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Devices

2.10

Summary​

This page describes the concept of Device in Katalog and the top part of the Devices screen.

Example showing catalogs organized under physical drives and a virtual Photos group

In this example, several catalogs have been created from 2 physical drives.
The catalogs with photos/images/pictures have been assigned to a virtual Photos device.
This gives a way to search in these only, and provides totals of number and size of photo files.

Model​

Definitions​

  • A Catalog device is an index of files from a particular directory.

  • A Storage device is a physical drive on which files are stored. Typically it is mounted or connected to the computer, and it has physical storage space.

  • A Virtual device is any non-physical item used to group other devices together. It has no properties on its own and can aggregate numbers from the related sub-devices.

  • A Group is a virtual device at the top of the hierarchy.

    • The Physical group is a unique and reserved group for the hierarchy of physical devices (computer, phone, disk, etc.).

    • Any other is a Virtual group to which existing catalogs can be assigned to facilitate searching and statistics.

Hierarchy​

Diagram showing the device hierarchy with groups, storage devices, and catalogs

Features​

Always available at the top of the screen:

Choosing between 3 views​

The devices can be listed and managed in 3 ways:

Device Tree: Shows the full and unfiltered list of all devices in a hierarchy / tree structure.

Storage list: Shows only Storage devices, filtered by the Selection panel.

Catalog list: Shows only Catalog devices, filtered by the Selection panel.

Display full table​

When enabled, all available columns are shown in the current view.

When unticked, columns that are not needed on a day-to-day basis (such as internal IDs) are hidden, keeping the view simpler and more readable.

Update active device​

Updates the currently selected device — re-scans its files from the source path.

This button is enabled when a device with a reachable source path (shown with a colored icon) is selected in any of the three views.

Record a snapshot​

Records the current values of all devices (file count, file size, free space, total space) independently of the current selection or filters.

After recording, a summary is shown with the new totals and the change since the previous snapshot (delta).

These records support Statistics and allow tracking the collection globally over time.