Verifying whether attachments exists

[Jasso]

Hi again.

I found that I had accidentally deleted a couple of my attachments. (I was using a program to find duplicate files, and I didn't realise some files were plucked out of the Bookends Attachments folder.) After that the reference on Bookends still showed the paper clip. Only when I tried opening the attachment, it informed me that it cannot be found.

This made me a bit paranoid. Perhaps I've managed to loose other attachments as well? But how do I know? I have over 700 refs with attachments so that's too much work to go through them manually.

Is there a way to have Bookends to scan the whole database and verify whether the links to attachments are valid or if some of them are missing?

[Jon]

Yes and no. There is an option to remove orphaned attachments -- that checks to see if the attachment is still there and remove the name from the database if can't be found. But there is no option for Bookends to tell you the names of the attachments that can't be found.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Jasso]

Thanks.

Perhaps something like this could be included in some future version? It would fit nicely with the other Database Maintenance functions.

[Jon]

Perhaps something like: Show References With Orphaned Attachments?

Jon
Sonny Software

[Jasso]

Yes, something like that.

The thing is that if an attachments gets accidentally deleted, I can get it back from my backups if I realise the problem in time. (Say, within 6 months.) So that's why it would fit nicely with regular database maintenance.

[Jon]

No, it's not part of database maintenance (that's intrinsic to the database, this is external and can only be "repaired" by actions independent of the database). I'll think of adding an option to detect references with orphaned attachments, but it would be an independent function.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Jon]

In the next update, when you click on the Attachments group, the paper clip icon will be red if Bookends discovers one or more of its attachments can't be found. You can then take care of this (or ignore it).

Jon
Sonny Software

[Jasso]

Perfect! Thanks!

And generally thank you for the update 11.2! I really enjoy it. The new features seem great and it also seems to run much smoother than the previous versions (on my Intel MacBook Pro running OS 10.6.8). Before this there was always a slight sluggishness about Bookends compared to other programs. Is this due to making it Intel-only?

[Jon]

Hard to say for sure, but I doubt it. We're always making improvements in the underlying code (stuff you don't see), and it's possible that some optimizations there are reflected in faster operation for you.

Jon
Sonny Software