XnView Software

Is it true that main view columns are limited to a few pre-selected categories, and that "Keywords" is not one of these?

Have spent several hours on this w/o success & do not see issue discussed on forum.

Simply want to be able to show the keyword field as one of the column listings so that can quickly see what kw have been applied. Thus far it seems that only kw from a single image at a time can be displayed (and then in the "preview pane" not in the main window).

Currently am using Adobe Bridge, which does have this capability, but which is a bit more cumbersome to use than XnV

Have you given XnViewMP 0.39 a try?

• Line
  Info
  Size
  Modified Date
  EXIF Date
  Properties
  Print size
  Type
  Rating
  Colour label
  Tag
  Comment
  Folder
  Ratio
  Width
  Height
  DPI
  Extension
  Maker
  Model
  ISO
  ShutterSpeed
  Focal Lengh
  Aperture
  Latitude
  Longitude
  Caption
  Caption writer
  Headline
  Keywords
  Categories
  Byline
  Byline title
  Credit
  Source
  Copyright
  Contact
  City
  Sublocation
  State
  Country
  Object name

Thank you XnTrig

From the reply, I take as confirmed that XnV does not support kw as column.

XnVmp may be an answer.

However, given the nature of B software in general, and the problems with metadata writing in particular to try XnVmp I will wait for the first stable release. And then will wait for at least two update cycles before risking trying it on my images.

To me it is fascinating that there is no simple, reliable, easy to use and efficient program for dealing with metadata. Currently installed I have XnView, EXIFER, GeoTagger, ACDSeePro, IrfanView,
Lightroom, Aperture, Bridge, and several others (on various systems).

Of all these, Bridge comes closest. However it has severe user interface problems (such as fixed text size) which keep me looking for something better.

I even tried Picasa and Windows Live Photo: Both of which, in my experience, destroy, without fail, most of the EXIF data.

Without exception (well, possibly not with IrfanView - at least I do not remember any disaster - and have just started to try XnView), all of these programs have caused me at least occasional meta-data corruption. Generally this is EXIF corruption caused by, I believe, pointer overwrites which seem virtually impossible to avoid - especially as SOME Japanese camera manufactures ENCRYPT part of this data.

Good to know that there may be hope. I do like the XnV interface better than others.

In the end though, I may find myself dusting off my compilers just so that I can get what I want which is simply an editable display of:

IMAGE-Thumbnail|filename|file-size|image-dimensions|Date-Recorded|Date-Touched|Caption|KEYWORDS
IMAGE-Thumbnail|filename|file-size|image-dimensions|Date-Recorded|Date-Touched|Caption|KEYWORDS
IMAGE-Thumbnail|filename|file-size|image-dimensions|Date-Recorded|Date-Touched|Caption|KEYWORDS
IMAGE-Thumbnail|filename|file-size|image-dimensions|Date-Recorded|Date-Touched|Caption|KEYWORDS
IMAGE-Thumbnail|filename|file-size|image-dimensions|Date-Recorded|Date-Touched|Caption|KEYWORDS
IMAGE-Thumbnail|filename|file-size|image-dimensions|Date-Recorded|Date-Touched|Caption|KEYWORDS
IMAGE-Thumbnail|filename|file-size|image-dimensions|Date-Recorded|Date-Touched|Caption|KEYWORDS
IMAGE-Thumbnail|filename|file-size|image-dimensions|Date-Recorded|Date-Touched|Caption|KEYWORDS
IMAGE-Thumbnail|filename|file-size|image-dimensions|Date-Recorded|Date-Touched|Caption|KEYWORDS
IMAGE-Thumbnail|filename|file-size|image-dimensions|Date-Recorded|Date-Touched|Caption|KEYWORDS
IMAGE-Thumbnail|filename|file-size|image-dimensions|Date-Recorded|Date-Touched|Caption|KEYWORDS

Given that I now do about 80% of my editing in LR, and 19.9999% in PhotoShop the editing tools built into many of the above programs are of no interest to me. Just want to be able to easily get to the meta-data. Humm: A quick search turns up the Exiv2 C++ library - that might be the best answer of all, as it allows EXIF, IPTC, XMP access. Though I am sure it likely has problems as well - at least with the source, I can fix those that impact me.

I admire your do-it-yourself approach. But please participate in the Xnview MP forums. MP is still in "early" beta, hence not incontrovertedly locked into a specific usage paradigm. Pierre (developer) listens and responds. Your input would be valuable.