Need help with organizing jpegs and referencing them

[Mark Reed]

Im not quite sure where to post this...

We have a situation that I am not sure how to handle in file maker.

We have a huge number of jpegs. Each JPEG is named for the sku or the assigned SKU concept number.

For example, we have JPEGS named:

12001.jpg

93000.jpg

K83923.jpg

182332.jpg

55332.jpg

K22112.jpg

Each jpg is stored in a set of organizational folders.

we have a folders broken down by the first three Numbers

10000

11000

12000

13000

14000

...

50000

51000

52000

all the way up to

99000

We also have a folder for anything starting with K.

You can see this is a HUGE number of folders.

10000 to 99000

I need to be able to reference JPEGS in those folders and the only way I can see how to do this is via a really long string of IF statements.

I would restructure the folders to be a series of folders that are classified by STARTS WITH

Such as folders named:

10

11

12

13

..

20

21

..

up to

99

this would give me basically 100 folders for users to place images based on the first two starting digits.

My if statement string would be 100 IFs long to cover the spectrum.

My questions are:

1. Is there a limit or issue with such a long series of IF statements (will it impact response times)

2. Is there a better way of reaching these images so that we can maintain that folder structure?

The reason we need to maintain that structure vs dumping all the images in one folder is that our design team often needs to view a block - say the 21000-21999 block and use them in Adobe InDesign and link back to them ect... if they are all in one folder, it becomes an issue navigating to them in InDesign.

Any ideas, suggestions or comments will be greatly appreciated.

Edited December 21, 2009 by Guest

[Ocean West]

Question: is your IF statement a calculation in a field or a Script step?

---

The best way to do this is to implement 360Works SuperContainer and not rely on a ridged OS structure to the images.

When you wish to export data for InDesign you could loop thru the records and export the image to a "export" folder naming the file ready for use with InDesign.

If you are looking for a method to integrate FMP & InDesign there is a great tool for InDesign called EasyCatalog.

[IdealData]

My if statement string would be 100 IFs long to cover the spectrum.

Don't think you need to do that.

As you have already said, each jpg is stored in a folder that has the first 3 chars or "K" from the jpg name...

Here's a definition for a calculated field: FolderName

Case(

Left (filename; 1) = "K" ; "K" ;

Left (filename; 3)

)

Personally I find the Case function easier to use and read.

[Mark Reed]

The company does not want to buy the plug ins for all the users ( low budget)

Using the case statement - I would need 100 lines in the case statement too wouldnt I?

Case(

Left (filename; 1) = "K" ; "K" ;

Left (filename; 2) = "10" ; ".....";

Left (filemane; 2) = "11" ; "......";

ect..

up to the 100th LEFT statement?

how would that impact performance?

The company wants to find a manageable solution without needing to resort to plugins if possible.

The only way I know of is IF (or case). But then it becomes a question of "will evaluating 100 statements be a response time issue?"

[IdealData]

Using the case statement - I would need 100 lines in the case statement too wouldnt I?

Nope. I think you missed the fact that the case statement evaluates as follows:

If the first character is "K" ; use "K" for FolderName

in all other cases USE the first 3 chars for the FolderName

If you are going to restructure using 2 digit folders then it will still work, you just need to adjust the number of characters in the default result.

Please try the calculation and observe the results.

Edited December 21, 2009 by Guest

[Mark Reed]

ahhh!!!

ding - the lightbulb is now on.

Im kinda kicking myself for not seeing that or thinking of it myself.

grrrr.... I need to learn to take a step back and look before I come here beggin for free help.

I really appreciate the replies. Thank you to all for helping me!