Warning: Elements 4 does not Network properly

[Douglas J. Mace]

Using the Organizer with elements Version 3 there is no problem displaying folders across a network, however Version 4 does not do this properly. What it does is create a new tree of folders for every folder that has a picture that has been cataloged. This can take forever to open each tree and move down the subdirectories. And if you want a different folder, you must start at the root and work your way down. This can quickly fill up the folder list to the right of the pictures as well as taking a lot of time and failing to present an accurate view of your directory structure.

I have both a Mac G5 and a second widows computer on my network and this happens with both.

The solution, keep all your pictures on the computer running the application or use no more that one folder on your networked computer. My scanner is on the MAC so I have to have pictures there, but I can scan them all into one folder and then move them to the appropriate folders on the computer that runs Elements at a later time.

Moving the location of the catalog does not solve the problem.

The other alternative is to go back to Version 3 which handles networked folders fine.

I should add that I have only installed Version 4 on one computer running XP. My other Windows computer also runs XP so I cannot test a different platform.

[TheMarshall]

Hi Douglas,
I'm not sure I understand your issue exactly but I don't think I have that problem. I use Windows XP and Elements 4 (from 3 computers) and only have all my photo's on my 'server' (which is really just Windows 2003 with file sharing.) I keep the catalog file on the server and just chose 'open catalog' the first time I launch Elements organizer. The key here for me was to make sure I had the same drive letter mapping for each XP system (I chose 'Y' for example.) From my experience it looks as though the catalog will know that the files are on "Y://my pictures/...." and as long as that path is valid from each machine there's no issue using the organizer from several different machines (just not at the same time!) This has given me great control to use the organizer either on my main machine, my laptop or my wife's computer while only keeping our pictures on the server.

I may not have understood your problem correctly but I hope this helps. It sounds like a similar situation.

Thanks,
Mark

[Douglas J. Mace]

Thanks. I did not see this until now so I will attend to it tomorrow. The fact remains that version 4 does not behave the way version 3 does. Same computer same XP operating system and the folders are presented in entirely different ways. Buy perhaps if I try mapping my drives as you did version 4 will behave differently.

[Douglas J. Mace]

Mapping did not change anything. I have version 3 on one computer now and version 4 on another. Same directory structure, same catalog and the organizer displays them differently.

I'd attach a picture of these screens to this, but there does not seem to be a way to do this.

[Wendy]

Hi Douglas ...

Easiest way is to use Pixentral ..

First resize your image using "save for web"
Set the longest side to 750 pixels and click on Apply
then adjust the quality slider until the image is around 150K.
and save it with a new name.

then go to
http://www.pixentral.com/index.php

Follow the instructions on the site and then when your image is uploaded copy the URL from just above the image and paste it into a message here :)

Wendy

[Douglas J. Mace]

Thanks Wendy. I hope this works and makes the problem clear to forum readers.

Here is the way by folder structure appears in elements 3.

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1pwRkPNkMB4rjuRfNkW1a0CIp8UBbX

and here is the way it appears in Elements 4.

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1AZSWI3C6MWXAql7UGhpGqyd0ZmK0

[Wendy]

Hi Douglas ...

Hopefully one of the windows users will take a look at it ... being a Mac user I can't help on this one :)

Wendy

[Douglas J. Mace]

You will notice that the networked computer in my examples was a MAC. Anyone reading this should know that the same thing happens with another networked Windows computer.

Also while I would appreciate it if anyone could give me a fix to make Elements 4 behave properly, it would be nice to know how Elements 4 is wired to behave so differently.

[TheMarshall]

I'm not sure why it's showing your shares 3 times in Elements 4, I don't have that issue. Maybe it will help if I give a little more info on how mine works and we can look at the differences to identify the problem. I always map the folder with my pictures as the "Y" drive on my primary machine. I do this same process with my secondary machine and so on so that I always have the "Y" drive mapped. The Elements catalog doesn't handle networking well so you have to make sure that the path to the catalog and the pictures is identical an both systems (hence mapping the same drive letter to the same folder.) I even map the "Y" drive on the 'server' (even though the files are actually local) so if I chose to open the catalog from the server the path to the pictures is still "Y://my pictures/my album/..." no matter when you open Elements from. If you were to install elements on a machine and wanted to get to the same catalog you "open" a catalog (ignore the opening message about making a new one) and simply point to "Y://my pictures..." You cannot use both Elements 3 and 4 at the same time on the same catalog, but I think you know that and that's not the issue. I've been using this to 'trick' Elements since it was Album 1.0 and have never had any problems. It's really nice to be able to edit and tag on my workstation upstairs and then pull out the laptop and browse through things on my laptop outside.