Photo Library (1 Viewer)

I have a photo (.jpg) library on USB drive I intend to use Access as librarian, with the Access database also on the drive (possibly with runtime as well). I have got the basics working on the C: drive but can anyone give me some clues as how to I might change it to work on the USB drive, thanks.

davidcutts said:

I have a photo (.jpg) library on USB drive I intend to use Access as librarian, with the Access database also on the drive (possibly with runtime as well). I have got the basics working on the C: drive but can anyone give me some clues as how to I might change it to work on the USB drive, thanks.

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Hi. You could use: to get the current path of the Access file. You should then be able to parse the drive letter from it.

Just remember that you don't ever want to import the pictures to embed them in the DB. What you REALLY want is to have them in a folder where you can find them and load the file specs to an image control. Even the best JPEG can get big and if you have BMP, those get outrageously huge quickly.

I did a development for a client, maybe 10 years ago where the requirement was to maintain a library of photos with each given various attributes. It was for a wildlife rangers. They wanted to be able to search for photos by location, species/sub species etc and store other information about the source (photographer), quality, copyright.

The photos were stored on a network server in a folder/subfolder structure with the root folder path stored in the database. The relative path of each photo was stored in the database holding all the tables which also resided on the server with the front end Access database residing on users' PCs.

The import functionality prompted the user to nominate the source of the photos to be cataloged (USB or network), displayed batches of photos for selection/rejection (mostly there were multiple photos of the same thing), copied the photo to the photo storage area, selecting multiple attributes for the photo, then storing those and the photo name and path.

Hope that gives you something useful in your endeavours. BTW, I would never consider having a USB as the main repository of data, only a means of transporting data, if that was what was being suggested.

how to I might change it to work on the USB drive

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Someone proficient in Access once told me that they blamed working on a USB drive as the reason for db corruption so I'd never do that. Don't know what exactly would cause it, but I don't see a reason to prove them right. Seems to me there was a lengthy treatise in some forum where it was explained why these and cloud based services shouldn't be used but I can't recall where.

Just to support the comments in the last two posts.
It is a very bad idea to use USB drives (or cloud based services or wifi) as if there is even a brief interruption in connection whilst writing/editing data, you will almost certainly get corruption.
In short, don't use any of those methods

Cloud services, I knew about. USB protocols are not familiar to me at that level. I will have to research it.

Edit: There are apparently some issues with USB drives and their reusability as a storage medium.

https://www.howtogeek.com/218390/can-a-usb-flash-drive-be-used-reliably-as-a-manual-backup-drive/

And along the same lines how about this:
Keep the Access database on the C:\ drive and store all the filenames (but not the full file paths) in the database. And also have a table called something like Locations with data such as C:\MyFolder\MySubFolder and E:\MyFolder and thus be able to set which location you want to use at any particular time...