Is it possible to avoid scanning collections while unused?

[przepompownia]

Hi,

I'm still not used to use collections, but keep a single collection created long time ago. It contains a file stored on an unmounted volume. In some cases Geeqie tries to read it and complains in a notification, but these do not appear to be cases related to the use of the collection (so I don't know how to reproduce it yet).

Does Geeqie need a change to avoid such scanning before using or is there a user configuration for that? I didn't find any answers in docs (https://www.geeqie.org/help/GuideCollections.html).

[caclark]

Geeqie does not open the Collection because it does not know whether or not the file still exists.
(If a referenced file is on a mounted drive and does not exist, it is assumed that the file no longer exists and is deleted from the Collection file)

A heavy-handed fix is to close Geeqie and edit $HOME/.local/share/geeqie/collections/<collection name>.gqv and remove the offending file path and copy it into a new Collection file.

[przepompownia]

I don't want to remove it if I'd like to use such path later. I'm just wondering why scanning unused collections is necessary (and causes useless notifications at that time).

[caclark]

I do not know why the collection is being scanned.
Run geeqie with the option --debug=1 and look for the text collection load

[przepompownia]

 $ ~/.local/bin/geeqie --debug=1
Unknown option --debug=1

[caclark]

Ah, sorry:

meson setup -Dbuildtype=debug build

[przepompownia]

I've already found a trigger: after a file is renamed, Geeqie searches the list of known collections to replace occurrences of the old path. The idea seems understandable, but I need to verify (as a user first):

• what is the list of known collections, especially when using local collections
• whether relative paths are correctly updated or not

It became clear to me that I need to create new issue about ignoring unavailable files. I don't know what a good (and worthwhile) method would be for subsequently changing the names of such entries in the collection.

@caclark thank you for your help with the investigation.

[caclark]

There are recent commits that are relevant.

what is the list of known collections, especially when using local collections

The list of collections is those in the default collections dir., plus any additional gqv files in the collection history.

whether relative paths are correctly updated or not

They are correctly handled.

[przepompownia]

Yes, I see that entries (even relative) are correctly renamed in both directions, except the scenario from #2663 where we cannot even open a collection.