Migrate From Flatpak To darktable Source

Software darktable
1

I have been using the Flatpak version of darktable but I want to migrate to building it myself from source. I was successful in building darktable 3.8.1 from git.

But I cannot seem to import the previous and existing xmp files when I import photos from a directory in the new 3.8.1.

I have spent some hours on this and I honestly cannot recall everything I have tried :frowning:

I do have the 3.8.1 version set to ā€œLook for updated XMP files on startupā€ toggled on.

I am a little bit stumped here.

I am also using a portable USB harddrive to store my photos. That was not a problem with the Flatpak version but the 3.8.1 version seems to want to create a directory on my laptop drive under my ~/Pictures directory where it imports the photos from the USB drive.

In both the Flatpak and 3.8.1 versions, the settings in Settings>Import are exactly the same as far as the paths for Base Directory Naming Pattern ((PICTURES_FOLDER)/Darktable) and Sub Directory Naming Pattern ((YEAR)(MONTH)(DAY)_$(JOBCODE)) although I am not sure this has anything to do with it.

I am thinking there is a database somewhere that Flatpak has used and the new version doesnā€™t know about it?

I really donā€™t know.

I really donā€™t want photos to be imported and copied into /home/username/Pictures/Darktable - but I do not know where this is set.

I want to work on the images on my USB hard drive.

I hope I am explaining the issue correctly! :slight_smile:

Any help would be appreciated.

Ian

2

I seemed to have solved the problem? Or, possibly created moreā€¦

But I copied the ~/.var/app/org.darktable.Darktable/config/darktable directory to ~/.config/darktable (after backing up the last one).

That seemed to guide the new installation to the correct xmp files and when I added to library a new directory of photos, it did not copy them to ~/Pictures/Darktable.

For anyone else that might be wanting to do the same thing of migrating their Flatpak installation of darktable.

Iā€™m still curious though where its configured to copy photos to ~/Pictures/Darktable and how that could be changed in the future if need be.

3

You choose to do that by which button you click in the import module. See darktable 3.8 user manual - import