Inspiring

Question

show items from subfolders set as default

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
December 15, 2019
4 replies
6819 views

I am new to bridge as i have lightroom and it is, and remains my primary app for photo management, however i was looking into what bridge could 'add' to the equation.

Whilst in some areas the interface adds a great deal, the most annoying 'feature' is that it doesn't show items from subfolders by default and each time you move around the folder tree, it once again 'un-ticks' the 'show items from subfolders' option. my question is WHY?

I have read a couple of posts that in general point to: 'speed of browsing and catalog management'.

Well my question would be: If lightroom can cope with it, why can't bridge?

whilst trying to avoid sarcasm, i'd need to remind adobe it is 2019, soon 2020. NOT 1982. Our processors are a little faster than an original 80286 processor and our hard drives are somewhat faster, especially using SSD drives. how can they build the functionality and performance into the lightroom classic catalog but can't do the same in a sister product? what significant difference am i missing from this equation?

This topic has been closed for replies.

D

Dev_Company

Participant

Here is a Backup to the "AlwaysFlatViewSettings.jsx" - Just in case someone removes the google drive linked file:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/Files00001/Adobe/Bridge/Scripts/AlwaysFlatViewSetting.jsx

A

Asgatoril

Participant

I don't know if this is still relevant, but I came across the same problem and wrote a script to fix it.
It adds a new button "Always show Items from Subfolders" which will keep the subdirectory traversal activated.

You can get it here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JLpW0wofTHvnv5qX0YnfGXdHl-JClm_c/view?usp=sharing

Just go to Preferences -> Startup Scripts -> Reveal my Startup Scripts, put the script in that folder and restart Bridge.

If you don't get a popup to enable it at the next start, go again to Preferences -> Startup Scripts, check the Script "AlwaysFlatViewSetting" and restart Bridge.

I also uploaded it to Adobe Exchange. It is still pending though and I don't know if it will get approved.

L

Lumigraphics

Legend

I wrote a script to do this which had crashing problems. Adobe fixed the bug I filed, so your script may or may not work on slightly older versions of Bridge.

V

vsbastosx

Participating Frequently

Actually, the plug in is not working because you need to select view items in subfolder everytime you start Bridge. It does not make the change permanent. Thanks anyway.

Chuck Uebele

Community Expert

I don't know why Bridge uses a cache rather than a data base, other than Bridge is designed more as a browser for all Adobe apps, not just images. It will attempt to show thumbnails from any file that it can, even some Microsoft formats like excel and PowerPoint. So Bridge would have to build a database for all those files, and become huge, as it wouldn't be user defined, but would be everything on your computer. To delete things from the LR database, you have to do that through LR. If you delete a file outside of LR, it remains in the database, until you resolve the conflict. I I can't imagine the nightmare of either having to use Bridge as your main browser to delete all files, or the processing time it would take for Bridge to update what files have been deleted, then update it's database. In thi regard, a cache makes more sense, and even with the cache, Bridge often needs to purge seldom used folders to maintain some form of decent performance.

Chuck Uebele

Community Expert

I know you mentioned that our computers are faster, but Bridge is still slow in building the cache to show thumbnails, and it's not like LR, in that you select what you want to import into LR, whereas Bridge shows everything. So if you have an external drive connected, and disconnect it, they bridge will revert to your primary drive on your computer. Do you really want to wait for Bridge to build a cache thumnail preview for everything on your main drive? You might find that navigating in Bridge would become a nightmare if it showed all subdirectories.

T

therealgingernobAuthor

Inspiring

hi

thats why i ask the relevant question, why does bridge use a cache where lightroom uses a formal database which is extremely fast in access aswell as the creation of the cached thumnails and preview files running in the background. there is absolutely no reason why bridge can't work in the same way as lightroom classic. in fact i see no reason why they can not be designed to share the same catalog and cached thumnails and preview files. bridge would become (what it my view it should be) just a different front-end to access the single database, providing more advanced analysis with a more sophisticated user interface that lightroom doesn't (and should'nt have) as it would detract from lightrooms primary purpose. the fact that this 'mergeing' of the catalog and cache would be extremely beneficial in my opinion.

F

fotoHans

Participant

Good point therealgingernob!
I am in about the same situation as you. I use lightroom and I was looking to see what bridge can 'add' to the equation.
And indeed, everytime a different subfolder is opened, the 'show items from subfolders' menu item is disabled... So I enable the menu item and the computer starts re-indexing again. Very strange.
If I want to find all the pictures with a certain keyword, I need to search all the subfolders. These keywords should be stored in the cache. So next time I look at the directory I can easily find all the keywords. When it needs to re-index all files every time a subfolder is opened, where is the cache for?

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded