Confirming enhancement request is in our tracking system.
Vyger, I've been thinking about this problem that you have with media. So, I've done a little thinking about it, so this may get personal. But, I hope beneficial to others too.
The RootsMagician has a list of criteria that allow him to decide what program changes would be the most beneficial to the majority of users, and fit within long-term development schedules. Granted, design changes could be made to the media gallery to make it flow better. But, is it really RootsMagic responsibility to provide organizational management of files outside of the program?
Now I ask myself, why is it Vyger has a problem managing what media he has or has not attached to RootsMagic? Why is it other users are not appearing to have this same problem? If we designed something to double check that media in specific folders are attached to RM, does that mean every user has the same desire? Everyone stores and manages their media files differently, some may not even want all media in a specific folder to even be attached to RM. So, it comes back to is this RM roll to even do this type of management?
Personally, I think this management needs to take place outside of RootsMagic. I haven't talked to the RootsMagician about this so I'm not reflecting his position at all. That is why your suggestion is in the tracking system.
What I think needs to happen is an SOP - Standard Operating Procedure, to prevent media from being unattached to RM to begin with, or track and management files so they are attached. I have tons of SOP's stored in my head, but many people write them down until they become habitual habits. For example, I attend a meeting and take notes, when I get home I take all my notes out of my bag and put them on my desk. Then return the bag to its proper place ready to use for the next meeting. Finally I sit down and work on processing my notes I placed on my desk. (Which can take on a whole new SOP) These steps insure my actions prevent difficulties later on, like a bag not ready for my next meeting, or notes misplaced and assignments not done.
An SOP for prevention of unattached media would be attach media to RM as you download and store it on your computer. It's a slow process, but slow and steady wins the race. That's probably what most users are doing. That works well and good if you don't hit the media jackpot with a mother-load of images to download off the internet.
If its necessary to store and not attach right away then you need a SOP to track and manage those files. In a perfect world I would want to save and then color-code those files not attached. This would allow me to visually see that attaching still needs to be done. Just like I do with tracking projects inside of RM. But, I don't think you can color on the file level in Windows.
I am sure if a bunch of us put our heads together we could find just the type of program we need outside of RootsMagic for tracking files. I did a little preliminary searching and saw a program that might help with this - http://www.xyplorer.com/product.php . At least its something to research more on. The other ideas could be to use metadata or some type of tagging in properties. Once you find a method of coloring, labeling, tagging, files etc. to track that status of attachment to RM, then you would need to review what is already attached.
The Media List report can assist in that. Save the Media List as a TXT file. Then open it in Excel. Remove the 1st column so you only have the full path name. Then sort on this column. You can then systematically go down the list comparing your computer files and "mark" those not currently attached. Once that work is done the SOP for handling new media will keep the backlog from becoming out of hand. You will need another SOP to manage how you "unmark" the status after attaching them to RM.
I am very hopeful that we can find a solutions that will be helpful to a lot of us.