Sorting of "rotation" icon - horizontal/vertical ?

[xinni]

Hello,

I have various images in the browser with these icons

rot0.png (1.09 KiB) Viewed 124 times

and with those other icons

rot1.png (1010 Bytes) Viewed 124 times

I now want to sort the images by this icon

rot2.png (631 Bytes) Viewed 124 times

But how can I do that, since I have no idea where this icon comes from or what it is that I could sort by?

P.S. Those are horizontal/vertical aligned images, which I want to sort to the "correct" alignment.

Thank you!

[jkm]

I'll try to help you, xinni.

First, those icons are called "overlay icons." There is a guide to what they mean in the application settings.
Go to Tools->Settings, and use the filter box at the top-left corner of the settings dialog to search for the word overlay.
That will allow you to select "Overlay Icons". On that page, you can enable or disable the different icons, and see what they mean.

You cannot sort by icons, but you can sometimes sort by the property that the icon represents.

The specific icon you are curious about is called "Automatic Rotation". This is not a sortable property, but if you go to the View->Sort by menu, you will see that you can sort by "Orientation" which may give you a similar result.

What may be more useful for you is to search or filter by specific properties. You can often use Exiftool to do this.
If you look at the Info panel for those images and examine the Exiftool tab, you will see that each of the images that has that icon has an "Orientation" value set. You can search and filter by this.

Do a Tools->Search, and for Conditions, add "Exiftool value". Then in the first blank, enter orientation. This will search the Orientation field. Then in the last blank, you could enter rotate, or 90, or 270.

If your search looks like this:
Exiftool value orientation contains rotate

Then you will get all the images that have the automatic rotation/orientation flag set, regardless of value. These are the ones that would have the icon in the browser.

If your search looks like this:
Exiftool value orientation contains 270

Then you will get just the images that are specifically set for Rotate 270, which is a specific direction or orientation.

For other icons, once you understand what they mean, check the Sort by menu to see if there is a corresponding sort method. If there is not, then you just cannot sort by that property. Instead, consider using search. There may be built in search properties, or exiftool values, that correspond to those overlay icons, and then you can search or filter by those properties.

Hopefully this helps...

[xinni]

Thank you very much!
This is a really very helpful and detailed answer, and I can get a lot out of it, but unfortunately my search function does not offer an "ExifTool"-option .
Do I need to enable or configure something somewhere to get access to it?

no exiftool in search.png (75.11 KiB) Viewed 90 times

I also have found this "Orientation" in EXIF, but as well, no way to search for it.

exiftool tab.png (68.48 KiB) Viewed 90 times

EDIT:
My poor eyes found "ExifTool value" in the search, but neither "Orientation" or "EXIF:Orientation" or "Rotate" or "CW" or "270" would find something. I searched the internet and asked some GTPs, but to no avail.

It seems to be a well-kept secret that only a few people are supposed to know.

[jkm]

Which tab did I tell you to look at? Exiftool, not EXIF.
Check in settings to ensure your path to exiftool.exe is filled out correctly. Use the filter box in settings to find it. Once you have exiftool working properly, the instructions I gave you are correct. If you are not getting correct results, your exiftool is not working or your search dialog is not filled out correctly. Check the settings and then post a screenshot of your search dialog if necessary.

It is not secret knowledge, as I posted about how to use the new features here in the forum. Suggest you find the thread and read it. It is on the first page of threads in this forum.

There is also a post on the XnView FAQ board about how to install or upgrade exiftool. You might benefit from that as well.

You may subsequently need to do an Update Metadata on your catalog to ensure the Exiftool info is in the DB, after ensuring Store Exiftool fields is enabled.

[xinni]

Thank you for your patience!

I did not knew know that ExifTool is an external tool too. It showed up here as a tab so I was under the impression, that's the tab you've meant.
I now have downloaded it and set the correct path in xnview and now it shows more info and also a version number in the same tab.
(I also read the FAQ: I did not replaced the ExifTool that comes with xnview, but stored it in a path that xnview can access)

exiftool external.png (17.99 KiB) Viewed 57 times

So that seems to be up and running.

What is not working, is the same as I wrote in my last EDIT:
neither "orientation" or "Orientation" or "EXIF:Orientation" or "Rotate" or "CW" or "270" did find anything. "Finished 0 file(s) found."

This is an example of how I search:

search.png (24.44 KiB) Viewed 57 times

I'm not using a Catalog.

So I tried to check if ExifTool is giving any results, but no.

When I use this seach, I don't get results:

make1.png (3.4 KiB) Viewed 57 times

When I use this seach, I get results:

make2.png (2.86 KiB) Viewed 57 times

I wrote this little Batch to test ExifTool and it shows the orientation and outputs [HIT] on the files I am looking for correctly.

Code: Select all

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
for %%f in (*.jpg) do (
    echo %%f
    for /f "tokens=*" %%o in ('exiftool.exe -Orientation "%%f" 2^>nul') do (
        echo   - %%o
        echo %%o | find "Rotate 270 CW" >nul
        if !errorlevel! equ 0 (
            echo   [HIT!]
            set /a counter+=1
        )
    )
    echo.
)

So I guess, the implementation of ExifTool is just not working for me or something else is missing or it's just Murphy's law...

Thank you.

[jkm]

I'm not using a Catalog.

Enable the catalog.

You may subsequently need to do an Update Metadata on your catalog to ensure the Exiftool info is in the DB, after ensuring Store Exiftool fields is enabled.