If I Quit Lightroom Will It Contiunue to Build Smart Previews When I Open It Up Again

Folder Publisher

This Lightroom "Publish" plugin for Adobe Lightroom Classic allows you to export copies of your Lightroom photos to disk in a folder hierarchy that mimics the folder hierarchy in your Lightroom catalog. I've found it very useful in mirroring my Lightroom catalog as small JPGs on my wife's computer.

This plugin works in Lightroom Classic, and older versions as far back as Lightroom 3 (though some features depend on the version of Lightroom).

The same download works for both Windows and Mac. See the box to the upper right for the download link (in orange) and installation instructions.

This is a sister plugin to my Collection Publisher plugin (which is similar to this plugin, except that plugin mirrors a collection hierarchy instead of a folder hierarchy).

Unlike a normal export, this Publish service allows you to create an ongoing relationship between the photo in Lightroom and the copy on disk. The tree on disk is refreshed for any changes (new images, removed images, and image changes) each time you "Publish".

The plugin is normally used in the following pattern:

1. Initial setup of the publish service.
2. Populate the default collection with image you want to mirror, or create a smart collection that identifies the images you want to mirrors.
3. "Publish" them, causing copies of the images to be reflected into a hierarchy on disk matching the folder hierarchy in Lightroom.
4. Going forward, any time changes are made (images updated, added, or removed), "Publish" causes those changes to be reflected on disk.

Publish-Service Setup

When setting up a new publish service, you first assign a name, though you can leave it blank if you'll only have one...

You indicate where published copies are to be placed by specifying the root of the publish tree. When first setting up a new publisher, you'll likely want to pick an empty folder as the root.

The next sections are all part of the standard Lightroom export. In them you decide the size and quality of the published copies...

The next two sections shown in the example aren't included unless you specifically add them:

They're from my crop for iPad and Metadata Wrangler plugins; I use them in my exports to allow me extra control of what metadata is included in each exported copy, and in the case of my iPad portfolio, special iPad-specific crops so that some images better fill the screen.

The next section controls what changes in Lightroom should cause published images to be slated for republish.

Then we have a plugin-specific seciton on file renaming that gives much more flexability than Lightroom's standard "File Naming" section, should you need it:

This allows you to have the files for the exported copies named derived from image matadata using template tokens that are processed on the fly for each image.

The next section provides a way to do an FTP sync of the published copies, should you need it. Photo-viewing iPad apps tend to allow updates via FTP sync, so this section is convenient for that.

It's here as a convenient tool rather than an actual part of the configuration; the FTP sync is never automatic... it happens only when you launch it manually from the Publishing Manager.

The plugin also provides a way to import and export settings, making it easier to set up comparable publish services on multiple catalogs (such as when part of your library is on your desktop, and part on your laptop, as is my case).

When first setting up a service, you'll have the ability to import settings...

... but once it's been set up the first time, after that the section allows for export:

Collection Setup

Once you've got the publish service created, you can drag images into the default collection, or you can create your own collections, including "smart collections" that identify images to include via rules (e.g. "all five-star images").

The default publish location for any image in any collection is that its folder structure in Lightroom is replicated and placed starting at the root folder chosen when you set up the publish service. However, you can modify aspects of how image locations are mapped when you create/edit a collection:

Special "Smart Preview Export" Mode

The plugin, in Lightroom 9.2 or later, includes a special mode to export Lightroom's "smart preview" files, DNG-format reduced-quality (reduced-size) versions of the master original image files. These files include no Lightroom updates (image or metadata edits). This mode might be useful for a kind of lightweight backup.

This mode can be turned on only when a publish service is being created. For a publish service that has this mode active, standard publish options related to the export image files — format, size, quality, metadata, etc. — are still presented, but play no part in the actual publish operation because the plugin . (I would like to make them disappear just for this mode, but Lightroom's plugin infrastructure doesn't allow for it.)

This experimental mode has been hacked into the plugin in a pretty sloppy way, just to see whether it's useful. At this point, the publish service, like all publish services, moves edited files back into the "files to republish", even though such edits within Lightroom don't affect the published output of this plugin as they do all other plugins.

Availability

This plugin is distributed as "donationware". I have chosen to make it available for free — everyone can use it forever, without cost of any kind — but unless registered, its functionality is somewhat reduced after six weeks.

Registration is done via PayPal, and if you choose to register, it costs the minimum 1-cent PayPal fee; any amount you'd like to add beyond PayPal's sliding fees as a gift to me is completely optional, and completely appreciated.

Note: a Lightroom major upgrade, such as from Lr10 to Lr11 de-registers the plugin in the upgraded version, so if you want to maintain registration, a new ($0.01 if you like) registration code is needed in the upgraded version. It makes for a hassle every couple of years, I know. Sorry. See this note for details.

For details on plugin registration and on how I came into this hobby of Lightroom plugin development, see my Plugin Registration page.

Version History
( Update Log via RSS )

20220516.122

Fixed a crash that happens when Lightroom can't render a DNG.

20220309.121

Work around a bug in Lightroom 11.2 that causes publishing to get stuck. The workaround is to switch the view away from the collection being published. If the user does that switch manually, the bug goes away. This plugin update notices if the bug is being triggered, and if so, momentarily switches the view to the quick collection and back. Removed a bunch of debug logging that was slowing down the LUA token.Newline

20220303.120

Added some extra debug logging. Added a button to recreate the target folder if it's not found.

20211219.118

Warn when PayPal seems to have given a bogus code in the web-confirmation page.

20210721.117

Don't crash when the plugin is told not to handle videos, but a video is included in the export anyway. Fixed that the Province template token did not respect the plugin-specific geo-privacy settings. Upgraded to the embedded copy of ExifTool to version 12.25. Fixed an issue with the {Newline} token, and added {Comma}, {Hyphen}, and {Space} for good measure. Fixed a problem with filters on the {Keyword} token.

20210211.113

Fixed the plugin crashing in the face of a failed video render.

20210116.112

Try to work around filename issues on Windows when trying update the filesystem time. working around 'constant table overflow' error Added the ImageViewDirection and ImageViewBearing tokens.

20201017.110

Updates for Lr10 Be more aggressive in trying to figure out the capture time of photos when trying to set the export file time to the capture time. Added the SpeedKnots token. Worked around an "unknown key captureTime" error. Added the {PlusCode} and {GeoHash} tokens. Handle FTP errors better.

20200516.108

Oops, one wasn't offered the ability to change the root of the publish tree if the original folder no longer existed.

20200421.107

Fixed a reporting error with the new find-misshing-published-photos feature.

20200414.106

Added the ability to find missing published photos and have them marked for republish. Some of the filename-related tokens could be incorrect in rare situations.

20200328.105

Fixed a bug WRT database access while moving the destination root. Work around a Windows bug related to canceling out of the registration dialog. Added some extra debug logging to note whether the plugin is enabled.

20191029.104

Upgraded to the embedded copy of ExifTool to version 11.70. Added special {AbsSequenceFirst=####"} and {AbsSequenceAppend=####} tokens. Added the LensInfo template token. Updated the Exposure token to allow customization. More token work: added {Urls}, and updated {ISO} and {Copyright} to allow customization. Added the {RelativeFolder} token.

20190815.103

Work around a bug in Lightroom related to filename conflicts (where two exported files have names that differ only in lettercase). Fixed the SST1 and SST2 tokens.

20190708.100

Newline token. Fixed a problem related to template tokens and photos without capture times. Upgraded to the embedded copy of ExifTool to version 11.50. Added functions uc(), ucFirst(), lc(), and lcFirst() to the LUA token.

20190514.99

Added the ability to notice when files have their filename or folder changed. Fixed an issue with {SequenceFirst}. Work around a bug that sometimes causes plugins to be disabled when starting Lightroom via clicking on a catalog file. Fix an "Unknown key: captureTime" crash. Added the GPSCoords token.

20190114.95

Added some extra debug loging. If the plugin's attempt to create a folder fails, try again a few times before actually reporting the failure. Added the PEOPLE variable to the LUA token. Fixed a problem with the SpeedKPH token. Added the TempC and TempF tokens.

20181015.94

Updates for Lr8 (Lightroom Classic CC Version 8). Added the special PP() function to the {LUA} token. Added hierarchical options to the Keywords token. Try to work around a Lightroom bug related to photo timezones and how Lightroom handles accessing plugin data.

20180906.92

Try to avoid having unexpectedly-long error messages create too-big a dialog.

20180803.91

Limit the amount of temporary disk used by Lightroom before handing files off to the plugin.

20180608.90

Added some extra debug logging. Clicking on the version number in the Plugin Manager now copies version info to the clipboard Updated the PublishCollectionName token to allow numeric arguments along the lines of the CollectionName token. Added the folowing template tokens: {home}, {desktop}, {temp}, {pictures}, {documents}, IptcDateTaken Added the 'PCH' variable to the {LUA} tag.

20180420.89

Fixed a bug when 'Token Examples' invoked in certain situations. Added a bunch of token filters: F2D F2S F2X B2D B2S B2X S2X A2D A2S A2X

20171229.88

Updates to the data templates that my plugins understand: updated the Keywords token, added CollectionNames and CollectionFullNames tokens, and added a bunch of stuff (KWf, CN, CFN, CNf, CFNf) to the {LUA} token.

20171019.86

Updates for Lr7. Better handle some character-encoding issues related to template tokens. Allow the "If Exists" feature of Templat Tokens to work with the PluginProperty token. Update registration support to handle a stupid bug at PayPal that PayPal refuses to fix )-:

20170705.85

Fixed a bug introuded the other day in template tokens, related to Windows filenames. Added extra debug-logging to track down a timing issue.

20170224.82

Couldn't set the exported-copy file date older than about 50 years ago; fixed.

20170216.81

The rules about what characters are disallowed in a folder name were too aggressive, so relax them. Fixed a bug with the keyword tables in the LUA token. Added Weekday, Wday, weekday, wday, and ISO8601Date to the list of template tokens that my plugins understand. Switch the log-sending mechanism to https.

20160905.80

Better support for network shares on Windows.

20160828.79

Added the following tokens to the templates that my plugins understand: {FilenameNumber}, FileModYYYY, FileModYY, FileModMM, FileModDD, FileModHH, FileModMIN, FileModSS, FileYYYY, FileYY, FileMM, FileDD, FileHH, FileMIN, FileSS.

20160430.78

Fix to get around a Mac display issue with Lr6 on OSX. Added Russian-langauge support for the People-Support {People} tag. Added more debug logging to track down some issues.

20160217.77

Added ChildOf and DescendantOf filters to the {Keywords} and {KeywordsAll} template tokens that my plugins understand. Fixed how custom {People} formatting works with people keywords that have no birthday associated with them. Try to avoid yet another place where Lightroom gets hung because it can't handle certain kinds of dialogs at the same time.

20151115.76

If there's an error exporting one particular image, try to continue with others and merely have Lightroom report a summary of errors at the end. Added support for sequence numbers on publish. See the "sequence numbers" link in the "Enhanced File Renaming" section of the dialog. Added {SpeedKPH} and {SpeedMPH} to the list of template tokens supported by my plugins. The {People} token wasn't working properly for some keywords without a registered birthday.

20150831.74

Allowed the Enhanced File Renaming to actually create sub-folders under where an image would normally be placed.

20150517.73

Fixed the "SpecPeople:259: attemt to index al nil value" error.

20150222.72

If the root folder of the publish tree had a very long name, the view/change buttons would be pushed off the edge of the screen.

20150219.71

In the "Enhanced File Renaming" section, add the ability to override the extension on the exported filename.

20150206.70

In the POODLE-vunerability dialog, display a raw URL of a page on my site that discusses the issue, so that folks can be independently sure that the dialog is indeed from me and not malware.

20150131.69

Updated the camera-name code to try to guess the actual camera model of Hasselblad H5D files, since in their infinite wisdom Hasselblad decided to encode three distinct models with the same internal code, making it impossible to know for sure what camera produced a given image file.

20141215.67

Added a bit more debug-logging for when a file copy can't be done.

20141019.66

Windows Only: Add a one-time check for the POODLE security vulnerability, and alert the user if it exists.

20141005.65

Clicking on the blank area next to the upper-right [Publish] button caused an error dialog to display.

20140922.63

Workaround for a Lightroom bug that causes the plugin to croak on certain folder names.

20140920.62

Some extra debug logging to track down a problem.

20140802.60

Made the {GPSAltitude}, {Altitude}, and {GPSCoordinates} tokens subject to the geo-privacy settings like the other geo-related tokens.

20140715.57

Fixed an issue with Creative-Cloud revalidation.

20140712.56

Lr5.5 and later Creative-Cloud installs can now revalidate themselves if needed.

20140710.55

Sigh, had a bug in the Creative-Cloud support.

20140708.54

Now supports Lr5.5+ Creative-Cloud Installs.

20140704.53

Sigh, introduced an error for some folks with the rebuild the other day.

20140612.50

Under some error conditions plugin would crash instead of presenting the proper error message.

20140509.49

Added new tokens to the template language the plugin understands: LrVersion, LrVersionMajor, LrVersionMinor, LrVersionRevision, LrVersionBuild, Location, CatalogName, CatalogPath, OperatingSystem, OS Added new token filters: NS and LO

20140423.48

Fix a location-related template-token bug introduced in a recent build.

20140422.47

Fixed a bug in the "smoother revalidation" stuff recently added.

20140417.46

Enhancements to the FTP stuff: take care not to work with "." and ".." that some servers return. The {Empty} template token wasn't working properly. Make the revalidation process smoother, especially for folks using Lr5.4 and later.

20140410.45

Added an option to limit the overall depth of the publish tree.

20140321.44

Internally track whether exports are via the master image or via a smart preview. In the future this may allow for a "republish those for which a master is now available" feature. Worked around a mysterious "attempt to get length of a nil value" bug.

20131213.43

Added {PublishCollectionName}, {PublishCollectionDepth}, and {PublishServiceTitle} tokens to the preset templates. See template-token web page for important restrictions.

20131010.41

Yikes, it seems that version 20130905.36 broke the "Metadata that Triggers Republish" section, clearing all items you might have had set (well, all but Caption). Sorry about that. Please visit the "Metadata that Triggers Republish" section to reconfigure to your liking.

20130926.40

Oops, fix a bug introduced in the previous update

20130925.39

The 'Template Examples' dialog had been broken. Deprecated 'Folder' and 'Path' tokens in preference to 'FolderName' and 'FolderPath' tokens.

20130923.38

Added a bunch of tokens to the preset templates supported: ExportFormat, ExportColorSpace, ExportBitDepth, ExportQuality, ExportSharpeningLevel, ExportSharpeningMedia, IpernityUrl, GoogleDriveUrl, and TumblrUrl. Additional debug logging.

20130909.37

Work around a Lightroom bug concerning the determination of whether a photo is offline.

20130905.36

Respond more gracefully when enhanced file renaming can't come up with something valid. Added an "Ask" option to the "Export with Smart Previews?" section, so one can be alerted to the situation at each export. Fixed the KW/KWE tables in template tokens; they had been broken when using load for the script.

20130708.35

Fixed a crash during certain file-renaming attempts where originals no longer existed.

20130630.34

When "Format" is "ORIGINAL" (meaning to spit out the original image pixels with new metadata, instead of the developed version with new metadata), the plugin didn't handle XMP sidecars properly at all. Now it does. You now have control over the file time of exported copies (set to the image capture time, or the time of export).

20130620.33

Allow published copies to remain on disk even if a photo is deleted from Lightroom.

20130612.31

A failure for the plugin to copy a file on disk resulted in a plugin crash instead of the appropriate error message display.

20130612.30

Added the ability in Lr5 to export images even if the master image file is not available, so long as there's a smart preview available.

20130513.27

More changes for the root-selection problem... really seems to be a bug in Lightroom, but it's hard to tell because I can't replicate the bug myself.

20130329.24

More with with the code that handles changing the root of the publish tree.

20130220.23

Added support for some new template tokens: FlagStatus (requires Lr4.1 or later), and for Lr3 and later, a bunch of IPTC extended metadata: AdditionalModelInfo, CodeOfOrgShown, DigImageGUID, Event, ImageSupplierImageId, MinorModelAge, ModelAge, ModelReleaseID, ModelReleaseStatus, NameOfOrgShown, PersonShown, PlusVersion, PropertyReleaseID, PropertyReleaseStatus, and SourceType.

20121004.16

Oops, the file-extension thing got worse, not better... reverting that change.

20121003.15

Work around a "situation" (likely Lr bug) where exported video loses its file extension. More debug logging for the elusive "no root folder" problem.

20120821.14

Updates to the environment in the {LUA} token (in the template tokens in my plugins) to include photoTime() and currentTime(), and other changes to match the updated docs at that link. .

20120810.13

Added some debug logging to try to track down an error

20120722.12

More debugging for the "choose a root folder" bug that seems to still affect a few folks.

20120531.11

Oops, I was moving the original XMP file (when the Publish format was "Original" instead of copying it. Fixed.

20120529.10

Finally tracked down why the plugin had problem with Windows network shares. Ended up filing three separate bug reports with Adobe, but in the end was able to work around the bugs, so hopefully it's working now. Update to handle the Mac App Store version of Lightroom.

20120510.9

Tweak for Lr4.1RC2. Added the ability to move/reset the root folder. As a byproduct, this should allow the "choose a root folder" situation to be repaired. In some crazy file-renaming situations, the plugin could get confused about the file extension. Enhanced the send-log dialog to hopefully make reports more meaningful to me, yielding, I hope, the ability to respond more sensibly to more reports. Added to the template tokens supported by the plugin: {FullMasterFile}, {FullMasterFolder}, {FullExportedFile}, and {FullExportedFolder}

20120315.7

Add some extra debug logging to try to track down some network-folder errors.

20120309.6

Update to the debug logging to better track down timing issues that might arise.

20120228.5

Wasn't handling some kind of file-rename templates properly. Now handles things much more gracefully when some files are offline when the publish is started. Better support for video in Lr4.

20120224.4

A few bug and Lr4 fixes, and some extra debug logging.

20120217.3

Didn't handle XMP sidecars correctly when publishing original raw files.

20120217.2

Discovered why "metadata that triggers a republish" wasn't reliable, and fixed it.

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Source: http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/folder-publisher

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