Monthly Archives: March 2020

Introducing Shotwell profiles

I just uploaded a new unstable release version of Shotwell, 0.31.1. Why that took roughly a year and why that still doesn’t contain everything I wanted it to contain will be the content for some following posts.

Previously, there was already a way to have separate databases, but you would share the settings and thus the import folder between the two databases. Even more so, developing on the machine where you have your own photo collection caused me to import test data into my collection more than once.

A profile is really just a separated database and set of settings. To create or use a profile, just call shotwell with its name:

$ shotwell --profile="Development environment"

It is possible to set the storage directory of the profile using the old -d/--datadir command line options when using a profile name for the first time. Be careful, though: currently there is no protection against typos. If a profile you select does not exist yet, it will create a new one.

To list the available profiles, use --list-profiles

$ shotwell --list-profiles
Available profiles:
-------------------
Profile name: Development environment
Profile Id: 98d7b5b1-b7a6-4862-ae29-a65d99ed90e1
Data dir: /home/jens/.local/share/profiles/98d7b5b1-b7a6-4862-ae29-a65d99ed90e1

And that’s it.