Member
## More a suggestion for ZenPhoto 2.0 than a request for support.
Our site has (at the last count) around 20,000 images, and growing by about 200 a week. They are of transport history and are placed in albums starting with general type (Rail, Canal, Road...) then by Area (South midlands) then by route (Grand Junction) then placed in order, North to South along that route. Each image also has a Title and a Description (as a minimum).
To do this, we have a small army of volunteers with Admin access who are given media to scan, upload, add Title and Description and (finally) move to the correct location. Occasionally, they find an existing image of the same subject, so one or the other gets deleted.
Accidents happen. More than once, a volunteer has accidentally deleted an entire album. While we still have the digital images, the painstaking work of adding Title and Description (and moving) has to be repeated, maybe by other volunteers who had images in the same album. Any comments added are lost (although we back up the DB regularly, it's not trivial to find ONLY comments for the images which have been lost)
## Suggestion
As well as "Published" and "Unpublished", have a third state called "hidden" (or maybe "recycling") for images and albums. Only a *very* select group of Admins have the right to either totally delete such items or to put them back to "Unpublished"
Our site has (at the last count) around 20,000 images, and growing by about 200 a week. They are of transport history and are placed in albums starting with general type (Rail, Canal, Road...) then by Area (South midlands) then by route (Grand Junction) then placed in order, North to South along that route. Each image also has a Title and a Description (as a minimum).
To do this, we have a small army of volunteers with Admin access who are given media to scan, upload, add Title and Description and (finally) move to the correct location. Occasionally, they find an existing image of the same subject, so one or the other gets deleted.
Accidents happen. More than once, a volunteer has accidentally deleted an entire album. While we still have the digital images, the painstaking work of adding Title and Description (and moving) has to be repeated, maybe by other volunteers who had images in the same album. Any comments added are lost (although we back up the DB regularly, it's not trivial to find ONLY comments for the images which have been lost)
## Suggestion
As well as "Published" and "Unpublished", have a third state called "hidden" (or maybe "recycling") for images and albums. Only a *very* select group of Admins have the right to either totally delete such items or to put them back to "Unpublished"
Administrator
Your description actually sounds as if you/we need a sub right that allows editing of albums/images but not deleting them. Currently the "edit" right of an album allows really everything. That actually makes senses for collaborative usage. We'll put that on our list.
Member
Many thanks (and for the swift response)
Member
You probably use a fully working backup of your website on your local computer. If no, think about this security safety.
If someone erases an album, just download it again at the same place from your backup, and restore your database backup before you add too many new documents !.
I use freeefilesync to automatically backup my album folder.
https://freefilesync.org/
It is fast even with 20.000 pictures !
If someone erases an album, just download it again at the same place from your backup, and restore your database backup before you add too many new documents !.
I use freeefilesync to automatically backup my album folder.
https://freefilesync.org/
It is fast even with 20.000 pictures !
Administrator
Yes, @ctdlg is right. It is a good idea to have a general local mirror of the albums folder additionally to the database backup. Especially since with Zenphoto being file system based the file system updates the database.
I don't know the tool above but any FTP client can do such mirror.
Nevertheless an edit right without deleting ability is on the list.
I don't know the tool above but any FTP client can do such mirror.
Nevertheless an edit right without deleting ability is on the list.
Member
Both - thanks and, good ideas. We keep a full file based backup done at regular intervals. Part of the issue is the Database, we do that but introduces (without a *lot* of background fiddling) whether to accept the loss of 20 captions / titles or do a full restore and get those 20 back, but lose 40 other updates over the whole site...
Administrator
I fear that is not avoidable unless you make backups "every minute" to really get everything matching.
The most secure for images is metadata embedded so it "travels" with images but we cannot write to images. But you maybe could try using the XMP plugin and the sidecar XMP file support. Maybe that helps a little.
The most secure for images is metadata embedded so it "travels" with images but we cannot write to images. But you maybe could try using the XMP plugin and the sidecar XMP file support. Maybe that helps a little.
Member
Thanks (again). My "Go To" solution at present is an (external) tool which can read the backup file (after copying with FTP) and give you text "Here are the 20 Titles and Descriptions you're missing". I'll have a look at the XMP plugin though - thanks.
Member
As you say, metadata travels with the image, but would Title, Description, and Tags copy from the image file metadata to Zenphoto? What about Custom Data?
Also, these fields in our installation of Zenphoto are quite often updated, as new information about an historical image comes to light. This is fine until someone inadvertently clicks on Refresh Metadata, which would overwrite the updates with the text already in metadata. Can the metadata be automatically updated with the corresponding update in Zenphoto?
Also, these fields in our installation of Zenphoto are quite often updated, as new information about an historical image comes to light. This is fine until someone inadvertently clicks on Refresh Metadata, which would overwrite the updates with the text already in metadata. Can the metadata be automatically updated with the corresponding update in Zenphoto?
Administrator
> As you say, metadata travels with the image, but would Title, Description, and Tags copy from the image file metadata to Zenphoto?
I was only referring to XMP data and that of course only supports that metadata. All other fields like custom data are not handled naturally.
> This is fine until someone inadvertently clicks on Refresh Metadata, which would overwrite the updates with the text already in metadata.
The XMP plugin allows exporting the data after such additions. As of ZP 1.6.5 you can choose the metadata behaviour on refrehing to avoid overwriting existing data.
Unless you get content deleted unwantedly as adrian9832 described, this is not much of a problem.
Using the built in move/copy/rename tools also copies/moves all data.
If you want to move an entire install or create a complete backup you need to copy both the albums physically and the database. Again the file system is the base. See "Moving installations" on our site.
I was only referring to XMP data and that of course only supports that metadata. All other fields like custom data are not handled naturally.
> This is fine until someone inadvertently clicks on Refresh Metadata, which would overwrite the updates with the text already in metadata.
The XMP plugin allows exporting the data after such additions. As of ZP 1.6.5 you can choose the metadata behaviour on refrehing to avoid overwriting existing data.
Unless you get content deleted unwantedly as adrian9832 described, this is not much of a problem.
Using the built in move/copy/rename tools also copies/moves all data.
If you want to move an entire install or create a complete backup you need to copy both the albums physically and the database. Again the file system is the base. See "Moving installations" on our site.
Member
> I fear that is not avoidable unless you make backups "every minute" to really get everything matching.
I can live with the deleted album being "restored" to a week ago (the most recent incident had 70 odd images, of which 55 had been backed up seven days earlier - we had to re-create 15). What we can't cope with is having to restore the entire site to a week ago.
I can live with the deleted album being "restored" to a week ago (the most recent incident had 70 odd images, of which 55 had been backed up seven days earlier - we had to re-create 15). What we can't cope with is having to restore the entire site to a week ago.