Decisions from the earlier build
Most people never see this. It appears only on a Mac that ran the earlier build of Vixlo, the one this version replaces, and still has that build's culling sessions on disk. The first time you open a library, a dialog offers to bring their decisions across. This page says when it appears, what its counts mean, what each button does and what the dialog after it reports.
When it appears
Vixlo looks in ~/Library/Application Support/Vixlo/Sessions, where the earlier build saved one file per shoot. It makes the offer only when it finds at least one readable session that holds photographs. A file it cannot read is skipped without a word.
The dialog comes up over the cull page the first time you open a library on the Mac: one you made, one you chose from the list, or an Earlier library. It is asked once for the whole Mac, not once per library, and either answer ends it for good.
Opening the right library first
Because it is asked once, and updates only photographs already in the library on screen, the library you open first matters. The order that works:
- Make a library from the card or folder the earlier build read, and let the import finish: Creating a library.
- Leave the card in the Mac, or the folder where it was. Vixlo reads each original again to match it.
- Press Continue to culling. The library opens with Source scan complete over the cull page, and this dialog over that.
Wait before you answer. The match needs a fingerprint of every photograph in the new library, which Vixlo makes in the background after Continue to culling; the dialog does not wait for it and does not show when it is done. The more photographs, the longer it takes. Press Import old decisions too soon and the photographs not yet fingerprinted are counted skipped — not yet in this library, and the offer ends for good. Keep Vixlo open meanwhile, and do not click outside the dialog: that counts as Not now. Nothing is recorded until you press one of the two buttons or click outside it.
Open an Earlier library or an empty library first and nothing in it matches, and answering still ends the offer.
What the dialog shows
The dialog names the folder it found the sessions in, the Vixlo folder inside your Application Support folder. It ends: You can bring their decisions into this library, matched photo by photo, or leave them exactly where they are. You will only be asked once. Three counts sit under it:
- OLD SHOOTS (OLD SHOOT when there is one) is how many saved sessions it found.
- PHOTOS DECIDED is the photographs in them that carry any decision, including the ones the earlier build rejected on its own.
- NEVER JUDGED is all the others, the photographs that build never got to. There is nothing in them to bring.
Two rows follow. Read-only, always says Nothing here is written to, moved or deleted by this import. Importing does read the folder, to find the decisions, and writes nothing there. Only photos already in THIS library are updated says the match is by the photo's exact content, never its old file path, and to scan a card in first if its photographs are not there yet.
Import old decisions
For each photograph the earlier build decided, Vixlo finds the original where that build read it, reads it whole, and looks for a photograph with identical content in the open library. A renamed or copied file matches; a file changed in any way does not.
| In the earlier build | In this library |
|---|---|
| Kept | Take, with one, three or five stars, by the tier that build gave the photograph |
| Maybe | Hold, with the same stars |
| Rejected after you confirmed it | Reject |
| Rejected by the earlier build's own sharpness measurement, with no confirmation from you | Nothing is written |
| No decision | Nothing is brought |
The fourth row is deliberate: a measurement never becomes your decision in Vixlo, so nothing is written for those photographs. They keep the decision they already have here, which is Undecided unless you made one yourself. A match takes the old decision even if you have already decided the photograph in this library, and Vixlo does not ask frame by frame. Each change is its own step in the library's history, so there is no single undo for the whole import.
The dialog that follows
A second dialog opens, headed Old decisions imported when at least one decision was written and Nothing to import yet when none was. Its sentence reads like 12 of 40 old decisions matched a photo already in this library. 10 were written just now; 2 already matched — running this again never duplicates anything. The 40 counts the decisions the import looked at, so it is smaller than PHOTOS DECIDED by the number of auto-rejects. When the earlier build had no decision to bring, the sentence says The earlier build had nothing decided to bring across — every photo in it was still unjudged.
Three counts sit under it: IMPORTED is written just now, ALREADY MATCHED is photographs that already had that decision and stars, and NOT MATCHED is the skipped ones below. Up to three rows explain what was left out:
| Row | What it means |
|---|---|
| N old auto-rejects left Undecided, not imported as Reject | The sharpness-measurement rejects above. They are not in the three counts. Despite the row, nothing is written for them: one you already decided here keeps its decision. |
| N skipped — original file not found | The card or drive the earlier build read the photograph from is not connected, or the file has moved. |
| N skipped — not yet in this library | The original was found, but no photograph in this library has that content. |
Done closes the dialog.
Not now
Not now, or a click outside the dialog, closes it and leaves the earlier build's sessions exactly where they are. It ends the offer too.
Both answers end the offer for good on this Mac, and nothing in the app brings it back. The advice in the dialog's rows, to scan the card in and run Import old decisions again, cannot be followed, because there is no second run. If photographs were skipped, or you pressed Not now by mistake, write to support@vixlo.app.
There is also no progress display. Vixlo reads every original in full, one after another, and with a large old shoot the window can stop responding until it has finished. Leave it alone.