Blink Tool Behavior

After moving a file to a rejected folder the file name stays in the blink list.  Why is this?  It would seem that if the file is removed it should not remain in the list.  You can rerun the tool and the file is gone but should this be necessary?
 
The Blink tool does not monitor the file system to verify if the selected files have been modified or removed. This is out of scope for all tools in PixInsight. File lists are process parameters (e.g. those of ImageCalibration, StarAlignment, Blink, etc) that cannot be modified as a result of external system actions.
 
but if you move the file with blink itself, surely blink knows that it has been moved.

understood that blink doesn't know why you moved the file but 99% of the time the use case is to move a bad file into some subdirectory. or at least that's how i use it.

rob
 
It doesn't seem like this is an external action since it was initiated from within the blink tool.  It would seem to be easy to remove it from the list and make the tool more useful.
 
Yes, this has always been a two step process. Move the file and then remove from the blink list (in memory).
I am not certain in what situation you identify an image (file) you want to move to another directory (being bad or different in some way) and not also remove it from the memory of the blink list.
I have gotten used to it.. but I personally would enjoy this process being a single click (move to directory and remove from list).

Having Blink move files on disk is VERY good and this is a great thing that really improves the user experience.
-adam
 
Sorry, I didn't understand your request. I interpreted that you were referring to files moved or deleted outside of the Blink tool.

If Blink is not removing from its own list a file it has already moved as a result of user interaction, then this is actually a bug. I'll investigate this and will release an update as appropriate. Sorry for the inconvenience.
 
Thank you Juan.

I am renewing this request from two years ago. To summarize I am requesting an easier way to get rid of images in the blink tool I NEVER WANT TO SEE AGAIN. I consider this an preliminary review of the dataset to throw out obvious bad images. In the current blink tool this is an excruciating process:

1. Click the icon to move file
2. Create a directory to move the file to and select it
3. Close the file in the blink list. It is NOT REMOVED from the list even though it has been "deleted"
4. For each subsequent file the directory must be selected again.

And you are still left with a directory full of files you never want to see again.

I propose that the blink tool be modified to allow a right click on a file to delete it from the file system and remove it from the blink list. Of course this action should be confirmed. This file does not need to be recycled, just permanently deleted.

This change would greatly improve the functionality of the blink tool, at least for me.

Mike Mulcahy
 
although this doesn't fulfill your request, you can select multiple files in blink - on OSX you hold down the "apple" or "cloverleaf" key while clicking files in the list and they are highlighted or dehighlighted (selected in the parlance of the blink tooltips)

once you have selected the files then you can click move, select the directory and all the highlighted files will be moved. then when that is finished, click the close icon and they will disappear from the list.

this way you only have to go thru your steps once instead of iterating over all the files you want to remove.

rob
 
although this doesn't fulfill your request, you can select multiple files in blink - on OSX you hold down the "apple" or "cloverleaf" key while clicking files in the list and they are highlighted or dehighlighted (selected in the parlance of the blink tooltips)

once you have selected the files then you can click move, select the directory and all the highlighted files will be moved. then when that is finished, click the close icon and they will disappear from the list.

this way you only have to go thru your steps once instead of iterating over all the files you want to remove.

rob
Rob,

Thanks for your suggestion. It does save keystrokes but the deleted/moved image is still in the blink list so in effect you can blink an image which is not in your image directory. At a minimum, the moved image should be removed from the blink list. Juan seemed to agree with this in his Nov 8, 2019 post above and called it a bug. I am just asking that it be fixed. Of course, I would still prefer the right click option which would required no change in how the existing blink works. One could use it or not.

Mike Mulcahy
 
yes i hear you, the blink tool has a lot of idiosyncrasies. i guess i woudn't hold my breath on this one cause lots of stuff has been outstanding for a long time, so i just wanted to put out that 'shortcut' that might make your life a little easier in the meantime.
 
yes i hear you, the blink tool has a lot of idiosyncrasies. i guess i woudn't hold my breath on this one cause lots of stuff has been outstanding for a long time, so i just wanted to put out that 'shortcut' that might make your life a little easier in the meantime.
Thanks again Rob. I will not hold my breath waiting for this trivial change. I just wish that ease of use was prioritized higher when making improvements to this great software. I hope Juan is listening.

Mike Mulcahy
 
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