Catalog Manager

The Catalog Manager turns your labeled Collections folders into a single, searchable library. A background indexer reads every sealed .mtxCol file into a local catalog, so you can browse the whole set, rank files by how similar their contents are, compare the slots open in the editor, and keep the library tidy — all without opening each file by hand. It lives in the Collections menu and opens in its own window with three tabs: Browse, Search and Compare slots.

Note — the catalog indexes the folders you keep in Indexed database mode. If your collection storage is set to Single file, collections are opened and saved by hand and are not catalogued. See Storage modes below.

Figure 1

Opening the Catalog Manager

Everything is reached from the Collections menu:

• Browse Catalog… (Ctrl+Shift+B) — the whole library, no reference file needed.
• Search Catalog… (Ctrl+Shift+C) — rank the library against an open file.
• Compare Slots… (Ctrl+Shift+M) — a similarity matrix of the editors you have open.
• Manage Folders… — add, rename or remove the labeled folders the catalog watches.
• Rebuild Catalog Index — re-scan every folder (it asks first; useful after copying files in from outside the app).
• Find Duplicate IDs… — find and resolve collections that share an identifier.

Browse — the whole library

Browse lists every indexed collection, newest first, with a live text filter (vehicle, ECU, software number, client…) and a folder scope selector to show all folders or just one. The Columns button chooses which property columns appear; drag headers to reorder or resize them and the layout is remembered. Selecting a row opens the drill-down panel on the right with a Details tab (every property) and a Comments tab (the project notes). From a row you can Open in editor, Reveal on disk, or press Find similar to this — which opens the file and jumps to the Search tab with it already set as the anchor. In Indexed-database mode a Save to selector sets the default folder new collections are written to.

Search — ranked by similarity

Figure 2

Search ranks the catalog against an anchor — one of the files you have open in the editor. Pick the anchor, choose what to match on with Find, and run. Results are shown with percentage meters so the best matches stand out at a glance:

• Similar — a size bounded similarity score. Good for files of comparable size.
• Neighbors — a distance based match that is not size bounded; use the Breadth control to set how wide to cast the net.
• Either can match on the whole file or just the dataset (the calibration region).

A result reaches 100% / Identical only when the bytes are the same — that is an exact match by SHA-256 and size, not a similarity score.

Tip — start from Browse and press Find similar to this: it sets the anchor for you and switches straight to this tab.

Compare slots

Figure 3

Compare slots builds a similarity matrix of the slots you currently have open in the editor — every slot against every other — shaded as a heat-map so clusters of related calibrations are obvious. It is the quick way to see how a set of files you are working on relate to one another without touching the catalog on disk.

Organising your files and folders

Right-click a row (in Browse or Search) for file management, which works on a single file or a multi-selection:

• Copy to / Move to a labeled folder. A copy made here is given a fresh identifier automatically, so it never collides with its source.
• Rename (single file), Reveal on disk, and Edit properties to change metadata on one or many files at once.
• Delete sends files to the Recycle Bin; hold Shift to delete permanently.

Manage Folders maintains the labeled folders the catalog watches: add a new one, rename its label, or remove it from the index (its files are left on disk). One folder is the protected Default. In Indexed-database mode, saving a brand-new collection routes it to your chosen default folder with an auto-generated filename — because files are opened through Browse and Search, not by name. If no default is set, saving asks which folder to use.

Finding duplicate IDs

Every collection carries a unique identifier inside its sealed project. Copying a .mtxCol in the file system (or restoring a backup) produces two files that share one id. Copies made with the Catalog Manager’s own Copy to are re-identified automatically, but files copied outside the app are not. Collections › Find Duplicate IDs… groups the catalog by shared id and lets you resolve each group — Assign new UUID, Re-ID all but the oldest (keeping the earliest-indexed file unchanged), or Delete the redundant copies. Re-identifying never alters the calibration bytes, so similarity scores are preserved.

Storage modes

The catalog depends on the Collection storage setting in Preferences › Defaults › General. In Indexed database mode (the default) collections live in labeled folders under Documents/TuningEditor/Collections and are catalogued and searchable. In Single file mode you open and save any .mtxCol anywhere, and the catalog is not used. You can switch at any time; existing files are not moved.

See also

• Collections — the .mtxCol container the catalog is built from.
• Find similar files — the on-demand scan the Search tab grew out of.
• Preferences — where Collection storage is chosen.