Storing and sorting media
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I sort media by title so that I can easily find bdm and census certificates for each individual. Examples of titles would be:
Smith, John - gh67birth
Smith, John - gh67death
Smith, John - gh67marriage
Marriage record files are shared, so to maintain a system of different titles I have 2 different media objects (husband/wife) linking to the same file. A little unconventional perhaps but it's a system that I've used for a while and I find it quite useful. Unfortunately it causes a bit of a problem using the pgv media interface and requires either a bit of hacking or uploading 2 copies of the same file but with different filenames. I wondered if it would be possible to build in a hybrid option between 'Add new media' and 'Link to existing media' that would mean 'link to an existing media file but create a new media object' (ie if you wanted to change some of the details)?
One other suggestion would be to sort the objects in medialist into 2 columns as opposed to numerous rows. I just find it easier to follow one list rather than zig-zagging between two.
Thanks for any comments.
Why do you wish a different Media OBJE? You can easily link the OBJE to multiple files. Also, are we talking FILE names, not TITLES? if so, I wouldn't recommend the comma's and spaces in the file names as these may not be cross platform friendly should you move to a different operating system.
Also, with your naming convention, what's to prevent multiple Smith, Johns and confusion on the files, particularly if they became unlinked. We use the SURN_GIVN-INDIid#-TYPE as the naming convention and for photos of spouses or marriage records/certs/headstones, etc, change to SURN-SURN-FAMid#-type (Smith-Jones-F12345-MARRC.jpg) and then simply link the OBJE to both (or more) INDI's or a FAM record. This way the actual TITL can be used as: John and Mary Jane (Jones) Smith's memorial headstone in Greenhill Cemetery, Montgomery Twp, Crawford Co, Illinois. Photo courtesy of Daniel Smith (grandson). Or,
John and Mary Jane (nee Jones) Smith's marriage license, issued in Fogbank, Ewen Co, South Dakota. Ceremony performed by Rev. Jim Jacks.
Stephen
Sorry for not being clear. The examples given are actually titles as stated. I deliberately avoided using INDI id's or FAM id's as they are not portable from one setup to another. I also avoid confusing multiple occurrences of John Smith by using a code based on mothers name and year of birth (gh67) which will be appropriate in all setups.
The filename for the marriage title is similar to the one suggested in Stephens example but I suppose I'm looking to attach it to each individual as opposed to the event. I also avoid commas, spaces and hyphens in filenames and use underscores as separators. Overkill perhaps.
Anyway, thanks for the comments Stephen. Any thoughts on the sorting suggestion?
David
What is the sorting issue? PGV allows subfolders for media and Gerry is the media filing king (I think), although a few others use many too. I keep all my media in one folder, so I can't comment, but my media is only the 'dumbed-down' res and sizes for my genealogy presentation. I keep the higher res, larger media items in multiple folders by family name on other hard-drives.
Perhaps you can explain your sorting goals and we might better understand your purpose and suggest a direction. You already have many filtering capabilities in PGV media management, although for me with over 3000 media objects, its unwieldy and far too cpu intensive and slow.
Stephen
David, of course I always accept that everyone should use the system in whatever way suits them best, but I do share Stephens view that this is unnecessary complication.
<<I sort media by title so that I can easily find bdm and census certificates for each individual>> - but thats exactly why the media list and media manager screens have a 'Filter' option. I also created sub-folders, first for 'certificates', then below that for birth, then marriage, and death certificates.
<<I wondered if it would be possible to build in a hybrid option between 'Add new media' and 'Link to existing media' that would mean 'link to an existing media file but create a new media object' (ie if you wanted to change some of the details)?>> No doubt its possible - but I can't imagine any of the developers being terribly keen to spend time on it when the existing system works fine for the99.999% of users. Still, no harm in raising a Feature request for it.
<<I'm looking to attach it to each individual as opposed to the event.>> Personally I avoid attaching images just to individuals as much as possible, If you do, apart from the one "highlight" item, most of the others rarely ever get seen, except by the occasional user who finds his way to the media tab. Attaching media to the appropriate event ensures they're on the Ind Facts & Details screen.
<<to sort the objects in medialist into 2 columns as opposed to numerous rows>> This one I still don't understand. Media List IS in 2 columns. Twenty images to a screen, in 2 columns (or you could say10 rows - its the same thing).
I guess my final query with your coded title system is "doesn't it look odd when displayed on the page?" I use titles that describe the image, so that the user or visitor knows what they are looking at. I always felt that was the main purpose of a title, rather than as a filing aid. So one of my tiles is more like to be "Marriage certificate - John Smith and Mary Jones - 1923"
Thanks for the suggestions and I'll continue experimenting with various options until I feel satisfied with the result. I agree that the filename is obviously designed for filing purposes and I'll probably adapt that to suit my needs. I think your probably also correct about the siting of media and I suppose the majority of casual viewers do not explore beyond the Ind tab. I see that there is also sufficient space here to reveal much of even long title names; so worth considering.
Using the filter is not an option for what I was intending, which as you imply, is more of a filing system. If you look at the following it may also clarify my reference to columns and rows in the medialist.
I prefer:
Smith, John - birth
Smith, John - marriage
Smith, John - death
to
Smith, John - birth Smith, John - marriage
Smith, John - death
Always good to get some feedback.
David:
I'd like to weigh in here.
You say that the person and family IDs aren't portable from one setup to another. I disagree. When you export a PGV database to a GEDCOM, PGV inserts the same person and family IDs that you see when you display various charts featuring these same individuals.
When you import the GEDCOM into another PGV setup, PGV will use the ID numbers that are in the GEDCOM. It will most definitely NOT create new ID numbers, completely ignoring the ones you have given it in that incoming GEDCOM.
Other GEDCOM-aware programs are supposed to use ID numbers in the same way.
If you have encountered situations where the ID numbers for persons, sources, families, etc. were NOT portable, please let us know so that we can investigate and possibly make some recommendations.
Now, for a description (again) of how my media files are organized. Of course, you're free to do as you please.
1. All media files are limited in size so that they are no more than 200 Kb. This is usually done by reducing the image size or by cropping or both. As far as I am concerned, people have no business downloading high-resolution images from my site. If they need such images, they should ask for them.
2. I have the media firewall enabled, and all full-size images are watermarked. I don't bother with watermarking thumbnails, but thumbnails are subject to media firewalling too.
3. File names reflect the person or family number to which they relate. If more than one file name "belongs" to the same person or family, there's a numeric suffix. For example, I0001 might have image I0001.jpg. I0010 might have images I0010-01.jpg, I0010-02.png, I0010-03.jpg, and I0010-04.gif. I might change this so that there's a numeric suffix (-01) even when there's only one image for that person. This is easy to do on the Manage Media page.
4. Files are found in sub-directories according to the surname or family name. For example, if I0010 is "Harry Jones", you'd find all the "I0010-xx.yyy" files in subdirectory "jones". If Harry Jones is the male partner of family F0123, you'd find the files relating to F0123 in directory "jones" too.
The title associated with each image, which is what people normally see, is whatever is meaningful. For example, "Harry Jones and Mary Smith wedding, 3 July 1898"
When assigning titles, you might need to pay attention to the fact that the Media List and Manage Media sort according to the title. You wouldn't want the list entries mixed up needlessly.
I don't use more than one subdirectory, but that's a personal preference -- I don't see a need to separate images according to the type of information represented, so a single subdirectory for each surname is enough for me.
David:
You are somewhat right about person and family IDs not being consistent.
I maintain my GEDCOM off-line using Family Tree Maker 2006, and import that GEDCOM into PGV when necessary.
FTM 2006 does NOT create the same Family ID all the time. It re-numbers families as you add them into its database. This is most unfriendly. It doesn't do this for person IDs -- they've been constant across several database exports.
This is most unfriendly of FTM 2006. I don't know whether the problem exists in newer versions -- I don't wish to use any newer versions because I find their user interface doesn't agree with the way I think.
I guess I'd hoped for a more positive reaction but as I still feel there is scope for developing some of the basic ideas described above I'll restate my thoughts; even though I fall into the 0.001% bracket ;-) Anyway, isn't that what the open discussion forum's for?
MULTIPLE LINKING
Consider a family photograph uploaded as family.jpg and linked to several family members. I think it would be useful to be able to customise each reference to the file. You could enter a different title or note for each person "John celebrating his 50th birthday", "Colin (2nd from left) at Johns 50th birthday" etc. Editing media could have an optionbox to replace just this occurrence of the media object or every occurrence.
INDEXING
The reason for structuring titles in this way is down to my apparent obsession with indexing. Although titles are, by their very nature, descriptive, they do not lend themselves well to sorting into a meaningful list. I recognise the need for user friendly titles and fully support this approach. If, on the other hand, filenames are used to provide an index (akin to a phone directory) then I'd suggest offering a choice of sort criteria on the media and medialist tables. eg "Sort by Title" or Sort by Filename".
ROW/COLUMNs
The row/column suggestion is not relevant if the list currently produced in medialist is not meaningfully ordered. Apologies if I've forgotten the appropriate ALT code but (again considering a phone directory) I still prefer:
A E
B F
C G
D H
to:
A B
C D
E F
G H
CONSISTENT ID's
I wasn't referring here to any limitation or problem within PGV; it's simply a truism that a 'randomly' generated id number will be different in different applications. I think Stephen commented in a recent thread that he appears in 3 different gedcoms under 3 different id's. Associating a person to a constant (eg mothers name and dob) ensures continuity across all platforms and occurrences.
MEDIA LINKED TO EVENT
Personal choice; but I dont think I'll provide thumbnails on the Personal ID page unless I can make them a lot smaller. I've still to investigate properly but I also dont think it will export well from desktop applications either and presume it may have to be linked through the source.
Thanks for the suggestions and advice.
"Multiple linking":
I agree. I, too, would like to have the ability to specify a different title for each usage of the image.
This is a shortcoming of the GEDCOM specification which unfortunately ties the title to the file reference instead of the object that refers to the file. Likewise for any Notes.
We currently DO allow the same media object to be linked to more than one individual, family, etc. You would need to create a single Note that describes everything about the picture. This Note will print everywhere (except charts, of course) where the picture is used.
"Sort by title" / "Sort by file name" in Manage Media and in Media List:
Not a bad idea. I'll work on this. Look for it in PGV 4.2.1
"consistent IDs":
Nope, you won't get any support for this one.
The "Universal ID" is supposed to achieve this for files exported by PGV.
The number is too complex for internal use. We would like to continue allowing users to type in the actual ID number when it's called for. If we switch to using the Universal ID, that would no longer be possible, and various charts, etc. where the ID number is shown would either have to hide it completely or become very messy.
"media linked to event"
Please explain this more clearly.
If you wish to show thumbnails associated with events (presumably on the Personal Details or Family Details page) at a size different from thumbnails associated with the person or family, put in a feature request.
This can be done relatively easily by adding another GEDCOM option where you specify the desired width, and then having the program use this where appropriate.
You can "multiple link" at the moment ... with different titles ... and different notes to accompany.
Go to my media page
http://www.hattam.co.uk/familytree/medialist.php
and filter using the name "Alvena"
to see an example
Mark
And having filtered ... how do you remove the filter? Navigating away from the page, then back to it, seems to continue using the filter.
Mark
Gerry,
Thanks for the feedback and support.
The "consistent IDs": is just my individual way of naming media files and wouldn't be an option for all users. It wasn't meant to be interpreted as a feature request. Sorry for any confusion.
Likewise really is the thumbnail for Personal Details or Family Details page. More of a preference than a request. I just feel it would be sufficient to provide a link without such a large thumbnail on what can be such a 'busy' page.
With regard to the "Multiple linking":
I can currently import a gedcom into pgv that contains multiple references to a single filename but all with different titles, notes, etc. attached. This will generate unique media objects in pgv that will all point to the same file. Currently, the only way to do this from within pgv is to create a 'dummy' file, add the title, notes etc, and then hack the raw gedcom to point to the prefered file.
Mark,
M135 and M301 both point to WILLIAM_HATTAM_&_ALVENA_1.JPG. I'd guess that you imported the gedcom into pgv this way?
<<how do you remove the filter?>> Just blank out the text box and reapply the filter.
Yes, when filtered for "Alvena" there are only 3 .jpg files ... they are multiply linked, with different titles and different notes. The Mxxx "items" were produced by PGV when it imports the GEDCOM file. The GEDCOM itself never had any Mxxx records.
1 OBJE
2 TITL different for each instance
2 FORM jpeg
2 NOTE @Nyyy@ //different number for each instance//
2 FILE media/same_file.jpg
Mark
<<how do you remove the filter?>> Just blank out the text box and reapply the filter.
ON ... just not that obvious, especially when there is nothing on the page telling you that there is a filter is being applied.
Mark
Mark,
I think the filter is set by a cookie and you have to clear it.
I carried out a few experiments with the multiple linking this evening (uk time) and I'm sorry to report that pgv doesn't like it very much! It may be due to recent changes in v4.2 but I think that Manage Media and Medialist point to the actaul filename and will return the first media item attached to it leading to unexpected and undesirable results. In short, it's not currently a safe option.
I also looked again at 'indexing' and 'sorting' and decided to embrace the 'meaningful title' approach. I've managed to retain my passion for indexing by chaging a few lines in funtions.php so that sorting is done by filename. Seems to work but hopefully Gerry can confirm if it's coded correctly.
/**
* sort an array of media items
*
*/
function mediasort($a, $b) {
$aKey = "";
if (!empty($a["FILE"]))
$aKey = basename($a["FILE"]);
else
if (!empty($a["file"]))
$aKey = basename($a["file"]);
$bKey = "";
if (!empty($b["FILE"]))
$bKey = basename($b["FILE"]);
else
if (!empty($b["file"]))
$bKey = basename($b["file"]);
return compareStrings($aKey, $bKey, true); // Case-insensitive compare
}
David:
That's exactly how "sequence by file name" is being implemented.
The only difference is that you have it hard-coded, while my change (which works) lets the user/admin determine whether sorting should be by title or by file name.
The change will appear in SVN tomorrow.
Thanks Gerry. I was starting to get a headache trying to accomodate URL's. Guess it helps when you know what you're doing.