Frequently Asked Questions

If you can't find your answer here, then please visit our forum and see for questions of other users, or post your own question!

Questions:

• I started up but don't see any files!
• What kind of database does ABCVM use?
• Why does the treeview report more items than the statusbar?
• I want to select multiple images but each time the image viewer pops up!

Q: I started up but don't see any files!
With ABC-View you have to add files to your collection before you can see them.

You can browse your disks and folders by double-clicking on the folders in ABC-View Manager.

When you have found the folder that you want to add to your collection, you can simply click on the small white square in front of it. The files in this folder are now scanned and added to the collection.

You can repeat the process for more folders.

If you want to see all files in the collection from multiple folders, you can click on "All Items" at the top.

If you just want to see the files in one folder, then click on that folder in the tree.

Q: What kind of database does ABCVM use?
Many people ask what kind of database is used in ABC-View Manager.

We use a proprietary in-memory database. This means that no additional files, like dll's or other, need to be installed or placed on your system.

And you will not get any extra overhead from database engines that need to be running on your machine, and no problems relating to installation of 3rd party files.

The collection data is stored in files with extension "ABC". The thumbnails are stored in files with extension "ABT". You can switch off the option to store thumbnails, to save space. In this case, each time you open a collection, the thumbnails will have to be regenerated.

When more storage room is neccesary than there is memory, ABC-View will create temporary files to hold the information. These files are deleted again when the program exits. They are created in a subdirectory \TEMP underneath the program location.

You can export data from ABC-View's database to other formats. Use the Export wizard for this! Located under the Files menu.

Supported formats are:

• Hunter style CSV file (Comma Delimited Format)
• XML format

You have some options as to which fields to export. Please note that for large collections the exported files can become rather big.

The ABC database files however are compressed and will generally stay quite small.

The ABT thumbnail database may become big if you have a substantial amount of images. Therefore, make sure to store your collection to a disk with enough space if you want to store thumbnails.

Typically, the ABT thumbnail database will require 2Kb per image stored.

Example: 100.000 images x 2Kb = 200Mb of storage allocation required

Q: Why does the treeview report more items than the statusbar?
The explanation for this is quite simple:

The tree view on the left reports the total number of items in a collection, filter, selection or search. This includes files and folders.

The status bar reports only files, or only folders, depending on which type you are viewing.

Example: a folder with 500 files in it and 2 empty subfolders would report as 503 in "All Items in Current Collection", as 500 in file view mode and as 3 in folder view mode.

Q: I want to select multiple images but each time the image viewer pops up!
You can solve this problem in two ways:

• Turn off image preview, by clicking on the "eyes" icon.
• Make your image preview window smaller and leave it next on the left of your images