Hide parent folders in Media & Folders

[stefanjan2]

I'm storing recent years on m.2 SSD and older years on a Synology NAS.

Folder structure is like this:

Database
 \\SynNAS\data  *
    Photos Earlier  *
      1945
      1946
      ...
  E:   
    Photos Latest *
      2024
      2025

Ideally I would like to hide the * asterix folders so that the folder structure looks like this:

Database
  1945
  1946
    ...
  2023
  2024
 

[Mario]

All folders indexed by the database will be shown in the Media & Folders View.
You cannot hide entire levels of folders. This would make things a lot more complicated for IMatch for no good reason.

If you want an "alternative" view on your folders, just use categories, which were designed for this, among many other things.

Categories allow you to create multiple representations / organizations for your image collection, all of which which can be totally independent from the physical storage location.

You can do create the categories manually or make them dynamic using formulas like @Folder[] or @RFolder. So many possibilities with this.

[stefanjan2]

You cannot hide entire levels of folders. This would make things a lot more complicated for IMatch for no good reason.

I can see that.

If you want an "alternative" view on your folders, just use categories, which were designed for this, among many other things.

I experimented with data driven category using @FolderRegExp[] and was able to return files but could not work out how I would return a list of top level year folders which I could drill down. Is that possible?

If not possible don't worry, it was just a nice to have which I can live without.

[Mario]

The @Folder category formulas returns files, they don't produce categories. The idea is to create a category named, say, "2025" and then use @Folder[c:/images/2025] to virtually fill it with all files in one or more folders.

[jch2103]

It sounds like you may want to check contents of the Timeline tab, as long as your images contain dates. Many ways to do things in IMatch!

[Mario]

It sounds like you may want to check contents of the Timeline tab, as long as your images contain dates. Many ways to do things in IMatch!

Also good advice.

[ubacher]

All this effort just to see two lines fewer on you M&F folder view? Do I understand this right?
If so then I fear the result will be much more troublesome in the long run.
(My 5 cents worth).

[stefanjan2]

It sounds like you may want to check contents of the Timeline tab, as long as your images contain dates. Many ways to do things in IMatch!

Yes switching to the timeline is a good suggestion. Although I do tend to expand a year folder to get a description of the sub folder. I use this folder structure which works well for me:

YYYY\YYYY-MM-DD ¦ Folder description

Unless I'm missing something, it's not possible to display the folder names in a list in timeline view.

But there are many times when a timeline will work well for me. Thanks for the suggestion.

[stefanjan2]

All this effort just to see two lines fewer on you M&F folder view? Do I understand this right?
If so then I fear the result will be much more troublesome in the long run.
(My 5 cents worth).

Well it's 4 lines actually, see attached. But I do agree with you. I was hoping for a simple solution. As I mentioned earlier, it was just a nice to have. I will be sticking with Media & Folders as is.