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Vixlo 0.1

Scanning a card again

You can scan the same card or folder into a library more than once: to give every file a second copy, to bring in a file that failed the first time, or to bring inside the library frames that still point at the card. This page says how Vixlo decides what the library already holds and what a second scan does. The review and the copy themselves are in Importing from a card or a folder.

What counts as already imported​

Vixlo tells a photograph by what is in the file, never by its name or by where it was. A file counts as already imported only when the library holds a copy of it in its own Originals folder, still there and unchanged: the same size, with the same first and last megabyte. The review counts those under ALREADY IMPORTED, and they are not copied in again.

Anything else is offered as new: a file whose copy was deleted or replaced, and a file whose frame points at the card or at a folder outside the library.

A second scan with a backup​

Choose a backup on the review and the files the library already holds become part of the run. Vixlo checks each one's copy in Originals and copies it to the backup, and Start import counts them. A card of ten files you already imported reads Start import (10), and the button works even when nothing on the card is new. Without a backup there is nothing to do for those files, so a card whose files are all in the library counts 0 and cannot be started.

So a card imported once without a backup, or one whose backup failed, can be imported again with one. When every file has its two copies the last panel is titled Import complete — safe to format and reads Every file on the card reached two independently verified copies — the 10 already in the library were found there unchanged and copied to the backup. The card is safe to format in camera.

Two other endings come from the same check:

  • A library copy that was deleted or replaced does not count. The panel, titled Import complete, reads Some files could not be verified — the card is not safe to format. and goes on 1 file the library already had was missing or changed there. Scanning the card again offers it as new.
  • Press Cancel import while those files are being copied to the backup and the panel is titled Import stopped, with a sentence such as 100 of the 640 files already in the library were copied to the backup before the import stopped — the card is not safe to format. Import the card again with the backup to finish.

What the last panel says lists the rest.

Bringing a frame inside the library​

A frame can point outside the library. A library made by an earlier build of Vixlo can hold frames that point at the card they were read from, and a frame copied to a folder you chose with Choose… in the review lives outside Originals too. The foot of the side panel reads Originals referenced, or a count such as 3 copied in · 120 referenced (Opening, switching and closing).

Scan the same card or folder into the library again to bring those frames inside:

  1. The review offers them as new, because a copy outside Originals does not count as in the library.
  2. The import copies and verifies them into Originals, and to the backup if you chose one.
  3. Continue to culling points each frame at its new copy instead of adding a second frame. Its decision, rating, label, notes and group are as you left them, and if it carried a decision, rating, label, keywords, caption or note, an XMP file is written beside the copy unless one is already there.

The file the frame pointed at before is not moved, renamed or deleted. Only the index changes where the frame points.

Vixlo matches a frame to a photograph on the card by the content it recorded for the frame. Where an earlier build recorded none, it uses the file now at the frame's place, if that file carries the capture time, camera, settings and name the frame was made from. A frame it cannot tell that way, such as a file with no capture time in it, a file deleted since or one changed since, is left as it is, and the card's photograph comes in as a new frame beside it.

The same match brings back a frame whose copy Empty bin… deleted, when its photograph is still on the card: the file is offered as new, copied in again, and the frame returns to the bin as the Reject it was.

When it is not the same card​

A card you formatted in the camera and shot again comes back at the same place with the same file names, and its files are not the photographs those frames were made from. They are not merged. The card's photographs come in as new frames, and the old frames keep their decisions and keep pointing at the card.

The review shows a row headed Frames that do not match this card, and the last panel includes the same sentence: 2 frames an earlier version of Vixlo catalogued on this card do not match the photographs now at their places (capture time, camera and settings), so they were not merged: they keep your decisions and still point at the card. With one frame the sentence is in the singular.

Do not format a card until the last panel says it is safe to.