Collectorpro Technical Bulletin

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Title-How Collectorpro stores links to image files and to multimedia files

Collectorpro can store up to eight images of each item and a single multimedia sound or video file for each item.  We have frequently been asked how Collectorpro stores this data.

How Images and Multimedia are Stored

Each item in Collectorpro has 8 image fields, and one multimedia field in the database.  Each of these fields can contain a path to an image file anywhere on any valid drive letter on your system.  When you click the Add Picture button underneath one of the image thumbnails, the Windows File Open dialog box is presented.  You then navigate to the folder location of the image and double click on the image to "link" the image to the item in Collectorpro.  Collectorpro only stores the Windows path to this image file, not the actual file itself.  For example if an image file named vaseimage1.jpg is located in your C:\My Pictures folder, Collectorpro will store c:\my pictures\vaseimage1.jpg in a field in the database.  When you view this picture in Collectorpro, the software will go to this location and retrieve this picture to display.

Collectorpro therefore only stores a reference to the location and name of picture file.  If you delete the picture file, Collectorpro does not know about it but will still have the reference in the database.  If you try to view the picture you will receive a blank image with a large X across the image location.  To fix this, you can place the image back in the original location or use the Delete Picture button on the Images screen to delete the reference (link) to this image.

You can also substitute a new image by copying the image file over the old image file and use the exact name.  The next time you view the image in Collectorpro you will get the new image. 

To view the contents of the fields that hold the path to the image, you can click the find button and press the tab key until the image1, image2, image3,......image8 fields are visible.  

Happy Collecting!

The Collectorpro Team

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