Metadata (XMP / IPTC / EXIF) Editor improvements

Ideas for improvements and requests for new features in XnView Classic

Moderators: XnTriq, helmut, xnview

Magnus of Sweden
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Post by Magnus of Sweden »

:D Yes, yes please!! I have some 25000 photos waiting for structure.
Sebastian
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Post by Sebastian »

Hi!

Despite from my other, more general IPTC wishes, I noticed small usability issue in the IPTC editing dialogue:
When hitting return after entering a keyword the new keyword is entered to the keyword list and a can immediately start typing a new one - which is just perfect behaviour to me.
But for entering supplemental categories, hitting return doesn't help and I'm forced to click on the "add" button which I think is a little bit annoying and not very efficient.
So please add the "add-on-return" functionality to the "supplemental category" input field(s).


Thanks,

Sebastian
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xnview
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Post by xnview »

Sebastian wrote: But for entering supplemental categories, hitting return doesn't help and I'm forced to click on the "add" button which I think is a little bit annoying and not very efficient.
Yes will be added
Pierre.
Sebastian
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Post by Sebastian »

Thank you! :D


Bye,

Sebastian
premek.b
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Re: Metadata (XMP / IPTC / EXIF) Editor improvements

Post by premek.b »

theChad wrote:- (...) Ctrl+Tab should cycle through the tabs, (...)
- No fields except the Write button have an associated keyboard command.
- The Write button acts like an "Apply" button; (...)
I cast my vote for the IPTC editor enhancements discussed in this thread. Since entering metadata takes some typing, the less we could switch from keyboard to mouse the better. If XnView would mimic Abander PhotosControl it'd be excellent!

Premek

PS: Thanks for XnView, the tool of choice :)
Philip Goddard
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Post by Philip Goddard »

I've actually at last found a photos manager which really does have powerful IPTC batch processing ability including search & replace. It comes at quite a price, but it is really excellent in many ways. That is, Photo Mechanic, which, although quite expensive, at least does allow you to download an evaluation copy. I just took about 15 minutes to expand abbreviated month names to the full names in the caption of every one of over 1,000 photos distributed in some 100 folders. It's so good that I'm almost certainly going to buy it - though I'm not sure yet whether its album generation ability at the moment is up to my requirements (really I've not yet encountered a program that fully is).

I recommend that that program's implementation of IPTC processing and the search & replace function be looked at as an example of how it can really work well.
Philip
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JohnFredC
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Post by JohnFredC »

Wow... PhotoMechanic is a very powerful metadata tool!

In addition to the IPTC Stationery pad and attendant functionality, I notice that PhotoMechanic also enables multiple browsers, one each in a tab. I wish this (or something similar) for XnView...
John
lsolesen
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Post by lsolesen »

I also cast my vote on IPTC improvements, and I agree that PhotoMechanic is a great tool.

I have been trying out PhotoMechanic, but I am looking for a freeware alternative where I can edit the IPTC fields, and everything is saved in the file, so no data will get lost, if I move a picture.

I have run in to the following problems.

1) It is not possible to delete keywords again.
2) It should be possible to do some sort of stationary where you can use data from other fields. For instance, my caption should be:

City, Country, Date: Some text.

In PhotoMechanic it is possible to do:

{city}, {country}, {date}: Some text.

And this will automatically be replaced by the values from the Origin tab and Date/Time tab.

When Xnview can handle iptc data in a way that PhotoMechanic does, Xnview will rock.
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xnview
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Post by xnview »

lsolesen wrote: 1) It is not possible to delete keywords again.
Currently i don't know how to make that easily!
2) It should be possible to do some sort of stationary where you can use data from other fields. For instance, my caption should be:

City, Country, Date: Some text.

In PhotoMechanic it is possible to do:

{city}, {country}, {date}: Some text.

And this will automatically be replaced by the values from the Origin tab and Date/Time tab.
Perhaps like that:
http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?t=14431
Pierre.
Philip Goddard
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Post by Philip Goddard »

I should add a caution for those trying out Photo Mechanic. I've found that it has a bug in the IPTC date field in the individual photo IPTC dialog, such that by default a completely spurious date is shown, and presumably unless you correct this for each photo before saving any IPTC data it could wipe out any correct date already in that tag in your file. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that unless you have enormous screen resolution the date field is below the bottom of the screen, so if, like me, you are usually entering just title (objectname), caption and keywords (other, constant data having previously been applied to all files via a 'stationery pad'), you can easily forget to scroll down to correct the date (for me that means changing it to 'capture time') before saving. Unfortunately that change is not remembered when you move to the next photo, so you have to change its date too - every time!

As a bit of a safeguard against that problem I've added a line to the thumbnail labels, containing the date variable, so I can see at a glance if any of the thumbnails have incorrect dates.

I've written to the Photo Mechanic people about this quite serious little bug, and I trust that XnView won't repeat that little problem!
Philip
Philip Goddard
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Post by Philip Goddard »

Actually I found that it was apparently not Photo Mechanic that put the crazy IPTC dates on the photos of mine, and so at the moment I can't even rule out XnView as the culprit, though basically I just don't know where it's come from, especially as it's in only a certain proportion of my photos and I can't seem to reproduce it when saving a particular photo in order to identify the culprit. Unfortunately Photo Mechanic has a bug which renders non-functional its supposed ability to batch-apply the EXIF 'date taken' to the IPTC date / time (via its 'stationery pad' function).

This has highlighted a much needed feature in XnView's IPTC dialog for batch operation, and that is, to be able to choose which IPTC fields will be written in the batch operation on selected photos. I would like to be able to choose just one field (e.g. IPTC date / time) to be written while all other IPTC data remains untouched. Because of the lack of this, the only way I can correct the IPTC dates in my photo collection at the moment is by individual change using XnView or more likely PixView (which looks to require a click or two less for each photo for this function).
Philip
paparaz
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Post by paparaz »

:D hi, I am new of this forum, my name is angelo and first of all i'd like
to say thank you for your wonderful work.
said that i' like to ask you if it is possible to have an "add iptc template"
in the batch resize window.
thanks a lot
paparaz
paparaz
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Post by paparaz »

HI again,
I think I should explain a bit better the meaning of my request.

when i download picture from the camera , I do it always in the same
folder (original images folder) the I look trough them and export my favourite in another folder, which is always the same (working images folder). I normally batch resize them so to heve them lighter to be sent through the internet .afterwards i go to the working images folder and put an iptc template with general information to all the images which have been batch exported and resized and than in the browser i fill out the iptc caption with each particular picture.
with your program I think it possible to batch resize and insert a template on multiple pages only in two different steps .
would it be verydifficult to insert an "apply an iptc template" checkbox in the batch resize window.?
I hope Ihave been clear on what i wanted to say
thanks anyway
paparaz
kalain
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Post by kalain »

Hi,

I guess that everything is already said about IPTC edition improvement.
I just want to second that IPTC edition should be done by drag and drop on a side panel (window). this is the fastest and more efficient way to do this.
The actual way it's done in Xnview (1.93.6) is probably the worst. mmh, let's say old fashion. (but still possible to do it)
Well, I hope to see such feature in xnview 2.0 and encourage all developper in this way :D
Neoras
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Post by Neoras »

As far as I am concerned, I do not need drag & drop; just hitting "Enter" is suitable enough for me.

Pierre, have you ever tried Adobes Lightroom? Their keyword-assignment is nearly perfect, although they use XMP-, not IPTC-tags. I wish we could have a similar system in Xnview.

Deleting keywords is working very well, they're using an asterisk to mark keywords, that have only been assigned to particular pictures. When deleting, they're obviously applying a XOR / NOT operation on the metadata.
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