My experiences with tellico, a few bugs and possible enhancements

[Jens Seidel]

On Sun, Feb 18, 2007 at 07:23:45PM -0800, Robby Stephenson wrote:
> On Sunday 18 February 2007, Jens Seidel wrote:
> > * I changed the type of a catalog number field from text to number and
> >   tellico did not complain, even with values like "17a" in the
> >   collection. Great!
 
> >   Now I got the correct sorting order ("4"<"17a") and 
> >   assumed that tellico also handles non numerical characters in such
> >   fields. But the field value in the top right widget (column view)
> >   vanished!
> 
> Vanished? Meaning you can't right-click and show it?

IIRC, yes, it vanished after some actions. I will check it again.

> >   So it is not properly supported. 
> >
> >   What is suggested for such catalog numbers?
> >   - Text, results in wrong sorting
> >   - Use number type and allow also non numerical characters but sort
> >     numbers properly
> 
> I don't like either one of those options, since they both involve lying 
> about the field semantics. It's either a number or text, and it gets sorted 
> that way. If you really want 4 < 17a, then enter "04"

Mmh, OK, I could try this. Maybe a space instead of 0 works as well.
 
> >   - Split field into a number ("17") and a text field ("a") and display
> >     both always side on side to get "17 a"
> 
> Possibly, plus you could create a dependant field to combine the two.

I do not know about dependant fields, I will test it ...
 
> > * Once a collection vanished tellico complains that it cannot open it.
> >   This error occurs not only once but on each start!
> 
> So you're repeatedly trying to open a file that doesn't exist? Why? Once you 

Tellico opens the last opened file per default on each start. Maybe
tellico should warn the user only the first time that it cannot open the
file. During the next start it could retry to open it (maybe the user
just forgot to mount a filesystem the first time and now it works again)
and if it fails again tellico should not display the same error "file not "
"found" again.

> open a file that does and then quit, Tellico should no longer try to open 
> the first file.

This assumes I have another file :-)
 
> > * I decided to save pictures outside tellicos .tc file.
> 
> What does that mean exactly, turning off the "Save images in data file" 
> option? I'm not sure what you did.

Yes, I turned this option off to increase the speed as I read somewhere
in the documentation. Please note that I expect an image size of at least
1GB once I finnished scanning. Currently I use 800 dpi for each stamp
which results in approximately 1MB per file (compressed png).
But I also recognized that the compressed png format may not be optimal.
Opening such a file needs up to 1--2 seconds on my PIII 800 MHz
subnotebook. oprofile reported 60% of CPU activity in libz and 20% in
libpng, so it's not a problem of tellico.
 
> > I tried to open 
> >   the collection from another user account and tellico did not found any
> >   of my pictures. Why do you do not save just the filenames instead of a
> >   hash?
> 
> What if you opened it from another machine, how would it get the pictures 

Than I need of course to copy my files too and possible fix all paths
via sed in the XML file.

> then? If you want to share date files, the images will have to be saved 
> inside the data file.

OK, I will try so. I hope it's not too slow.
 
> >   I also noticed that tellico creates copies of the pictures in 
> >   .kde/share/apps/tellico/data/. This is not wanted!
> 
> Turn the option "Include images in data file" on then. That location is the 
> default location for the images when they're not in the data file. It 

OK, but you could use a symlink to the original files, right? Assume I
want to share the pictures with the old names independent of tellico;
because you rename these I either have to keep both image directories or
delete my original files (to save disk space) and remember the tellico
<--> original file name mapping (probably via a script).

> improves load time greatly, believe me.

Really? I thought I read the opposite is true. I will check it ...
 
> > * The XML file uses the tag <scott>. Nevertheless my stamp collection
> > doesn't use scott catalog numbers (I don't know these), but Michel ones
> > (which are protected by copyright, grml!!! Any solution to this?). Why
> > not use <catalog_number>?
> 
> Because a Scott number is not a Michel number. If you called the 

Indeed, that's why I suggest to use a more general name. Please note
that the German translation of "Scott#" is just "catalog nr.".

> field "Catalog number" and put scott and michel numbers there, it would be 
> a bit meaningless, no? If you want a field for Michel numbers, then just 

Right, but I don't believe that both numbers are used at the same time.
(Short time ago I noticed that the price of a new specialized catalog is
approximately 70 Euro. I'm not willing to spend this twice (for another
catalog) :-).

> add it. I don't know anything about stamp collecting. I looked at a few 
> other stamp collection databases, tried to figrue out what fields they 
> included, and add those for Tellico. If Michel is a popular cataloging 

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_catalog:
"The numbering system used by Scott to identify stamps is dominant among
stamp collectors in the United States."

I live outside the United States.

> number, then perhaps it should be added as a default field for stamp 
> collections, then.

No, one is sufficient, but I'm also not an expert in this area.
 
> > * Plural forms of tags are very funny: I see <katalogpreiss> for
> >   <katalogpreis> (English plural rule for German words :-))
> 
> >   Tellico also doesn't check for user supplied fields with appended "s",
> >   whichs XML tag collidates with the plural form!
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean there. If a field can contain multiple values, 
> that fact is part of the "flag" attribute and Tellico will only read 
> multiple values if that flag is set. Whether the field is a user's custom 
> one or not doesn't matter at all.

I mean the following:
Assume you have a field called "myfield" which supports plural forms. Now
the user creates another field with name "myfields". I wonder whether
this could be a conflict (tellico doesn't check this).
 
> > Please add a proper translator comment to "Denomination", my dictionary
> > contained many possible translations and I selected initially the wrong
> > one.
> 
> A comment saying that a stamp denomination and a coin denomination are 
> different?

No.

> Or just what the word denomination means with regard to stamps 
> and coins?

Yep. Your current solution "denomination refers to the monetary value."
is fine, thanks.
 
> Thanks for your feedback!

And I thank you for your great program!

Jens