I use the category function of XnView a lot to organize and access my pictures. This feature is actually the entire reason I chose XnView over any other program, since I wanted a one-click way to arrange things. I find it indispensable for keeping track of what pictures I have used for what purpose in the past.
However, I'm doing some much-needed organizing of the files on my computer, and one of the things I did was move which directory my pictures were in. This broke all of my category tags. They're pointing to the now-gone folder where I used to store these pictures, rather than to the file itself, which is sitting quite happily in its new home. I really don't want to go back through my thousands of pictures and redo the categories for every single one of them every time I move my files around.
Is there any way to preserve categories when you move a file to a different folder? Or an easy way to tell the program "Hey, this file is over here now, put the category information back on it"?
Also, I would like to backup my pictures on an external hard drive and access them using XnView on another computer, while still keeping the category data intact so I can keep my files organized properly. This also involves a folder change, if only because I'd be moving it from the C drive to the E drive. Is there any way to transfer the category data over to the hard drive in such a way that I can do this?
Keeping category data when I move files around?
Moderators: helmut, XnTriq, xnview
Re: Keeping category data when I move files around?
I prefer moving them around by just dragging files into folders, whether on the desktop or in Windows Explorer. I just tried using the move function in XnView, but that lost the category data as well.
Re: Keeping category data when I move files around?
After a bit more experimenting, I found an way to keep the data: dragging files into folders inside XnView's browser.
Dragging them outside the program did not work, nor did using the "File operations"->"Move to Folder" command in Xnview, and dragging folders around in XnView lost the category data of the files inside the folders.
At least all I have to do is recreate the folders in the new location, then drag all the files into their new home. It's a good thing dragging a large block of files also keeps the data, else this would take forever.
A few other things that lose the category data: any form of copying the files to create a backup (I tried outside XnView, inside Xnview using the "hold CTRL while dragging" shortcut, and using the "File Operations" -> "Copy this file" option); and renaming a folder, even inside XnView.
Dragging them outside the program did not work, nor did using the "File operations"->"Move to Folder" command in Xnview, and dragging folders around in XnView lost the category data of the files inside the folders.
At least all I have to do is recreate the folders in the new location, then drag all the files into their new home. It's a good thing dragging a large block of files also keeps the data, else this would take forever.
A few other things that lose the category data: any form of copying the files to create a backup (I tried outside XnView, inside Xnview using the "hold CTRL while dragging" shortcut, and using the "File Operations" -> "Copy this file" option); and renaming a folder, even inside XnView.