I have asked this before but with the advent of Panels 3 (which I am considering buying) if there are changes in how it treats duplicates.
I want to ask how are duplicate imports handled if I’m only using one library location (default location) with no Panels 3 purchased? For example, I forgot that I have imported a comic months ago and it was 100% read. I import it again because I included it on a batch what exactly happens? On my observation, you don’t see two entries or two files. You just see that a comic is 100% read but I think Dani said technically there are two files present in the local library storage of Panels but it is not visible in app unless you browse the file location. If this is the case will there be an option to automatically get rid of an exact duplicate etc. ?
On Panels 3 if I have one file on the internal iPad memory and one on an external USB C SSD is it handled the same way?
The scenario I am anticipating is, basically batch importing comics in a folder collection after you have individually imported them prior to this already.
We haven’t done any work in that regard, but it makes sense to do it.
Things to take into account:
To identify two files as duplicates, their hashes have to match. But we can’t know the hash of a file until the file is on the device. So, we can’t avoid downloading duplicate files, but we can delete them as soon as they are on the device. (when I say device, it also applies to USB C SSD, or flashcards)
There is one scenario where you add the same file twice to the same folder (which results in having files A.cbz and A (1).cbz). In this case, we can auto-delete the second file. You wouldn’t even see it appear in the Library.
But there is a second scenario that is a bit trickier. Because even though we know you have two instances of the same file in two different locations, we would have to make decisions on your behalf, and that’s something we always try to avoid.
– You might want to have two instances of the same file and use double the space
– Or you might want us to delete one while keeping a symbolic link. In that case, which file do we keep, and which one do we turn into a symlink?
– Or you might even want us to delete one of them completely. Which one?
I don’t think we want to handle this scenario. It’s pretty complex and requires lots of considerations.
But I think your use case fits in the first scenario. You want to avoid duplicates when you import the same thing twice in the same folder.
If that works for you, we could implement something like that.
Yes the last paragraph summarizing the first scenario is exactly what I want to happen. I don’t know hot to implement this but the new source function of Panels 3 will complicate this further.
I think the best example of how things seem to be right now is how the Xbox handles a game being installed in multiple sources. It will basically launch the game no matter where is saved but if you select the manage game option it will show you where the game is saved and it could be on multiple sources. However, on the Xbox you’re only allowed to save one instance per drive which doesn’t seem to be the case with panels. I cannot verify this because I have not upgraded to Panels 3.