We need an image importer plugin.
My initial thoughts on the design are as follows:
1> The user will select directories that are to be imported. This can be at any level of the hierarchy from an entire drive down to a lone sub-directory. When a single directory is selected, all of its sub-directories are included (unless they are explicitly chosen to not be scanned by the user).
For examples of how this would work, I suggest looking at Picasa and how it handles folders. I think a similar system is what we want, for several reasons. First of all, Picasa has a pretty big following, so their users would be familiar with that style of import. Secondly, being database oriented, the user may very well not want to import their entire drive.
2> After the initial directories are selected for import, or when the selection is modified, and every time the app is run, the importer will scan directories (slowly and in a low priority thread so as not to disturb the user) and compare the last modified time of the files with the DB to see if any need to be updated (images added, modified, or deleted). By default, a new subdirectory of an existing "imported" directory is scanned (or, alternatively, we can allow the user to set an attribute deciding how to handle new subdirectories when "importing" a directory).
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