That sounds like an accident waiting to happen.  Especially with many cameras naming conventions and personal naming conventions easily allowing for duplicate file names but completely different images.

I've been bitten badly by this 'feature' many times when copying a large group of images to a directory containing other images resulting in duplicate named items overwriting in the destination.

I believe there is a better method to accomplish your request, I just can't recall where I saw it just yet.

Hi,
I wonder, jnashpiwigo, if you well understood the problem. Ecovoy, seems puzzled by the reverse phenomenon you described. He expects replacement.
Anyhow, the plugins pointed out are definitely a solution.

I see different ways to update a gallery :
- FTP to upload files in */galleries/ folder. You can see and manage the subfolder tree, and so replacements.
- HTTP to add files in an album on the website. They are dispatched in a time folder tree */upload/2021/02/19/ and renamed as follow 20210219120059-0189abef.jpg. I think this is why the default behaviour is to duplicate through http.
- smartphone application ?

PS : Actually, plugins are using  HTTP but they are managing replacement.

Last edited by TOnin (2021-02-19 21:15:24)

I'm not sure we all think about the same scenario, my mind is so used to, so focused on, FTP+sync. What is the name of a file ? the name on origin file system, the names in the database, or the name on server file sytem ?
The help tab in piwigo admin interface is explaining FTP+sync, but not at all the underlying engine managing out-of-the-box uploading/adding of pictures. This is a choice I think it is made not to puzzle too many people.
In the database, there are four fields in pwg_images table, related to our discussion: file, path, storage_category_id, name, and we have a many-to-many table that makes it possible to associate one image with several categories (kind of ubiquity).
A close question in this forum, associate, move, terminology: https://piwigo.org/forum/viewtopic.php? … 40#p179940

We mainly don't need to know that, and I bet there is now no risk to get mistaken and overwrite a file. If there is still a problem, it would be wise to open an issue, and describe how to reproduce it.

As a summary, I would say FTP+Sync can add and replace, but admin add can only add. To replace it needs one of the extensions you picked.

Well, thank you, we hold the solution to deal with replacements, and this is great !

Piwigo is not exactly designed to be a organizer and editing tool such as Lightroom. It can be used to sort/order/label... but, as you see, Piwigo is more focused on displaying

Extensions cited are designed to help for occasional need. Here it seems that you need to curate and organize your content on other tools, and then you display them in Piwigo.
If you are a file based guy, you could use a duplication software then FTP+sync ; or you can use a software like Darktable and Lightroom and theirs plugins to sort and upload your content

Thanks for your input guys. For me Piwigo is indeed an organiser and I consider tags & albums as the core components when organizing large amounts of pictures. When photo ABC is uploaded but already present in the structure, it makes more sense to me to "merge" pictures (or at the very least to replace older with newer) than it does to have 2 instances of ABC. I understand this would not be the best setup for everyone, especially multi-user organizations, but it would be for me since we're a small team and do everything from the admin account.

Ps : Actually, the very best would be to have Piwigo develop a desktop application that would allow communication between desktop and server side apps to improve and streamline the pre-upload and post-upload management. I would pay for such an app. I'm currently using Digikam in conjunction with Piwigo. It works, but it's far from ideal.

Here is what we have in preparation for a future version (don't know when it's going to be implemented)





where "Mettre à jour les images déjà existantes dans l'album" means "Update files if already exist in this album".