* Media folder

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GeneSniper
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Media folder

Post by GeneSniper »

Hi all

Quick question, while watching a FH video about inputting information into FH and adding a media file, it was suggested putting the certificate into a new folder called Certificates in the Media folder. Now if I do this for say all the certificates and just leave the photos in the Media folder, when I go to look at Media will there be a separate folder to open with all the certificate images in? Or is everything viewed all together. I ask as I would prefer certificates separate from photos.
William

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tatewise
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Re: Media folder

Post by tatewise »

William, you need to keep a clear distinction between Media files and Media records.

Media files are stored within the Project's Media subfolder, and can be organised into subfolders such as Media\Certificates to hold certificate documents. See how_to:organise_your_files|> Organise Your Files. However, this organisation will primarily be evident via Windows File Explorer and Tools > External File Links.

Media records are stored within the Project's GEDCOM file, and these are what are viewed in the Media Window and via the Records Window in the Media tab. If you click on the File column header then the are listed in file path order (Ascending or Descending depending on definition) and will take the folder into account. To organise the records further you can apply Keywords and use the Keyword Filter. So you could have a Keyword such as Certificate and add that to all your certificate media.

However, having said all that, I find it relative rare that I need to mange Media at that level. Usually they are accessed via the Individual or Family record's Media tab for photos, and the Source record's Media tab for documents, where the Source record Type easily identifies certificates.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Re: Media folder

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

I'll add that I'm increasingly thinking that I can have a flat structure in my Media folder, or probably just divide it into a few folders:
  1. 1. Photos (images of people and places)
    2. Sources (images pdfs etc of source documents)
    3. Interviews (written or oral records of interviews with family members)
    4. Proof Statements (documents explaining my reasoning for the solution sto particularly knotty problems)
That, plus a naming convention for the files that includes date geography and individual name(s) (same as the associated Media records) and the ability to navigate using FH to linked media or the Media window is all that I need and saves anguishing about folder structures (and ending up with paths+filenames that are too long in some circumstances).

Cue a lot of discussion!
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GeneSniper
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Re: Media folder

Post by GeneSniper »

So does this mean yes the folders show in the Media Window or no they don't. In my eyes there is no point in filing them in separate folders if I can't view the folders in the Media Window, so I would be better just storing them all together. Just really want to know as the file naming I decided to use, will work quite well at keeping my different certificate images together etc, but my photos will get dotted in amongst them due to them being sorted alphabetically. I suppose putting ima- or pho- before the name would sort that out.
William

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tatewise
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Re: Media folder

Post by tatewise »

William, have a look in the Media Window in the Media List tab, or the Records Window in the Media tab.
Check the File column (you may have to scroll the display horizontally to bring it into view).
Each File item refers to the Media file path and thus includes the Windows folders plus the filename.
So, yes, the folders do show in the Media Window in the File column.

There are various advantages in organising files into Windows folders (whether FH Media or anything else).
Presumably, you would never consider putting ALL your data files in the standard Documents folder without subfolders.
I believe that Windows performance is slowed when there are too many files in one folder.
So if you expect to have thousands of FH Media files, then Media subfolders are good for efficient performance.

You talk about organising Media files by using filename conventions, considering they were all in one Media folder.
So just from an organisational perspective it makes sense to have Media subfolders, one of which would be Photos, another Certificates, and so on.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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GeneSniper
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Re: Media folder

Post by GeneSniper »

Thanks Mike

The edge of the media list was just sitting perfectly on the end of a column and I hadn't noticed the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom so I thought that the information showing was all that there was. Maybe time to invest in a pc with a bigger screen :D or hook up the laptop to the TV .
William

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Re: Media folder

Post by Gowermick »

WilliamFrier wrote: Maybe time to invest in a pc with a bigger screen :D or hook up the laptop to the TV .
Most digital TV’s make ideal PC monitors. I can’t recommend it highly enough. You wouldn’t believe what you can do with a 40” screen, just give it a try, you’ll be amazed! at the difference it makes! :D

NB Check your PC/Laptop video card first, to ensure it supports HD or even 4k output to get the benefit of the larger screen!
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Re: Media folder

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

tatewise wrote: I believe that Windows performance is slowed when there are too many files in one folder.

So if you expect to have thousands of FH Media files, then Media subfolders are good for efficient performance.
Not necessarily true -- depends on what you're doing. If you're viewing them in Windows explorer, it could take a long time to scan the folder (likewise, if you're searching or sorting using Windows) -- but if you've got FH set up appropriately, you'll never view or search the media files in Windows explorer. There may be a performance hit if FH needs to rebuild its thumbnail cache, but that's not a routine operation. And if you're adding a file via Windows into a folder with many files in it, that's not an issue either unless you're using wildcards in the file name or extension. On any reasonably specified PC under Windows 7 or above a folder with 10k images in it should be fine accessed through Windows Explorer (if you must). Moreover, adding sub-folders has its own performance impact in some circumstances (adding and searching for files, mostly).
tatewise wrote:
There are various advantages in organising files into Windows folders (whether FH Media or anything else).
Presumably, you would never consider putting ALL your data files in the standard Documents folder without subfolders.
Not quite, but close. I run with a very flat folder structure -- as flat as I can make it everywhere. Where it's more than one layer deep, it's always managed via a programme and not directly. Keeping the folder system as simple as possible means you don't have to worry about where to put things or where to look for them -- it's always obvious.

In Dropbox (which I use instead of the standard Documents folder) I have three sorts of data:

1. Documents sorted by topic -- these might be reference documents that I need to keep produced by somebody else, or documents I have produced myself on a specific topic. I have a single subfolder per topic ("Car insurance", "Will", "Writing Weekend 2019") and everything under that is absolutely flat with sensible naming conventions to make things easy to find using Windows sort and search -- each of these folders is a couple of dozen documents at most.

2. Documents for which the main access route is a specific programme (e.g. FH for Genealogy, Zerobrane for Lua development, Calibre for ebooks, Scrivener for writing, Outlook for email). I usually have a folder per programme and leave the structure underneath it to the programme. So for example, in Genealogy, I let FH create a directory per project and manage the sub-folder structure itself. I add very little structure of my own -- 4 sub-folders in Media (as already mentioned -- Images, Sources, Interviews and Proof Statements); and everything else associated with that project goes into 'Public' totally unstructured (these are the only things I don't access via FH). Other programmes usually have their own equivalent to the FH project and I just let them get on with it -- create a "project-equivalent" via the programme and always access it via the programme.

3. Miscellaneous stuff like 'Downloads', 'Camera Uploads', 'Scanned Images'... which are essentially temporary storage or holding areas for things on their way to other locations when I sift them out. Again totally flat under that top-level directory and only a few dozen files in them at any one time.

I do have a deeper filing structure on my NAS, which holds a lot of reference material (Application sources, general genealogy reference material) and my Music and General Photo libraries.
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Re: Media folder

Post by tatewise »

Helen, I don't have an external NAS, and it is that sort of reference material, etc, that I organise into subfolders.
On the other hand too many nested folders can exceed the Windows path length limit of 260 characters.

William, you can reorganise the Media List columns in several ways to improve how they are displayed for your purposes.
Those columns reflect how the Records Window has configured its Media tab.
So open the Records Window and select its Media tab.
Hover the cursor on the vertical bars between each column heading so it looks like two vertical lines with horizontal arrows.
You can now hold down the left mouse button and drag left & right to reduce the column widths to fit more on screen.
Now use Lists > Configure Records Window Columns, or right-click header and choose Configure Columns.
In the Configure Columns for the Media Records List dialogue use the up/down black arrows at the bottom to move columns into your preferred order. You may want to move the File column up, i.e. to the left.
You can use the central > and < buttons to add and remove columns.
Later you will learn how to add customised columns for additional data. Click OK to close dialogue.
( All the above applies to any of the Records Window tabs. )

Finally, to save that Media column customisation close and re-open FH.

Now when you open the Media Window its columns will be as customised for the Media tab.
Press the F1 key for help & advice about this window.
You can click-and-drag on the dividing line separating the two panes to adjust their size, and that is remembered.
BTW:
You can adjust the column widths in the Media Window but that has no long term effect.
You can Configure Columns in the Media Window and that is permanent, and affects the Media tab.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Re: Media folder

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

tatewise wrote:Helen, I don't have an external NAS, and it is that sort of reference material, etc, that I organise into subfolders.
But.... we were talking about the Media folder when you gave your advice.

The pathname length however is a very good point.
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Re: Media folder

Post by AdrianBruce »

One thing that I always advocate for the Media folder is splitting it into at least two sub-folders, which in my case I've named "Sources1 NotIinFH" and "Sources2 InFH".

When I initially capture images / transcripts from Ancestry or FMP or FamilySearch etc, they go into "Sources1 NotIinFH" because I haven't yet linked them to a Source Record in FH (so FH won't know about them). When I come to create the Source Record from them, then I will move them into "Sources2 InFH". Doing it that way, the fact that a file is in "Sources1 NotIinFH" acts as a reminder to me that I haven't entered it into FH. I think that there are means whereby FH can list files in the Media (Windows) folder or its subfolders that aren't known to FH but I have so many .TXT files (say) that record searches that I've done (say) that I'd get way too many false positives from such a comparison between the Windows folder and FH's contents.

(Exact folders names are up to anyone using this method - I started with just one folder called "Sources" then evolved this method using "Sources NotIinFH" and "Sources InFH" - but of course, they sort as "Sources InFH" then "Sources NotIinFH", which doesn't suit my mental map, so I stuck the "1" and "2" in to make them sort right).
Adrian
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Re: Media folder

Post by GeneSniper »

Thanks Everyone,

Adrian, I keep all of my images in the My Document folder in Windows in two separate folders for each eg Media and MediaFH and use it similar to yourself Media is all my certificates etc and MediaFH is an exact copy. I then remove the certificate copy from MediaFH and add it to my project as I put in the information. I will then end up with and empty folder named Media FH and a folder Media with a digital copy of all of my certificates etc as a just in case. The MediaFH copies will then all be in my project Media folder, so I will still have two copies and back ups of them on Onedrive and I will know when I am back to where I was when I decided to re-do my Tree.

My complete My Documents folder is backed up to Onedrive, including all my daughters photos (My goodness do kids know how to take photos- 64Gb so far :lol: ) as I get 1Tb of space on Onedrive with my Office 365 yearly subscription. So cheap as chips.
William

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Re: Media folder

Post by GeneSniper »

Gowermick wrote:
WilliamFrier wrote: Maybe time to invest in a pc with a bigger screen :D or hook up the laptop to the TV .
Most digital TV’s make ideal PC monitors. I can’t recommend it highly enough. You wouldn’t believe what you can do with a 40” screen, just give it a try, you’ll be amazed! at the difference it makes! :D

NB Check your PC/Laptop video card first, to ensure it supports HD or even 4k output to get the benefit of the larger screen!
Mike, Just realised my laptop screen is already full HD and when I hooked it up to my HDTV it was just a perfect replica of my laptop screen, so no advantage except a bigger version.
Last edited by GeneSniper on 02 Jul 2019 12:27, edited 1 time in total.
William

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tatewise
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Re: Media folder

Post by tatewise »

William, did you try my Media tab reconfiguration suggestions posted yesterday?
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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GeneSniper
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Re: Media folder

Post by GeneSniper »

Mike, Yes I did have a quick look last night and I will be making some changes. But better than that I have now got a Word document that I copy and paste any advice into that I have either to look at or have looked at and want to use at a later date to make changes to FH. That way I have all the wisdom of you all in one place and hopefully won't have to ask the same question a bit further down the line.

Every time I think I am ready to start re-doing my tree, I ask THE LAST question before I start and end up with something else to add in to my FHUG Sage Advice document and put it off for another day :roll: . It has definitely been worth going back through How To Get The Most... and the advice on here, although I could be here for another month or two reading if I (as I do) follow the links that lead me to even more questions :D .
William

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Re: Media folder

Post by davidm_uk »

tatewise wrote:On the other hand too many nested folders can exceed the Windows path length limit of 260 characters.
With the Anniversary Update (version 1607) of Windows 10 you can abandon the 260 character path length, with two considerations:
1. A Windows registry entry needs to be edited***
2. Older 32 bit applications may still not work, I don't know if FH falls into this category.

More information here https://www.howtogeek.com/266621/how-to ... haracters/

***not to be undertaken lightly, you can kill your system if you make a mistake!
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Re: Media folder

Post by Gowermick »

WilliamFrier wrote: Mike, Just realised my laptop screen is already full HD and when I hooked it up to my HDTV it was just a perfect replica of my laptop screen, so no advantage except a bigger version.
Check your lapton display driver resolution settings. They may not be at their Maximum, simply optimised for size of the laptop screen.
If you don’t change the settings, all you’ll get is a larger, clearer image of your laptop screen.
With my own PC connected to a 40” TV Screen, I can get Firefox, FH and windows explorer side by side on the screen, all of them at a readable font size. Just having Firefox and FH on the screen together is a real game changer :D

You could of course tell windows on your Laptop that you have two screens, and get it use both, so it could put FH on your laptop, and explorer on your TV. It could be worth investigating.
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Re: Media folder

Post by GeneSniper »

Mike L, my laptop is at it's max 1920 x 1080 and I did add a second screen as you had suggested, but it was a bit weird moving from a 13.3" screen to a 42" screen ;) . One question I do have for anyone with a larger screen than mine say 2,560 x 1,440, does FH show more information on the screen? For instance having the Focus Window open with the Property Box docked, but instead of having either the Source Pane or Data Pane fully open and the other only partially open (as at the moment), can you have both fully open one above the other as well as the Focus Window?
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Re: Media folder

Post by tatewise »

I can't answer that specific question, but did you know you can have the Source pane to the right of the Data pane, which is often a more effective use of space?
See Tools > Preferences > Property Box > Preferred Position for Source Pane set to Right of Property Box.
Also there is Open in New Window in which the Source pane floats as a modal window.
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Re: Media folder

Post by GeneSniper »

If that screen was a bit wider Mike, then side by side would be just about perfect for me, but it is still better that way for inputting data using the Focus Window.
William

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Re: Media folder

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Screen size 3440 x 1440:
Screenshot 2019-07-03 09.17.54.png
Screenshot 2019-07-03 09.17.54.png (103.78 KiB) Viewed 13009 times
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GeneSniper
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Re: Media folder

Post by GeneSniper »

Well that answers my question Helen. Looks like I will make sure I get a wide screen monitor when I get a new PC.
William

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Re: Media folder

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Mine is a 34" screen for reference.
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Re: Media folder

Post by GeneSniper »

Well screen size issue solved. Because my Dell laptop is a 13.3" screen, the display settings are set to 125% by Dell for better viewing on that screen size, so I set it back to 100% and got the view I was looking for although with slightly smaller (but perfectly useable) text . That means it is fine for me to get anything Full HD 1960X1080 or bigger on a normal monitor and that it is great on my TV now Mike L.
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Re: Media folder

Post by Gowermick »

WilliamFrier wrote:Well that answers my question Helen. Looks like I will make sure I get a wide screen monitor when I get a new PC.
Remember, you’ll pay a lot more for a dedicated PC “Monitor” than you would for a similar size Digital TV which works just as well. Also you can’t use a monitor to watch TV (without a TV card that is), but you can use a TV as a monitor - just saying :D

When the time comes, the cheapest option is to simply get a standalone PC with a decent graphics card (one with 4k with HDMI outputs), there’ll be no need to get a monitor with it, just use your existing TV as the monitor. This should future proof you for when 4k TV kicks off in earnest, and you upgrade your TV!
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