Strangeness with Categories Filter

[mattk1963]

Hello.

So, I apologize in advance if I ask stupid question or if I set up my database in a non-logical or strange way, but here goes.

I go to a trade show every year. I take photos of products that I categorize and subcategorize by subject matter. Example: Candle > Taper > Yellow etc. That way, once I have all the photos tagged with the appropriate various Categories (Candle, Taper, RED, or Candle, Taper YELLOW) I can use the Categories Filter later to see all the RED TAPERED CANDLES. Or all the YELLOW TAPERED CANDLES.

Each year I create a new folder for that year. The categories are always the same.

As you all certainly know, once you're done tagging photos with category(ies), when you then select the Category Filter the window shows the list of Category names and, in parentheses, the number of photos in the database that are tagged with that Category.

I just finished setting up this year's folder of photos. Have not started tagging/Categorizing any photos yet. All going well but...For some reason, after I got everything set up, when I look at the Category Filter window, there are numbers next to some of the Category names! When I look at the photos that are associated with those Category name, they are photos from a different year/folder. I don't understand how this can be.

Anyone have an idea?

Question: What file keeps track of the Categories? And, for that matter, the Category Filter?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[user0]

When I look at the photos that are associated with those Category name, they are photos from a different year/folder. I don't understand how this can be.

check Match option on top of Catalog filter panel

Question: What file keeps track of the Categories? And, for that matter, the Category Filter?

XnView.db file, for location - check Settings > Integration > Paths

[mattk1963]

Thank you for your reply! I will take a peek.

As I mentioned, I go to the trade show every year. So I have my photos set up so that the file folder tree is C:\MyPhotos\Market\"Year X" (2021, 2022, 2023...). Question: if I have the match set to Global, will it just be looking at 2025 folder? Or will it be looking at all the years?

TIA

[user0]

global - search in all cataloged folders

[mattk1963]

Okay, after some more thinking and experimenting, I figured it out.

When you go to settings> integration> paths you will see that xnview has a place for config files, and a place for catalog location. You can look at the contents of those folders by clicking the associated button. If you start a new year, like I do, you can copy the files from the Config Files from the previous year. As I thought about it, though, I figured this was the source of my problem. So what I learned is that if you simply don't create a fresh Config Files folder, the next time you start the program it will create a new config files folder, and the necessary files: Thumbs.db, xview.db, xview.ini and bookmarks.ini (which contains the information about categories etc). Now, at that point, if you click on the categories or categories filter you'll notice that there are just some basic categories coming out the ones that I created previous years. So, using the program I went to the previous year, selected the categories tab and then from the drop down at the top of the window I chose categories management and then export categories file and exported my categories list to a.txt file. Then, when I restarted the program, I clicked on the working folder that contains my photos. Next, I clicked on the categories tab in the program, clicked the drop down icon from the categories tab, selected categories management, selected import categories file, and chose the TXT file that I had exported earlier. Voila I had all my categories, and none of them had erroneous numbers next to them, of course, because I had not done any categorizing or tagging yet!

A tip: changes you make in the categories are config files location folder sometimes won't be reflected until you close XM view and then reopen it.

I only leave this explanation in case there's somebody out there that's as much of a newbie as me and has a similar problem.

Best,

Matt