How to move an aliased based library using AppleScript

Question

I wanted to move all my pictures from one disk (NAS) to a external disk (Device) directly connected to my Mac. This to improve access speed of all my media.
Since I have set up my library as a reference library iPhoto has created Alias to all my pictures on my NAS disk. As I want to move I need to change these alias to point to the new Device disk.
I could have imported all my pictures again, but then I would have lost all my albums. I did not look forward in re-organizing 15K in pictures. Looking into various discussions on different forums I created this Apple Script. I struggled a lot to egt the correct syntax and commands, used some stuff form other posts, thanks for this!
For every alias in a certain directory it creates a new alias with the same name however pointing to the pictures on my Device Disk. It deletes the old alias and renames the new alias to the original name. I am not sure if this is a smart thing to do, but it seems to work fine.
set f to choose folder
ProcessAlias(f as string)
-- replacess all alias files in the passed folder path (string)
on ProcessAlias(this_folder)
-- get list of folders in this_folder
set utid to AppleScript's text item delimiters -- store old delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {return}
tell application "Finder"
set folder_listing to every folder of folder this_folder as string
end tell
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to utid -- restore old delimiters
if folder_listing is "" then
set folder_list to {}
else
set folder_list to paragraphs of folder_listing
end if
-- process folder_list
repeat with sub_folder in folder_list
ProcessAlias(sub_folder) -- send each folder back to this subroutine
end repeat
-- get list of alias files and process them
tell application "Finder"
set alias_files to every file of folder this_folder whose kind is "Alias"
repeat with this_alias in alias_files
set origitempath to original item of this_alias as text
--display dialog origitempath
set orig_name to name of this_alias
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "NAS"
set textitemlist to every text item of the origitempath
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "Device"
set newitempath to the textitemlist as string
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to " "
set newalias_file to make new alias file at this_folder to new_itempath
delete this_alias
set the name of newalias_file to orig_name
end repeat
end tell
return -- you can return a listing of moved originals if you want
end ProcessAlias
When running this scrip make sure you make a backup of your iPhotoLibrary.

Answer 1

Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
I could have imported all my pictures again, but then I would have lost all my albums.
You can convert your referenced library to a managed one. Use AliasHerder to replace the alias file in the library with their source files thus converting the library to a managed library.
Also send a feature request to Apple for better ways to use a referenced library and use NAS drives. The more requests the better.
Keep us posted as to the reliability of your method. The upside to all this is that if you run into problems later on you won't lose your source files, only the organizational effort you've put into the library.
OT