Rapid Photo Downloader

Sort order in thumbnail view is ignored on import

Asked by Tobias Hess

From the website:

"The sort order of thumbnails in the main window has no effect on the order in which photos and videos are downloaded. Photos and videos are always downloaded such that the oldest files are downloaded first, on a per device basis."

Is there any particular reason for that? It is incovenient for the following scenario, which to me does not sound very uncommon: I'm out shooting with two cameras on an event, so I'm taking photos with camera A, then B, then A again etc. I'd like to import them in chronological order of the event, which, after synchronizing the clocks of both cameras, is exactly what I get in the thumbnail view after connecting both cards simultaneously to my computer, but not in the import. Am I missing something, is there another way to do this easily?

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Damon Lynch (dlynch3) said : 		#1

If you have both (or more) cards plugged in simultaneously, the program will download from all devices in parallel. That maximizes the speed of the download. Are you expecting something different?

I assume you are concerned primarily with the file naming, perhaps using sequence numbers, more so than the actual order the files are downloaded. If so, if the first component of the filename is the date and time, then the precise download order should not be a problem, right? All that will matter is that the file names are meaningful, and that the file modification time matches the source. Then they will be sorted correctly on the file system.

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Tobias Hess (tobias23) said : 		#2

I do indeed not care about the actual download order, only for the file naming. I'm using sequence numbers and expect the files to be numbered in chronological order. (While I'm using the date of the picture taken as a part of the filename, I'm not using the time (yet).)

Let's say there are n pictures from camera / card A and m pictures from camera B. RPD is numbering the files from camera A with 1..n and the files from camera B with n+1 .. n+m, while I expect the numbers would be alternating between both cameras in a chronological order.

Or, imaging the following: Camera A has two pictures and camera B has two pictures. Let's say in chronological order, the files are

A1
B1
B2
A2

After downloading with RPD the sequence numbers become

A1_0001
A2_0002
B1_0003
B2_0004

and I want

A1_0001
B1_0002
B2_0003
A2_0004

I understand that adding the time of the picture into the filename would solve my problem. Another way to get what I want is to simply sort by date in the photo managing application of my choice (darktable), so I'm probably nitpicking here.

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Damon Lynch (dlynch3) said : 		#3

If you want files ordered by anything, including date & time, then put it in the filename. That will solve the problem.

Downloading and renaming from multiple devices in parallel requires a nontrivial algorithm. It is much more complex than most people guess. See here for a brief overview: https://damonlynch.net/rapid/design.html

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