Let us say I have 2 collections in the library: ‘Dogs’ and ‘Cats’. I am working on dogs. So I export the finished images to the dogs folder. Then I work on cats but the target folder is dogs, so I change it to that of the cats. Now I go back to dogs but the target folder has changed to cats.
Is there a way that target folders stick to the collection? The manual speaks of variables but I cannot see if any are related to this issue.
Corporate Headshots
|_ Entenhausen Co. KG
|_ Dagobert Duck
|_ Daniel Düsentrieb
|_ Dinosaurs
|_ Earl Sinclair
|_ Frances Sinclair
If you want to separate the exports into subfolders (one for each corp), set the export path to: $(FOLDER.PICTURES)/darktable_exported/$(CATEGORY0(Corporate Headshots))/$(FILE.NAME)
You can go down the tag tree as deep as you want.
To create a subfolder for each figure within the corresponding corp subfolder, set the export path to: $(FOLDER.PICTURES)/darktable_exported/$(CATEGORY0(Corporate Headshots))/$(CATEGORY1(Corporate Headshots))/$(FILE.NAME)
But so is simplicity. If the exported-files directory is always in the same relative place to your raws, then put a relative path in the export destination.
My usual one reads $(FILE_FOLDER)/../dt/$(FILE_NAME) but I have others and use presets in the export module.
The above suggestions sound a good way to approach the problem. However, another way would be to create presets for the export module and this becomes very easy to work with. I have various presets that I find useful for managing issues similar to your problem. In your case one could be to cat folder/collection and the other to dog.
BTW, I have external editors LUA script activated to facilitate export to the collection the pictures come from. This sends the image to the original source folder and adds the image into the DT library automatically. It is a great script to have activated.