Bug 230060

Summary:	Delete Album is an absolutely terrifying procedure
Product:	[Applications] digikam	Reporter:	Kelsey Bjarnason <kbjarnason>
Component:	Database-Trash	Assignee:	Digikam Developers <digikam-bugs-null>
Status:	RESOLVED WORKSFORME
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	caulier.gilles, Julien, kbjarnason
Priority:	NOR
Version:	1.4.0
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Ubuntu
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:	4.0.0
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Kelsey Bjarnason 2010-03-09 08:34:06 UTC

Version:            (using KDE 4.4.1)
OS:                Linux
Installed from:    Ubuntu Packages

Open digikam.  Import folder as album.

Subsequently, move images out of folder, outside digikam's purview.

Result: digikam now has my entire "documents" structure recorded, with zero images... so I'd like to get rid of the album.  Easy, just "delete album" - which promptly threatens to wipe everything off my drive.

No, I don't want you to even *touch* the files.  I want you to delete the *album*, leave the files - even if they're images - alone.  If I wanted to delete the files, I'd have said so.

Long and short: I now have a huge "album" structure recorded which I don't dare remove, for fear of losing every file I have that's worth anything.

Maybe digikam's notion of "delete" only applies to its own "internal knowledge" of the files, but you'd never tell this from the UI, which suggests that what should be a trivial cleanup task is in fact potentially disastrous.

Basically, having encountered this, I *cannot* trust digikam at all.  If it's that draconian about files and chooses to threaten to nuke everything in sight simply because I'm trying to clean up empty albums, it's far too dangerous to be trusted around my data.

Maybe this is a UI issue, it's threats to delete everything in sight really *does* mean just its internal knowledge of the data... but would *you* trust a UI that says it's going to wipe everything?

Comment 1 caulier.gilles 2010-03-09 10:52:46 UTC

Which digiKam release you use. I never seen this problem before.

Gilles Caulier

Comment 2 Julien Narboux 2010-03-09 12:55:38 UTC

I think that in Digikam an album is a directory, so if you ask to delete an album it will delete everything in this directory.

Julien

Comment 3 Marcel Wiesweg 2010-03-09 19:29:22 UTC

From what I get, he copied some images in his collection, then moved them away again, has now an empty folder and there is still a warning about really deleting the files.

Comment 4 Kelsey Bjarnason 2010-03-26 05:56:48 UTC

Actually, what I did was:

1) Create a folder structure of images
2) Tell digikam to build an album there
3) Moved the files elsewhere
4) Told digikam to delete the now empty album

The issue I have is that there is a *huge* difference between "delete digikam's notions of what is in an album, such as meta tags, descrptions, etc" and "delete the actual files off the disk".

Digikam doesn't want to simply delete its *own* data, it wants to nuke everything it can find.

That is such indescribably bad behaviour for an application I can't imagine how it would ever have made it into a first draft spec, let alone an implementation - yet experiments show this is _exactly_ what it does - it summarily nukes everything it can.

Hands off my files, dammit.  If I wanted it to delete all my files, I'd have said so, say by selecting "delete all files".  Not by selecting "delete album" which, from how the UI works, suggests only removal of digikam's own data.

Comment 5 caulier.gilles 2011-12-13 09:29:57 UTC

Kelsey,

This entry still valid with 2.x serie ?

Gilles Caulier

Comment 6 caulier.gilles 2013-11-25 14:42:11 UTC

Kelsey,

This entry still valid with 3.5.0 release ?

Gilles Caulier

Comment 7 Kelsey Bjarnason 2013-11-25 20:58:24 UTC

No clue; the few times I've used dk since was for face/dupes checking.
Easy test, though:  add all your irreplaceable images to an album and
delete the album.  If there are no suicidal or homicidal feelings brought
on by this, then bug fixed.
On 2013-11-25 6:42 AM, "Gilles Caulier" <caulier.gilles@gmail.com> wrote:

> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=230060
>
> Gilles Caulier <caulier.gilles@gmail.com> changed:
>
>            What    |Removed                     |Added
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>              Status|UNCONFIRMED                 |RESOLVED
>          Resolution|---                         |WAITINGFORINFO
>
> --- Comment #6 from Gilles Caulier <caulier.gilles@gmail.com> ---
> Kelsey,
>
> This entry still valid with 3.5.0 release ?
>
> Gilles Caulier
>
> --
> You are receiving this mail because:
> You are on the CC list for the bug.
> You reported the bug.
>

Comment 8 caulier.gilles 2013-11-25 22:24:30 UTC

Thanks Kelsey

I close this file as work for me. If necessary, don't hesitate to re-open.

Gilles Caulier