Folder Organisation Dialog

This dialog may be displayed under several circumstances which will determine what facilities are available

From Edit Search Criterion - here you can only select a folder to be used in the selection search.
From Edit - Folder Organisation - here you will be able to mount and unmount folders as well as move them to new locations.

The Folder Organisation Dialog presents a folder tree similar to but a little different to a normal file hierarchy tree. However only paths leading to folders containing images from the current database will displayed, making it much easier to view. If you select a folder that contains images in the current ImageDB database those images will be listed in the list box to the right. Folders and their contents can be easily copied, moved or renamed here using the appropriate buttons. It is necessary to do this sort of maintenance here rather than using the normal Windows Explorer approach in order to keep the ImageDB database in synch with the actual names and locations of the images.

The icons used are described in the following table:

	Closed	Open
Fixed drive
Removable Drive
Folder
CD drive
Remote (network)
Remote folder
If the drive/folder contains images from this database then an "IDB" icon will be superimposed, as in this example of an "IDB" folder.
Unmounted folders are displayed inside a "box"

Moving and Copying Folders

ImageDB folders can be moved to new locations. Select a folder (it must be an "IDB" folder and then click one of the Move or Copy button, and select a destination folder form the Folder Browse dialog that is displayed. All images (and subfolders containing images) will be moved/copied to that new location. Copy will leave a copy in the original location, Move will not. To use Move you should be certain that no other application will still expect that image to be located in its original location.

The difference between Move Contents and Move Folder is subtle. In the first case all files and sub-folders in the selected folder will be moved to the new location and in the latter the selected folder itself will be moved (along with all its contents) and created as a new sub-folder in the selected destination folder. The same goes for the Copy options.

The move or copy may fail for a number of reasons. The most likely being that there is already a file of that name at that location, or the source file does not exist (attempting to move an image that had not been found). Either way if you choose to continue all the images that failed the move/copy will be listed in an Error Log.

Renaming Folders

Select a folder and click Rename Folder enter a new name and click OK. The folder will be renamed and all images in that or any subfolders will have their properties updated with the new name. Note the rename will fail if anything else on your system (such as Windows Explorer) currently has that folder or any sub folders selected. Unmounted folders cannot be renamed.

Note these operations will only be carried out on ImageDB images stored in these folders - any other files will be left where they were and the original folders will remain even if the move option is used.

Mounting and Unmounting Folders

Overview
Folders can be unmounted. When it is unmounted, the folder structure below the unmount point is recorded but everything above is ignored. This means that a folder can be unmounted and then the original data copied to a new location before being remounted. For example it might be burnt onto a CD. To assist in locating the unmounted images at a later date a mount file can optionally be created.

Unmounting a Folder
First select a folder. Now click Unmount; you will be asked to select an existing mount name (based upon any existing mount files at that location) or enter a new one. You can also choose to optionally create a mount file. If you check this box a file with the same name as the mount name (with an extension of .mnt) will be created in the folder being unmounted. Though not required this can greatly assist in locating correct mount points when you come to remount the folder later. Obviously you will not be able to do this if the folder being unmounted cannot be written to; for example if you are unmounting a CD-ROM, also the mount name must be a valid file name. A good descriptive mount name will also make it easier to locate later; a name like "Web images on CD" might be helpful. When you click OK the images in that folder and all subfolders will be unmounted. They will appear in the folder organisation tree as icons inside "boxes". These images will no longer be displayed but none of their data is lost and when they are later remounted they will be available in the normal way. Note the mount file is simply a tag file it contains no data and so is of negligible size.

Mounting a Folder
First you must select one of the folders listed as unmounted (displayed as icons showing a folder in a "box"). Only the root of unmounted trees can be selected. Now Click Mount and you will be asked if you would like to use a mount file - this is generally safer but can only be used if a mount file was created when the folder was unmounted (and subsequently copied along with the images if they were moved to a new location such as a CD). If you elect to use a mount file you will be asked to navigate to it and select it, otherwise you must navigate to the correct unmounted folder and select that. The original location of the mount folder is displayed as a hint to help you find it. If the original location is correct the Original button can be used to mount directly from that location.

If any of the images recorded in the unmounted folder are not found in the selected location the mount will be abandoned, all unmounted images must be found for the mount to go ahead.

Moving Images to a CD
The techniques described above can be used to move images to a CD without losing any of the stored data. First move the images to be stored on a CD into their own folder (if they are not already). Then unmount folder (ideally creating an appropriately named mount file). Now you can use your normal CD burning application to burn all the images in the unmounted folder along with any subfolders and also the unmount file (extension .mnt). Now any time you want to view the images on the CD simply insert the CD and mount it.