Disable the identification of the disc

[JoeHolzwurm]

IMatch knows on which disk I saved my files. If I copy the files and the database onto another computer and the disk has the same "name" (for example: D:\) IMatch still knows that this is another disk because the internal number of the disk is considered. Is it possible to disable this functionality?
Since years I did not use this functionality and now it even disturbs my workflow. It would be god if I could disable this recognition of the disk number.

Thanks for help,
JoeHolzwurm

[Mario]

IMatch uses the unique media serial number to identify your media. This cannot be disabled. IMatch needs to know when you have moved your files to another disk, even if the drive letter or media name is the same. You don't explain how this interferes with your workflow - but relocating an entire disk is really quick...

[JoeHolzwurm]

In my case it will not be a movement I do once and then everything is fine. The idea was to have all my images on the desktop PC and on the Laptop. If I just copy the images and the database it will not work without relocation. I will see how it works.

[Mario]

You can relocate an entire disk quickly. Right-click the disk in the Media & Folders View and choose Relocate. Relocate to the same drive. This should be quite quick.

[JoeHolzwurm]

The relocation of an entire disk is working very fast. I think this is ok for my work.

Now I copied the imatch5.pts to get my settings as well on the other coputer (I also changed the path in the settings) but I do not get my workspaces. As I understod in the help file the workspaces are inside the imatch5.pts file. Or must I copy another file?

[Mario]

Some IMatch settings are per computer, per user, per database. Workspaces are per database and user name. Do you use the same user name on both computers.

Please also read Traveling with IMatch in the IMatch help system for further details.

[JoeHolzwurm]

The user name is the same but the computer name is different.

I already had a look at the chapter "Travelling with IMatch" (this is were I found the information about the files and paths) but I did not find anything about the information "per user, per computer,...".

[Mario]

Workspaces are not per computer. Only the active workspace is stored per computer. Your workspaces should be available after moving the PTS file using Pack & Go or manually.

[JoeHolzwurm]

I now found that the profiles on the computers have different names. This will be the reason why the active workspace is different but I do not find the reason why the saved workspaces are not available.
I will copy all files again to be sure.

[Carlo Didier]

I also have a "mobile" copy of my images and database on a USB disk for travelling. With the tool "Volume ID" (from Microsoft Sysinternals) you can assign the same ID to both disks. Never had a problem with that and never have to re-locate in iMatch.

[JoeHolzwurm]

@Carlo
Thank you for this idea. I will test that.


@Mario
I again copied the imatch5.pts to the desktop computer but I do not have the workspaces from my laptop. I also copied the files for appanels, presets and scripts.

[Mario]

You don't need to copy everything manually. Why don't you use Pack & Go (Database menu) it was designed for this.

Workspaces are not machine or user specific. Do you say that after copying your PTS file from one computer to another, into the right location, all settings are restored, but the list of workspaces in the View menu is empty (showing only the Default workspace)? Please add a bug report in that case, attach your PTS file to it and I will look into this in sequence.

[JoeHolzwurm]

The reason why I did not use Pack&Go is that both computers are attached to the same harddisk which I use for saving all my data. I save all important files on this additional disk and want to use this disk to transfer files between both computers.

What you said is right. I copied the files to the right location and the workspaces are missing. I only see the default workspace. I will write a bug report.

[JoeHolzwurm]

Is it possible to import workspaces from another user? Or is it at least possible to edit the pts file to manually change the user name?
I don't want to do all my work I have already done on my other computer.

[Mario]

No.
Workspaces may contain data considered as private (and maybe even encrypted security data like passwords, sign-ins for web services now or in the future etc.).
If you work with different user names on different computers, you will use separate configurations - at least for configurations and settings which are per-user.

[JoeHolzwurm]

That's incredible. I don't understand why you don't allow the transfer and exchange of settings. If I want to give my settings to someone else it is my decision to do that. You prevent the exchange of all kind of settings between different users. If a user did some work which he wants to share with others this is not possible.
IMatch should help me to save time but now it costs me a lot of time.

By the way: Several times I recommended IMatch to other users but I no longer will do that.

[Mario]

This is a design decision that has been made three years ago. It's also in accordance with how Windows itself treats per-user settings.

Also: Usually when a user works with multiple computers, he uses the same user name. I log in on all my computers with the same user name, for example. This makes transferring settings with IMatch very easy.

I did a change to this mechanism about a year ago (?) to handle different cases of the same user name, because some users used different cases (TOM, Tom) on their computers.

But I currently have no plan to add features which allow one user to transfer IMatch settings from another user to themselves, or transfer their settings to a user with a different name. This has potential security side effects, and IMatch has no features to validate such requests, e.g. "ask" the user for which settings are about to be transferred in a reliable way.

If you really work with different user names on your computers and you want to transfer your workspace between these differently named accounts, I can only suggest that you add a feature request for this.

By the way: Several times I recommended IMatch to other users but I no longer will do that.

I'm sorry to hear that. But if you cannot longer recommend IMatch just because it protects it's user private settings, there is nothing I can do about this.

[JoeHolzwurm]

I did not intend to use different names, this was just by chance. This can happen a lot of users and they all will have the problem.
Until now I do not see the benefit of the per-user settings. I am sorry but I do not understand your decision, for me this is really senseless.
I work in a software company and we invest a lot of time in functionality which allows to save and share nearly everything. Our users share a lot of settings and and other things. I think that this is important for a software that user can share their work. Perhaps this is different with photographers...

[Mario]

I did not intend to use different names, this was just by chance. This can happen a lot of users and they all will have the problem.

IMatch 5 is now available for over two years (including the public Beta test phase). It looks as if this is not a problem that affects many users, if at all. We would see more messages and feature requests if it would be otherwise. I recall a few, some time ago. But most of them were satisfied after IMatch made the user name no longer case-sensitive so the 'per-user' settings worked for JOE as well as Joe.

There about 150 per-user settings currently, and workspaces are a sub-set.
I made the design decision that each user should be able to setup IMatch in the way he/she wants and that not all users should be forced to use the same settings, window positions, panel layouts etc. I'm sure you can understand this, although in your context where the same user works with different user names on different machines this may cause some extra work. But this seems to be a rather rare case.

I also work in the software business, and the ability to keep user data private is paramount.

[JoeHolzwurm]

What exactly must be the same? Just the username or also the directory of my profile?
To change the name is easy, to change the directory some more work. But I want try to get the same name to get my old settings.

[Mario]

IMatch uses the name of the logged in user to access the per-user data in the settings database.

Windows uses the user-specific folder (%APPDATA%\photools.com\IMatch5...) as default for certain save operations, and to store üer-user presets, dictionaries, custom annotations and shortcuts to applications (for Favorites).

[JoeHolzwurm]

So it would be enough to just change the user name, without changing the user directory of the profile?
The path for appdata, scripts and presets I allready change to another directory.

EDIT: Changing only the username is not enough, I still do not see my workspaces. It seems so as if I have to change the directory of my profile as well.

[Mario]

IMatch does not care for the name of your profile folder when it loads data from the settings database.
It just loads the names of all workspaces with the same name as the currently logged in user.

Tip: The user name as IMatch has retrieved it from Windows can be displayed in the App Panel using the variable

{User.Name}

[JoeHolzwurm]

Thank you for the Tip. I allready changed the windows user name and the name of the directory (this was a little bit hard, but worked) but I still don't get the workspaces and the variable {user.name} shows the old user name. Where does it come from?

[Mario]

I don't know what you did to change your user name or the folder name (depends on the Windows version).
IMatch uses the result of the GetUserName() API call: https://msdn.microsoft.com/de-de/library/windows/desktop/ms724432%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

[JoeHolzwurm]

Now I got it. I had to also change the username with "netplwiz" and now I get my old settings.