Whenever at least two or more people are working on the same files, there is always a risk that a user will overwrite the work of another user unintentionally, change or even completely delete it.
The Daminion version control protects your work from being accidentally overwritten or deleted by others. You can also at any time keep track of who made which changes – and why.
To track the processing of an image by the user, a file must be “checked out” in Daminion. Daminion then marks that file accordingly and locks it for other users. In addition, a copy of this file is copied to a local folder on the user’s computer.
Enabling version control
Checking an item out
If you want to enable version control for one or more images, the images must firstly be “Checked out“. There are various ways to execute this command.
First option
Click on the icon for version control. This is located left above the thumbnail preview. This opens a menu from which you can select “Check Out“.
Second option
Click with the right mouse button on the preview thumbnail and select from the menu “Version Control” > “Check Out”.
Third option
Select a thumbnail preview and click on the File menu “Item” > “Version Control” > “Check Out”.
Fourth option
Click with the right mouse button on a thumbnail and select from the menu “Check Out & Edit With …” and select from the submenu the appropriate program to edit the picture. The image is first Checked Out and then immediately sent to the appropriate external program for editing.
After executing the “Check Out” command, a dialog will appear where you can enter the storage path of the desired image. By default, this offers the Windows user directory.
Click “OK” to create the backup copy of this file in the specified path.
In the catalog Tags panel under “Checked Out To” Pane, you can now see that the user Joe Smith has checked out the file for editing. If you’re the one that checked out the image, you will see on the thumbnail preview a green “V“. Other users, meanwhile, will see a red “V” indicating that this file is locked.
The three possible states of the icon for version control are:
The file has not been checked out.
This indicates that this file has been checked out by you.
This indicates that the file is checked out by another user and is therefore locked.
If someone else tries to check out an already checked-out item, a message appears informing you, who has already checked out this file. Deletion of this file is not possible. However, the metadata of the image can be managed by other users as usual because only the image editing/deletion are protected.
Checking an item in
Would you like to share a file that is currently checked out, it must be checked in again. In case you have not made any changes to the image or simply have checked out the wrong image, you can easily undo this step with the “Undo” command. There are again three ways how you can Check an item In.
First option
Click on the icon for version control. This is located left above the thumbnail preview. This opens a menu from which you can select “Check In“. Select “Undo” in case you want to undo your last Check Out.
Second option
Click with the right mouse button on the preview thumbnail and select from the menu “Version Control” > “Check In”.
Third option
Select a thumbnail preview and click on the File menu “Item” > “Version Control” > “Check In”.
After checking in the image you have edited, the following dialog will appear:
Here you can document your execution steps and can also delete the local copy if you want. After you have closed the dialog with the “OK” button, the original file will be replaced in the catalog with your edited variant and if the corresponding option is enabled, the local copy will be deleted.
In Daminion you will now see your new revised version of the image.
History of changes
For the elements which were Checked Out and Checked In again, Daminion automatically creates a change history from which you can see at any time who and when carried out the changes.
This revision history can be opened with right-click on the “V” icon and selecting the command “Item Audit History…” as shown in the following screenshot.
This opens a window where all revision levels of this element are listed.
First, Joe Smith imported the image on 09/03/2014 in the catalog, and its edited version was checked in on 09/27/2014.
Then Linda Adams has made further edits to this image and checked it in on 09/10/2014.