New types of relations besides duplicates and alternates

[novakda]

While Hydrus is probably not intended to be a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, it comes quite close to one out of the box.

Artists, photographers, and other creatives often work with multiple files that are different versions or components of some final file.

For example:

• raw images vs retouched
• raw sketch -> finished line drawings -> inked -> colored
• stock photos and other graphics that are used to create a .PSD
• drafts/revisions
• a contact sheet (thumbnails) of a video
• assets that go into a game .EXE .APK, etc.

Currently, you can indicate files are duplicates/alternates of each other, but there's no way to describe relationships between files in a meaningful way (I use tags with hashes and process it with the API, e.g. is-stock-photo-for:somehash , but there's no easy way to do this in the UI but copying and pasting hashes and adding tags manually )

Please consider a way to set relationships between files (perhaps an extension to alternates that allows you to supply a text comment for each king-child combo in an alternates group).

[Chad90b]

while i too like this idea, the complexity is a bit much for what hydrus is meant to be. it can already do all of the above, with some exceptions and workarounds. as long as the user who imports files properly tags them and uses a numerically inclining system (i.e. page:1, page:2, page:3, or similar) and if each project is given a unique value, for example a title:namespace, hydrus can sort these files and categorize them by "project" (or title).

look into the "collection" feature. search for it on this page: https://hydrusnetwork.github.io/hydrus/help/advanced.html

i do agree that it would be nice for the relationship to allow for more customization.

commenting on your "draft/revisions" example: i like the idea of allowing hydrus to do some of this automatically as a dam-application would. for example: adding the next page:namespace (revision:namespace) value on the next file that is imported into the currently open tab. currently a file import will open a completely new tab when you want to import files and the file import feature has no relation with the currently open tab so it cannot

• read current tags from files in the open tab and then recommend them as presets in the file import window
• know of the highest page:namespace numerical value and therefore cannot recommend the next number series, or auto-set the next numerical value in the case of a single-file import

having this would be rather neat and help speeding up the workflow involving revision/page orders by a lot. again this is currently possible if the imported files are sorted and named properly from the start, but this is also wasted time if hydrus could already automate some of it based on data it reads from the current tab.

[roachcord3]

At the very least, the average user of Hydrus runs into the case of drafts and revisions when collecting artwork. I would prefer to be able to automate some amount of revision handling, rather than just adding meta:revision and calling the two files alternates. Every time I do that, I have to manually copy tags around when I otherwise normally wouldn't do so for alternates. #754 would kind of solve that tagging problem for me, but in absence of that, a filter option for "this file is a revision of the other" with its own tag merging rules would be quite a boon.