two attachments; one empty: how to delete?

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greenery
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Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2010 4:13 pm

two attachments; one empty: how to delete?

Post by greenery »

Please don't ask me how things got so messed up, because really, it's a long and sad story. But here are the problems I'm trying to fix:

1. Pretty much every reference occurs twice; once with, and once without an attachment. I would like to delete the one without the attachment OR merge the two references. I haven't found a way to fix this with any speed or elegance; what am I missing?

2. Many references have two attachments, EXCEPT one of the two is missing. So for example one reference will have two files (green2003a.pdf; 2003agreen.pdf) Clicking on one gets a "can't find file" message. Clicking on the other brings up the attachment. I have been digging around for a while now, and I'm coming up empty.

When I click on a missing attachment, I'm given two choices: cancel or reattach. What about delete? That would be a useful third choice. Or is there another way to do this? At the moment I can't find any way at all to delete the link to the empty/missing attachment. It wouldn't matter == I don't care that there are two paperclips rather than one -- but I do have to go into the drop down menu and select the non-empty attachment, and the program doesn't remember which attachment should be first.

That's it for the moment. I'm new here, and thankful for whatever help you can provide.
Jon
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Re: two attachments; one empty: how to delete?

Post by Jon »

greenery wrote:1. Pretty much every reference occurs twice; once with, and once without an attachment. I would like to delete the one without the attachment OR merge the two references. I haven't found a way to fix this with any speed or elegance; what am I missing?
You can do a Refs -> Remove Duplicates. Do an automatic removal -- the one with the attachment should be kept. Do this on a COPY of your database, though -- it is not undoable!
greenery wrote:2. Many references have two attachments, EXCEPT one of the two is missing. So for example one reference will have two files (green2003a.pdf; 2003agreen.pdf) Clicking on one gets a "can't find file" message. Clicking on the other brings up the attachment. I have been digging around for a while now, and I'm coming up empty.

When I click on a missing attachment, I'm given two choices: cancel or reattach. What about delete? That would be a useful third choice. Or is there another way to do this? At the moment I can't find any way at all to delete the link to the empty/missing attachment. It wouldn't matter == I don't care that there are two paperclips rather than one -- but I do have to go into the drop down menu and select the non-empty attachment, and the program doesn't remember which attachment should be first.
You can use the Attachment Inspector to detach a missing pdf. Or make sure "Use Webkit to display pdfs" is OFF, then right-click on the lower pane (where it says attachment not found) and right-click. One of the options is Detach.

Jon
Sonny Software
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