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Vixlo 0.1

What is never touched

Working in a library means deciding, rating and developing thousands of frames. This page lists what none of that can reach. The reasons and the mechanisms behind each item are in The guarantees.

Your original photographs​

Nothing in Vixlo opens an original for writing. A decision, a rating, a label, a crop, a spot clean, a develop setting — each is written into the index and into the XMP file beside the photograph, never into the photograph. Export builds a new file from the original plus its metadata. The launch screen says it in a few words: Originals are never rewritten.

Importing another card never overwrites or renames a different photograph already in Originals. When a file arrives whose name another photograph has — two cameras that both wrote DSCF0100.RAF — it is copied beside the first under the next free number, DSCF0100-2.RAF. A name belongs to one photograph whatever its extension, because the XMP file is named after the file without its extension: one camera's DSCF0100.JPG is copied as DSCF0100-2.JPG rather than beside another camera's DSCF0100.RAF, where the two would share one XMP file.

The card or folder you imported from​

A source is only ever read, never written to: Vixlo scans it, then copies from it, and that is all it does to it. No XMP file goes into it, no file is marked as imported, nothing is deleted from it. Vixlo never formats a card. Safe to format is information for you, never an action the app takes — and it is said only when every file on the card has two independent, verified copies (When a card is safe to format).

The whole card counts, not the photographs alone. A video clip, a Sony or Panasonic body's video under PRIVATE, an XMP file beside a photograph, a camera's own catalogue files, or any other file Vixlo does not copy keeps it from being said. The last panel of the import counts them and names what they are: 3 videos and 2 other files on the card were not copied — copy them yourself before formatting the card. Both files of a RAW+JPEG pair are copied and checked. Scanning a card's DCIM folder, any folder inside it, or the card's top level stands for the whole card; any other folder stands for itself. Only the files macOS and Windows write on a card for themselves are left out.

A photograph the library already holds is not copied in again, but it still needs its two copies. Vixlo checks its copy in Originals and, with a backup chosen, copies it to the backup in the same run, so a card imported once without a backup can be imported again with one and then read safe to format. A folder or file the Mac could not read keeps it from being said as well, because nothing says it has a copy: Part of the card could not be read (1 folder) — nothing there has a copy, so the card is not safe to format.

Scanning a card again can bring a frame that points at the card inside the library, and the file it pointed at is not moved, renamed or deleted (Scanning a card again).

What Rename, Forget and Rebuild leave alone​

  • Rename changes the name Vixlo shows. The folder keeps its name.
  • Forget removes a row from the launch screen. The folder, the index and the photographs stay where they are, and Open existing library… brings the row back.
  • Rebuild the index moves the old index aside as a backup. It never deletes it.

The Earlier libraries and the earlier build's folder​

The Earlier library rows keep their photographs bundled inside Vixlo, and nothing writes to those photographs. Culling one writes your decisions into that library's own index, in Vixlo's own folder; importing one copies its photographs into a new library and leaves the earlier one as it was. The folder the earlier build of Vixlo kept its sessions in is only read, to offer its decisions, and is never written to, moved or deleted, whether or not you accept. Decisions from the earlier build describes the offer.

The one thing that deletes a photograph​

Empty bin… is the only action in Vixlo that deletes a photograph. It deletes only the library's own copies of frames you rejected, only inside the library's folder, and only after a confirmation that names the exact count and size. Every file is checked again, against the live file, in the instant before it goes; a file that no longer matches, or that resolves to anywhere outside the library, is refused. No setting deletes anything for you: in Vixlo 0.1 the bin rule is shown but not acted on — see Library rules.

A Reject on its own deletes nothing. Restoring a frame, undoing a decision, closing a library, quitting the app: none of them touches a photograph. A decision changed or undone rewrites that frame's XMP file, and closing or quitting writes down how the page was arranged.

A few other things are deleted, and none of them is a photograph:

  • An XMP file with nothing left in it. When a frame is back to Undecided with nothing else on it — no rating, label, keyword, caption, note or adjustment — its XMP file goes rather than sitting beside the photograph saying nothing.
  • What Vixlo has learned, when you choose Forget my taste… and confirm.
  • A model, when you click Remove beside it in Vixlo ▸ Models… and confirm.
  • The empty folder a new library was given, when you leave the new-library wizard while its Originals folder is still empty — at the review, or at Couldn't scan that source. After Start import the import's resume file (the next item) is in Originals, so a library you stop before its first photograph is copied stays, with its folder. The New library card has the whole rule.
  • An import's resume file. An import that is cancelled or interrupted leaves a small hidden file in Originals, so that the next import of the same card can carry on. An import that goes through every file removes it.

Looking is not deciding​

Grouping, the session gap, a search, a person's circle, a place, the gallery, a proposal, a coverage gap: each is a way of looking at the library. None of them writes a Take, a Hold or a Reject. Only a key you press, a button you click, or an Accept you choose does that.

What leaves this Mac​

Faces, places, search and measurements are worked out on this Mac and kept in the library folder. The account sends a few small things of its own, never a photograph or anything from a library. Beyond those, only two things can send anything off the Mac, and only after you turn them on: precise place names and the edit page's assistant. Neither sends a photograph. What leaves this Mac, and when has the full list.