DC Archive

[AndreaTX]

Not sure if I'm in the correct forum, but it's my best guess:
Is there a way to change the archive settings for the Donation Coder Screenshot program so it doesn't put every single image into its own folder? That makes it absolutely impossible to find something ever again -- unless one would want to open a gazillion folders....

[mouser]

Hi Andrea.

By default all screenshots are put in a single Screenshots folder when they are taken.

Are you talking about the optional feature that files OLDER screenshots away into subfolders?

If so, you can customize how older screenshots are filed, by going to the "Saving and Loading Files" tab, and look for "Auto Move Older Screenshots".

For example, the following setting will file old screenshots away in one subdirectory per month of the year:

[IainB]

@AndreaTX: You asked almost exactly the question that I had some time back. The solution was not immediately apparent at the time, but when the penny dropped I discovered what (for me) was an ideal solution and way of working:

EDIT: Post updated 2018-12-14 to reflect current use.
Usually, when I spend some effort in editing images, it is because I need to keep them for subsequent re-use - e.g. (say), as image attachments when making a post in the DC Forum. So I like to keep searchable meta-data with them, for easy search/find at a later time.
The usual constraint there is that you can only add metadata directly to JPG files. For me, that would sometimes necessitate considerable mucking about and thus, editing images always seemed to become an arduous task and was accompanied by the creation of separate metadata notes and the proliferation/duplication of image types for the same image. Then I realised that CHS might be able to help me, and I adopted what - for me - has been (from experience) a really simple and time-saving approach:

STEP 1: Install CHS (Clipboard Help & Spell).
In CHS Options | Image Capture

• set the preferred application you want as the External Image Viewer - I use irfanview - which is also a good image file/folder manager and editor in its own right.
• set the preferred application you want as the External image Editor - I use SC (Screenshot Captor) - which is considered by many to be one of the best image clippers/editors out there.

STEP 2: Determine what image clipping/snipping tools you are likely to want to use, and have hotkeys set up to invoke each of them separately, as required, at the press of 2 or 3 keys.
I use:
EDIT: Updated 2018-12-14 to reflect current use

• frequently OneNote Clipper - e.g., using Shift+Win+S, which captures into both OneNote and the CHS database..
• frequently SC (Screenshot Captor) - e.g., I use Alt+PrtScr to capture specific Windows into the CHS database.

Method
When you clip an image using OneNote Clipper, the image is copied not only into the default set (a OneNote notebook page), but also always into the CHS database. Having the image in the CHS database, the user can:

• switch straightaway to the full CHS view (Ctrl+Alt+A),
• locate and select the relevant image clip in that view (shows in the Clip Image tab),
• click on the editing tool icon for that image (the tool is set as SC),
• edit the image in SC and when done save it to the original file (which is still in the CHS database), thus overwriting the original image file with the edited image (which is usually what one wants) - thus updating the image in the CHS database and without changing the the file name. So CHS still points at the same (but now updated) image file.
• you can then select in CHS the Clip Text tab for that now edited image and copy the file path from there (path for that image), to use to send it, as below,
• whilst you are in the CHS Clip Text tab, you can add in some metadata about the image, for subsequent search/find and for reference (IMHO you can never have too much metadata, so don't be afraid of littering) - this all goes into the CHS database.

Then switch to where you want to send/copy the edited image - e.g., (say) the DC User Forum post you are working on - and paste into the attachment field the path to that image that you already have from above.

One needs to try this out a few times to appreciate:

• (a) how much time/trouble it can save one,
• (b) how useful it can be for consolidating the image with its metadata in the CHS database - it literally becomes a consolidated part of one's set of knowledge/data that one could probably not previously achieve so readily/easily and have readily accessible/searchable.

So, thanks to CHS (and SC), and credit to @mouser for some excellent tools that work well together.
The really useful thing about SC for clipping images is that the user can set SC to automatically save image clips to the Clipboard, which puts them into the CHS database for subsequent editing by SC. Incredibly useful/efficient!        

What about collecting images by Year/Month?
IMHO, this is a useful thing if it can be automated, as it avoids accumulating images into one humungus bucket folder, which would then be slow-as-molasses and take forever to search in a file Explorer, but could still be viewed as a flat file - e.g., (say) in xplorer².
Because I always initiate SC to manipulate images saved in the CHS image files (database) folder, and because CHS is set to update image folders by Year/Month, SC is (usually) already always pointing at the last current CHS Year/Month folder where it was last invoked for operation.
What this means is that the user can forget about Year/Month as it is managed/controlled automatically by CHS, and SC gets the correct folder to use by always invoking SC from within CHS.

For housekeeping:

• Any separate spurious/unwanted duplicates that the user may cause SC to make in its own set/default location can be periodically quickly searched for and deleted using (say) Everything, based on the SC default filename - e.g., which will be something like: Screenshot - 2018-12-12 , 23_31_40 -.png
  In my case these are in the default SC save folder, currently defaulting to the CHS folder:C:\UTIL\Windows utilities\FindAndRunRobot\Plugins\Clipboard Help+Spell\Database\Files\2018\12\
  
  
• Thus, spurious/unwanted duplicate files of the form 2018-12-12 , 23_31_40 -.png can be readily identified and expunged.

-IainB (May 08, 2016, 03:58 AM)

Hope this makes sense and is of some use.

[wraith808]

Hi Andrea.

By default all screenshots are put in a single Screenshots folder when they are taken.

Are you talking about the optional feature that files OLDER screenshots away into subfolders?

If so, you can customize how older screenshots are filed, by going to the "Saving and Loading Files" tab, and look for "Auto Move Older Screenshots".

For example, the following setting will file old screenshots away in one subdirectory per month of the year:
[ Invalid Attachment ]

-mouser (December 12, 2018, 07:37 PM)

I've never played around with this feature (I have archive turned off), but instead of a pattern, I assume that you could put an explicit name there like ArchivedScreenshots?

[mouser]

I've never played around with this feature (I have archive turned off), but instead of a pattern, I assume that you could put an explicit name there like ArchivedScreenshots?

Yeah if you just put a folder name with no date time patterns, all older files will go into that one big directory.

[AndreaTX]

Thanks everybody. I turned the auto-archiving off.
Wished I had asked a long time ago....

[mouser]

An alternative to turning it off would be to change the # of days in that option where screenshots are considered "old" from 7 to something like 365 -- then only really old screenshots will be moved into the old archive.

[IainB]

@AndreaTX:

Thanks everybody. I turned the auto-archiving off.
Wished I had asked a long time ago....

-AndreaTX (December 13, 2018, 09:05 AM)

Ahh, my apologies, I think I misunderstood what you were wanting to do. Where you wrote:

Not sure if I'm in the correct forum, but it's my best guess:
Is there a way to change the archive settings for the Donation Coder Screenshot program so it doesn't put every single image into its own folder? That makes it absolutely impossible to find something ever again -- unless one would want to open a gazillion folders....

-AndreaTX (December 12, 2018, 04:06 PM)

If you implement the method I suggested in the long post above, then you can "fit and forget" it, and the folder-naming and image management will be able to take care of itself, via CHS (+SC), from here onwards, with minimal housekeeping.
However, if you already have that awful, huge slow-as-molasses Archive file, or the opposite, with files saved in hundreds of Archive Year-Month folders, or something, then don't despair - it would be relatively easy to fix to better suit your needs.

For example, consider using xplorer² and/or Picasa3:
1. xplorer²: (an obvious approach, but not necessarily the best, by any means)

• If you used xplorer² from zabkat.com you could view the files in that Archive file as a flat file in the left pane, and as a normal folder in the right pane, and start inserting empty folders based on (say) Year-Month (e.g., "2018-12) of Creation Date into the right pane view.
• Then sort the left pane into (say) Creation Date order and filter that view for the specific date range you want to put into the first folder on the right. Drag the filtered files from the left pane into the relevant Year-Month folders on the right. This won't alter the flat file view on the left.
• Repeat for all the other empty Creation Date folders you have created.
• This will thus retrospectively reconstruct the typical Archive folder structure you would have had, had you used the feature in the first place.
• The main limitation with this is that, in and of themselves, Creation Date Year-Month folders still won't give you any clear idea of what photo subjects are in which Creation Date Year-Month folders. For that you will need an image management database.
• However, if you already have a huge Archive file containing images in no folders, or one containing images in hundreds of Creation Date Year-Month folders, then in either case, this is where Picasa3 can come in extremely handy and save you all the hassle of trying to organise your images into folders for categorisation. (I have used it for years for simplified image database management and have so far found nothing to surpass it.)

2. Picasa3: (a not-so-obvious approach, and an ideal solution to most image management needs)

• NB: Intelligent use of Picasa3 can obviate the need to apply the tedious work method regarding xplorer² as outlined above.
• Google's Picasa3 is arguably able to provide the best answers for all typical image management needs, but it's not necessarily all that obvious a solution at first sight. You can read all about it and download, install and use it for $FREE from here.
• Using Picasa3's powerful database features, you can rapidly sort, view, categorise/tag, make notes on and organise your images (of any type) individually and in bulk, as you require.
• One of the most powerful features of Picasa3 is probably virtual folders, where any image Category/Tag can be treated as a virtual folder, giving you a virtual single-folder view of just any single category as though it was a single self-contained folder, though the images in it may be scattered across the disk storage in hundreds of variously-named folders.
  Separate Categories/Tags of images can be grouped under a new, single Category/Tag (without needing to remove them from any existing Categories/Tags. There is thus no need to use xplorer², or other file manager, to tediously logically (physically) move files around to make collections/albums.