Perplexed by Metadata Panel

[ajax]

Have been using XnView-MP for some time and just recently noticed something I could NOT explain. It has to do with tabs on the MetaData Pane as follows:

XnViewMP-MetaData.png

Up until now I assumed that the XMP tab would result in displaying the metadata that is encoded in XMP format. However, the data displayed in the sample shown above is NOT present in the selected file which is shown in the image that follows:

XnViewMP-FileListA.png

As shown the selected file is a raw file produced a Canon camera. In this case, that raw file was processed by Darktable which produces a sidecar file that contains the parameters used to develop the corresponding image. It appears to me that the data displayed, in this case, when the XMP tab is selected is derived from that sidecar file which by the way has a file extension of XMP.

Now if that sidecar file is removed from the folder containing the selected file then the metadata elements that are encoded in XMP format, which ARE contained in the selected file, are displayed in that tab instead. Note: this data was omitted when the sidecar file was present.

Lastly, the image of the file list pane shown above contains a curious ICON pointed to by the arrow superimposed on the image. I'd have to admit that the meaning of these ICONs in general is something I could NOT precisely define but I'm suspecting this might have something to do with the perplexing behavior I've just discovered.

It took me quite a bit of experimentation to discover what I've presented above. It would be most helpful if there were an explanation available that accurately explains what is being displayed in the Metadata Pane.

[xnview]

yes when you have this little icon, the XMP metadatas comes from .xmp file.