how to relink photo's after install on other Mac

[vdhoorn]

i bought a new mac G5. My Filemaker photodatabase doesn't seem to find the linked photo's anymore. There are thousands of pictures in the database. Can someone tell me how to relink the imported pictures without manually relink all the files? Perhaps with an Applescript?

[Kurt Knippel]

A link is a defined path. So if they we previously on G3Harddrive/Photos and are now on Harddrive/Users/VDHoorn/Photos then Filemaker has no way of knowing that.

You have several options:

Move the photo back to the original location (or a replication of the orginal location).

Use Troi File Plugin or Applescript to relink all the photo containers to thier new location.

Re-import all the photos (easy in Filemaker 6 import a whole folder).

I am not sure what is easier in your situation.

If you go with the second option, I can help with the scripting to do this. I manage a photo database system with exactly this capability built in. It allows us to restructure the drives & folders containing the photos and update our databases without having to reimport and lose all our other data.

[vdhoorn]

hi,

thanx for the reply. I think the second option sounds great. I can't import the entire folder because i made captions en numbers with the photo's.

I would like to get some help with the scripting.

ton

[Fenton]

What you want to do is synchronize the photos with the database. For this you need a field in the db record that matches the file name of the photo; or can be calculated or renamed (prefix, suffix) to match. If you have this, then importing, either via AppleScript or FileMaker is possible. The latter is going to be easier and faster probably. You can use Import Matching on the file name. If you don't, well, we hope that's not the case; because then the only thing I can think of would be to align a set of records exactly with a folder of photos and import.

"I can't import the entire folder because i made captions en numbers with the photo's."

I (and I believe others) have no idea what this means, or whether it's a valid impediment.

[vdhoorn]

hi,

Does fm 7 have an option to extract the name from the photo while importing the picture into the database?

To relink the files, do i have to make an external applescript? or does fm7 also have a script for that?

[Fenton]

Look carefully in the Import dialog. One of the format choices is Folder. This opens up a whole new dialog window, where you specify the folder (including subfolders choice), and what type of file (it can do text files also).

After making those choices the regular Import dialog, where you match the fields, pops up. But the names on the left are pre-determined:

Image

File Name

File Path

Image Thumbnail

Just line up your fields with the appropriate one. If you have a thumbnail field it can create and embed the thumbnail.

One of the cool things about this dialog is that it has the options of a regular import, like "matching records, add new."

Which means you can import the same folder twice, matching on File Path (or File Name if you have no duplicates), to bring in only new pictures. It might slow down after a thousand or so; I've not tested with that many. At the very least it'll stop you from importing the same pictures twice.

Or you can use a tool like AppleScript to move/rename folders to a fixed "import" folder, then move/rename them to where they came from.

FileMaker 7 adds a whole new method. You can "reference" the pictures via "relative file path." So, really you don't need to import the "image" at all (though you might still want to import the thumbnail; and you definitely want the name).

All you need is a calculation field, like this:

"image:" & File Name

or, if the images are in a folder named "images" in the same folder as the database file:

"image:images/" & File Name

or, in a folder one level above the database file:

"image:./images/" & File Name

Pretty much just like a web browser does. Which makes it a heck of lot easier to move the folders around. I'm still unclear how (or if) the above would work with ip addresses. That is, can you have something like:

"image:" & ip address & "/images/" & File Name

I have worked out a way to reference a folder anywhere on the same drive. Somewhere.

[bruceR]

It is not necessary to precede all trailing s characters with an apostrophe. An apostrophe indicates either a contraction (missing letter) e.g. wasn't or possessive, e.g. Bill's house. Photos would be correct in this case.