moved/copied/deleted.  Later when you want to really delete them, just show only the "Deleted" Color Class and then select all followed by a delete.

This is the way PM is meant to be used I think. The color code for "deleted" images is set in default, and this method works great. Using Breeze Browser earlyer I too was used to the one click deleting into a subfolder method and it has some advantages. But PM's is great as well and even better in some cases.

What you are asking for (moving files into a specific folder instead of deleting them) can be made by the copying/moving files option allready given in PM. I agree it is too complicated to use for what you would like to. This is why I  earlier advised to renew the copy/move method. The one used in Fast Stone Image Viewer is a really handy and simple one for me. You only press the move shortcut M and the only question, selection coming up is to select the folder either from the tree itself (like PM does now) or from a list of previously used folders. And you can even enter a new folder name either full path or simply the name of the wanted new folder inside the currently used one and the program creates it if it didn't exist (after asking you first of course).

I would find this much easyer and helpful than subspecializing the existing deletition method.