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Meaningful filenames

16,940 bytes added, 08:01, 10 February 2022
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See also: add reference
After thinking Article about naming files in a meaningful way. Naturally files should have unique names so we don't end up with several files with the limits to same or very similar names. This article takes file naming one step further by looking at how we the file name itself can structure our files carry useful information about the file. = Why meaningful filenames = If all names are kept unique why also try to embed meaning in the file name itself? Here are some approaches to managing information about information which which you might recognise:* File names and folder directory hierarchies can help describe the contents. By placing a picture called ''second birthday.jpg'' in a directory called ''My son James'' we have stored data (the picture relates to James' second birthday) about the data (the picture of the birthday party).* Data about data (called ''metadata'', (see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata Wikipedia's ''Metadata'' entry]) can also be stored inside the file it describes, for example:** HTML, the language of webpages, uses tags like ''<span style="normalText">Example</span>''. Here the meta data describes the style of the text, ie: ''Example'' is ''normalText''** EXIF ([Portable_Filenames]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchangeable_image_file_format Wikipedia's ''EXIF'' entry]) is a way of storing meta data in image files, like when the photo was taken and what type of camera was used. * Database systems (Gramps is a database system for genealogy) can store a huge amount of data about data. They are very efficient at this job and very powerful.** Google Search uses a database to remember what web pages are about, and tells you when you ask. So why not use one of those options?  * EXIF is great, but only for some types of files (not supported in JPEG 2000, PNG, or GIF), there are lots of different systems for different types of files. People are working hard to improve this situation all the next step time. * HTML is great if you can store all your information as HTML files, but HTML files cannot contain other files, they just point to them. So we'd basically end up making a website about our files.* A database, well we already use this when we use Gramps. The Gramps database stores lots of information about the files and records it records. But Gramps does not store the actual file inside the database. If the connection between Gramps and the data it is describing is broken, then the files are just files. They contain no more information than they did when you first ''imported'' them into Gramps. This system of ''meaningful filenames'' has the following aims:* Preserving enough metadata to give the file's content context without Gramps* Creating file names normal people can understand so they can see what the file is about without Gramps* Creating file names which a computer can process easily so files need to be batch processed and metadata can be read directly from the file name without possible confusion* Creating a system simple enough to use all the time for every file To be understandable we need to be able to use full words where appropriate. To be computer readable we need to separate the parts in a way which a script can easily recognise and, more importantly, in a way which would never occur in real language. So it would be no good to mark a ''name'' section with the word ''name'' if we also can use the word name somewhere in the file where it is not meant to be a marker. To be simple enough to remember the system should not be too complicated, after all Gramps is meant to store the real information, this is just a supplement. == What's in a name? == It would be nice if we could have files called Marriage of Mary Angus Jones and Matthew Williams, 2nd Dec 1923 (William Angus is developing to Mary's right).jpg But this meets only one of the criteria above, that of ''understandable filenames''. How can a computer know who got married? what their surnames are? and so on. And anyway because of the limitations of ''Portable Filenames'' we can't have file names like that. We have to drop the reliance on capitalisation, drop the spaces, drop the comma and drop the brackets. To be computer readable we need to separate the sections with a system of markers to indicate where the surname, event name etc are. So what sections do we want to be able to identify? Here's a semantic controlled vocabularybasic list that should be enough for most situation, remember that Gramps stores the more complex information, we're just trying to give a useful structure to our files.* Surname* Firstname* Date* Event type* Place* Source* Note Some more important criteria. All file names:* Must be unique* Must have all necessary information* Must have no more information than necessary So if I find a file somewhere strange in my system, or if someone I sent a file to seven years ago says "that file you sent me - that's not Jean it's her daughter" I know where my archive copy of that file will be.
= GEDCOM based =
Here This is a proposed system contributed by [[User:Duncan|Duncan Lithgow]]. == Tags ==If we base a naming system on the 3 and 4 letter [http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pmcbride/gedcom/55gcappa.htm Lineage-Linked GEDCOM Tag Definition] used in the GEDCOM 5.5 standard we have a good long list of tags to chose from. By limiting the GEDCOM tags list we can make the following shortlist (which does not include events):  '''AUTH--''' Author "The name of the individual who created or compiled information." '''DATE--''' Date '''EVEN--''' Event "A noteworthy happening related to an individual, a group, or an organization." '''GIVN--''' Given name "A given or earned name used for official identification of a person." '''NAME--''' Name, use only if GIVN and SURN are not known "A word or combination of words used to help identify an individual, title, or other item. More than one NAME line should be used for people who were known by multiple names." '''NOTE--''' Note "Additional information provided by the submitter for understanding the enclosing data." '''PLAC--''' Place "A jurisdictional name to identify the place or location of an event." '''REFN--''' Reference "A description or number used to identify an item for filing, storage, or other reference purposes." '''SOUR--''' Source "The initial or original material from which information was obtained." '''SURN--''' Surname "A family name passed on or used by members of a family." '''TITL--''' Title "A description of a specific writing or other work, such as the title of a book when used in a source context, or a formal designation used by an individual in connection with positions of royalty or other social status, such as Grand Duke." Each marker ends with two hyphens (--). Two because we can't rely on the marker being recognised as capitalised, so a surname like ''Besour-Jean'' could be mistaken for ''beSOUR-Jean'' and the system thinks that ''SOUR-'' marks a ''source'' section. == Punctuation ==In order for the file name to be parsed as meaningful text I think some we also would need  '''_''' Underscore to represent a space '''__''' Double underscore to represent a comma followed by a space == Source events ==The GEDCOM 5.5 standard defines so few events as to be useless. The Gramps XML schema defines no events as these can be made by the user. This all seems fair enough since events are highly culture based. The situations where I think a set of events should be defined are those which will be connected with source records. GEDCOM has a reasonable group of those but they are heavily based in western christian culture. The solution must be language and culture dependent. Here's my list:  '''marriage''' is for an actual marriage event and all the associated documentation, including possible divorce and separation documentation. '''birth''' is for the actual birth records, also christening record '''death''' is for death records '''census''' is for census records '''civic''' is for military service records, and government records of any type '''health''' is for health records == An event image file == File name: EVEN--marriage_SURN--jones_GIVN--mary-jean_SURN--williams_GIVN--matthew_DATE--1923-12-02_NOTE--william_angus_to_right_of_mary.jpg This could be parsed (by Gramps?) as the description:  '''Event:''' Marriage '''Surname:''' Jones '''Given name:''' Mary-jean '''Surname:''' Williams '''Given name:''' Matthew '''Date:''' 2nd Jan, 1923 '''Note:''' William angus to the right of mary or it could make the text:  Mary-jean Jones and Matthew Williams, marriage 2nd Jan 1923. (William angus to the right of mary) == A source image file == File name: SOUR--census_PLAC--uk__england__london_DATE--1840-03-21_SURN--jones_GIVN--mary-jean.pdf This could be parsed (by Gramps?) as the description:  '''Source:''' Census '''Place:''' Uk, england, london '''Date:''' 21st March, 1840 '''Surname:''' Jones '''Given name:''' Mary-jean
First I want to be able to split the file name up into pieces which each have markers. This makes it easy for me to manipulate them with utilities for searching and renaming file. Especially it makes or it easy for me recover broken file paths with could make the GRAMPS media manager.text:
Each marker starts with an underscore (_) and ends with two hyphens ( Census, Place: Uk, england, london, on 21st March 1840. This is a source connected to Mary--).jean Jones
{| border== A source text == File name: SOUR--publication_TITL--the_jones_family_from_1735_AUTH--mary_jean_jones_DATE--1872.pdf This could be read as the description:  '''Source:''' Publication '''Title:''' The Jones Family from 1735 '''Author:''' Mary Jean Jones '''Date:''' 1872 Or it could make the text:  "1The Jones Family from 1735"by Mary Jean Jones, 1872 == SWOT analysis ==Over at Wikipedia there is a good explanation of a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis SWOT analysis]. {| {{prettytable}}
|-
! MarkerAspect! MeaningStrengths! Example valueWeaknesses! GRAMPS XML equivalentOpportunities! GEDCOM equivalentThreats
|-
| _PLAC--File length| place markerHolds a lot of information| london__englandAll the information is already in the genealogy software| ?Easily recognised. Easy to search for files with a certain [[Tag]]
| ?
|-
| _INDV--
| individual marker
| mary_jones
| ?
| ?
|-
| _EVNT--
| event marker
| marriage
| ?
| ?
|-
| _DATE--
| date marker
| 2008-12-31
| ?
| ?
|-
| _SOUR--
| source marker
| lds_church_website
| ?
| ?
|-
| _SURN--
| family name marker
| jones
| ?
| ?
|-
| _FIRS--
| first name marker
| mary
| ?
| ?
|-
| _NOTE--
| note marker
| is_that_marys_father_beside_her
| ?
|?
|-
|}
In order = Gramps ID based = {{man note|This is another attempt by [[User:Duncan|Duncan Lithgow]] to find a good system. It is not finished so feel free to add comments and correct any obvious mistakes.}} Here's the records we'll use as examples. They involve Mary Agnes Williams (daughter of John Williams and Anna Matthews). She married Anders Sørensen (son of Anders Sørensen and Anna ?) and they had a daughter Anna Sorensen, note the spelling change. * Census record: mentioning her and her siblings and parents. It is from the 1810 census in the London parish of Dangerfield on Saint John Road.* Portrait: a hand drawn portrait of Mary, undated, assumed to be from before her marriage.* House picture: her parent's Saint John's Road row house in London, from some time around 1810's* Court record: Anders Sørensen was before the district court for drunk and unbecoming behaviour on January 3rd, 1820. Engelfield, London.* Marriage certificate: She married Anders Sørensen, 2nd December 1823, in London.* Wedding portrait: in the picture is Anders Sørensen's father, also called Anders Sørensen (on the back it says that Anders Sørensen's (the son) mother is called Anna).* Birth certificate: of Anna Sorensen (daughter of Mary and Anders) dated January 18th, 1824* Family tree: a hand written family tree called "The Dean family from 1735" by an Angus Dean written in 1972 which connects the families Dean and Williams. == Justification == {{stub}} == Aims == This system tries to meet the file following aims:* simple enough to remember* just enough information, and no more* all media for one family name is under one directory (portability for travel)* all media for generating reports is under one directory (for portability) == Record types == The record types tell us what the record is about. Gramps ID's use the first character to denote the type of item the ID refers to. Sticking to something already thought and taking the most relevant ones to stored records these can be parsed used as meaningful text the following tags for record types: * I think some we -- Individual* P-- Place* E-- Event* S-- Source  (see also would needsource types) '''Question'''* Records about repositories?* Correspondence with family?* What about records covering more than one type?* What will happen on old 8+3 file systems? {| border="1"= Record properties == Properties tell us just enough information to make the file name meaningful and recognisable, and split this information up so we can search for parts of it with our file manager. It's the what, where, when, why and how of what's in the record. By making all properties of each record compulsory we avoid extra tags like GN for given name and so on. We can see what a property is by where it is in the file name. * family name is their surname before marriage, but including deed pool changes, MacArthur for example* given name is their official first name* uid is a unique identity, in this example the (original) Gramps ID of the media file* source date is the date in ISO 8601 format when the information left the people or organisation responsible for it|* event date is the date in ISO 8601 format when the event occurred or started. YYYY-MM-DD, ie. 2008-12-28* event type is a noun describing the event, chosen from a list of event types, ie: marriage* title is the name of a document (book, letter, census) or object (gravestone, heirloom), ie. williams__arthur_headstone* source author name is the name of the person or organisation most responsible for the information. For people always use family name first followed by two underscores (__), ie: church_of_lds! Marker* note is for notes. Names should always be family name first followed by a double underscore! Description! Example== Naming structure == Now we can outline a single schema for all record types in which the following rules apply. * File names are written directly to the file name, not copied from another program.! Rendering* File names start with a single capital letter representing their record type.|* Record properties are separated by two dashes (--). This can not be used for anything else.| * Missing information is replaced by a single underscore (_ ).* Names in notes should always be family name first and separated by two underscores, ie: ''doe__john'' which can be represented as ''John Doe'' or ''Doe, John''.* Place names should start with the largest geographical region followed by a double underscore before the next geographical region, ie: ''oz__far_far_away__yellow_brick_road'' which can be represented as ''Oz, Far far away, Yellow brick road''.| space indicator* If the family name is unknown it must be replaced by an underscore. This will give three consecutive underscores (___), ie: ''___john''' should always be interpreted as meaning ''[no record], John''.* event types should always be drawn from a list to avoid separate words being used for the same event type. (Maybe use the event list gramps uses?)| mary_jones| mary jones# <record type>-- (I, P, E or S)|# <source type/event type>--(needs expansion.)| __# <1st persons family name[__2nd persons family name]>-- (two names for couples or families, alphabetical)| comma followed by space indicator# <1st persons given name(s)[__2nd persons given name(s)]>-- (two names for couples, same order as for family names)| jones__mary# <country code__region__city>-- (use as many divisions as needed)| jones# <date>-- (ISO date, maryYYYY-MM-DD)|# <note>--(usually not needed)# <uid> (a Unique ID, possible derived from the gramps ID) Here's a version of the naming structure for quick reference.|} Record_type--source_or_event_type--family_name__s--given_name__s--cc__city__place--YYYYMMDD--note--uid
== Examples ==
'''Image Using the records outlined in the beginning we would get the following file'''names. (Please help complete this list of examples)
Filename* Census record: ''S--census--matthews__williams--anna__john--uk__london__dangerfield__st_johns_rd--1810-_-_--_-00874.pdf'' _EVNT* Court record: ''S--court_record-marriage_SURN-soerensen-jones_FIRS-anders-mary_angus__SURN-uk__london__engelfield-williams_FIRS-1820-matthew_DATE01-03-1923-before_district_court--00826.pdf''* Marriage certificate: ''S--marriage_certificate--jensen__williams--anders__mary_agnes--uk__london--1823-12-02--_--00864.pdf''* Portrait: ''I--portrait--williams--mary_agnes--uk__london--1823-12-02_NOTE03--wedding_portrait--william_angus_to_right_of_mary000967.jpg''
This could be parsed (by GRAMPS?) as the description:= Source based =
Event: Marriage Surname: Jones Firstname: Mary Angus Surname: Williams Firstname: Matthew Date: 2nd Jan, 1923 Note: William angus One possible shortcoming of using an event and/or individual based naming strategy is that it could "clash" with the relation between a filename and the source. This only applies to the right filenames that are a representation of a specific part of marya source.
or An example: having found the baptism record of Anna in page 51v of the 1843-1850 Baptism book of a certain Church we save the image (which displays pages 50v and 51f, i.e. it could make is an image of the text:"open book") and name it something like BAP--Anna--1850.png (just an example, any individual and role based mechanism will yield similar results). This works fine and allows one to easily extrapolate information from the file name.
Mary Angus Jones and Matthew WilliamsHowever, marriage 2nd Jan 1923we latter find that in the exact same page, but a few paragraphs below, we have the baptism record of another individual, from another part of the family tree. While we can simply use the original file it wouldn't convey the right information. (William angus We can duplicate the file, but that doesn't make much sense, especially since when adding the file to the right of mary)Source gallery we would end up with a duplicate, which makes little sense.
One way to deal with this is to use a purely source-based approach in naming the files. The downside is that event and individual information can'''Source text'''t be gleaned by looking at the file name - one would have to use Gramps itself to maintain the appropriate relations, which is after all something that is part of the source referencing work that should be done. On the other hand, and when talking about Sources that are books, it allows for easy grouping of content related to the same source, e.g. all the relevant pages on a certain book. An example filename would be "PBL--BAP3--F51-52.png", where PBL is the short name of the source author and BAP3 the short name of the specific source. Longer, more descriptive filenames could be used by using full names instead of codes.
File name _SOUR--uk_census_EVNT--census_PLAC--london__england_DATE--1840-03-21_SURN--jones_FIRS--maryObviously this method is limited in scope to some kinds of sources, and doesn't make sense for naming photos or documents that aren't part of a larger source (e.g. an ID card).pdf
This could be parsed (A really good article on why and how to implement this kind of naming system is [http://parallax-viewpoint.blogspot.com/2015/01/hierarchical-sources.html Hierarchical Sources] by GRAMPS?) as the description:Tony Proctor.
Source: Uk census= See also = Place: London, england* [[Organise your records]] Date* Gramps User maillist thread: 21st March, 1840 Surname: Jones Firstname[https: Mary//sourceforge.net/p/gramps/mailman/gramps-users/thread/CALr1thXQJp15nhLWDFbUhrWS2Bf_i4HJJSZrSE97btfXiRQYkw%40mail.gmail.com/#msg34093959 Organizing media files]
or it could make the text= External links =* [http://www.northernjourney.com/photo/articles/filenaming.html File Naming Conventions for Digitally-stored Images]* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata Metadata] at Wikipedia - data about data* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_tags Meta tags] at Wikipedia* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(computer_science) Ontology in computer science] from Wikipedia* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_science Library science] from Wikipedia* [http://www.43folders.com/2006/10/23/file-naming?page=2 File naming] at 43folder.com* [http://whatdoiknow.org/archives/000442.shtml File Naming / Organization Methods?] from [http://whatdoiknow.org What do I know?]
Uk census at London, england, 21st March 1840. Source for Mary Jones[[Category:Documentation|F]][[Category:Developers/General|F]][[Category:Media]]
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