Re: Breaking changes in file layout

Am Dienstag, 7. April 2020, 10:25:55 CEST schrieb Tobias Leupold:
> How about a completely different approach?
> 
> What about giving the collection a name? When it's created, a name is added
> (and stored in index.xml), the default one is the directory name in which
> index.xml resides. And we refer to the collection using this name, which
> then has be unique. We can keep a list of used collections in ~/.whatever.

This seems like an interesting approach. I think I'll have to think this 
through for potential ramifications.

> Why don't we create something like an uuid, place it into index.xml and
> refer to the data using it? For scripting, it's clear where the data
> points, and one can extract the id before querying something. And it would
> be robust considering path changes.

I guess the default value for the collectionId seems like an implementation 
detail. So from an implementation point of view there really is no difference 
between a unique name and a uuid.
I concur, though: uuid are better as default value in this proposal.

> Let's simply have a new block called "<metadata>" or such and add
> "<collectionId>whatever</collectionId>". Or maybe better "<meta
> name='collectionId' value='whatever'/>". Or such.

For such an integral value, this should really be in the root node:
<KPhotoAlbum version="8" compressed="1" collectionId="05461613-
f3ff-4d03-953a-718b7347b749">
or:
<KPhotoAlbum version="8" compressed="1" collectionId="Pictures">


> Another proposal: If we do breaking changes to all this, maybe we should
> move all files we create in one subdirectory of the collection. I
> personally would create a directory called "KPhotoAlbumData" or such, and
> let everything happen inside. This way, it's clear for the user that
> everything inside this directory is KPA-generated and everything outside is
> not.
> 
> What do you think?

Apart from the camel-case name I see no reason not to do this. I'd call it 
".kphotoalbum-data".
My initial thought right now was "but index.xml should remain at the current 
location", but the more I think about it the less sure I am. Thoughts?

Johannes