I have looked through the API for a method of adding/creating an AlbumObject as a linked file, rather than as a file, but can't find one. Obviously it is possible but is it a non-public method?

This is to avoid writing to album files.txt to 'create' the linked file reference. Not a problem if it is jAlbum proprietary code.

Thanks, I will have a look.
I made a tool to convert a project (using folders and files) to a mirrored project linking to those files. The tool read the original project's albumfiles.txt file and wrote a modified one to the equivalent folder of the mirrored project structure (not yet a project). But David has said, in a recent bug post, to 'Never manually read or rely on the contents of albumfiles.txt. Use the AlbumObject abstraction at all times.'

So I'm looking to create a mirrored project from another project. So I thought loop through all of the original project folders and files and create a new project with link references to the old project's files.

If it is too complicated though I might just not recode the tool, just add a warning in the tools forum post.

Thanks. I'll have a play over the next couple of days and if I get stuck I'll post back.

I was thinking of testing via AlbumObject.isLink()

BTW

if (myAlbumObject.getFile() instanceof LinkFile)

is not hypothetical. I pulled this from working Mirage code.

The isLink() call simply checks whether the embedded File is an instaneof LinkFile. Here's code to add an AlbumObject linking to a file:

import se.datadosen.io.*;
f = new File("/Users/david/My Albums/Welcome to jAlbum/suganth.jpg")
ao = rootFolder.getFactory().createInstance(new LinkFile(rootFolder.getFile(), f.getName(), f), rootFolder);
rootFolder.add(ao);
window.albumExplorer.refreshAction.actionPerformed(null);

You're welcome Rob

For anyone interested.
I have made the changes to the external tool this question was related to.

Not using albumfiles.txt to create the objects in the project, but using the code posted above, means the mirrored project does not reflect the ordering of objects in the original project.

Steps now used are:
Loop through the original project make a list of all of the objects files paths as strings.
Create the folder structure for the mirror project to use.
Copy any page template .info files to the mirror
Import (copy) the project settings file.
Load the mirror project (just empty folders for now)
Loop through the list of file paths and create album objects from each file path
Ask if the original project should have jAlbum specific files removed, and if so do it.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me learn a bit more Java.