XnView Software

Hello. I am a relatively new user of XnView and am finding it very useful for organising my image files. I have come from a couple of years of using Zoner Photo Studio which is an excellent program, but the latest release has started creating separate little hidden files all over my image folders and sadly they appear to have closed their forums which I have used for help in the past. I find XnView is just as good an organiser as Zoner as far as the use of IPTC metadata is concerned.

I use IPTC keywords and captions throughout my images and have created a simple text file of my keywords I can load in to help me to keep my keywords standardised. My question is this - is it possible for XnView to automatically load that list when the program is started to save me having to do it manually every time? I have looked through the forums as well as I can but cannot find an answer there, so I am hoping some kind person who has had some experience with XnView can help me. Running the latest stable release on Windows 8 64 bit. Many thanks.

you would like that this file will replace categories tree?

Hi Pierre. Thank you for taking a moment to reply. Actually I would LOVE to have the keywords list able to replace the categories tree. I am a bit of a fanatic for using IPTC keywords and captions, having come from a few years of using Photoshop Elements. Reason I prefer your design is that metadata is written directly to the IPTC fields in an image file.

My main question though is to find out if it is possible to auto load the text file of keywords, rather than having to manually load it each time. It's not a biggie but would just ass a little extra shine to an already polished application. If that keyword list can also be displayed in place of the categories list that would be an extra bonus.

Thank you for being so responsive and courteous in your reply. Kind regards, Peter.

xnview wrote:you would like that this file will replace categories tree?

This file should be in standard keyword text format which is imported/exported by all DAMs (Lightroom, IDImager etc.) ie. a tab-indented keyword text file. Something like:
...and for the I/O keyword engine you should provide the following options:

Clear All...
Export...
Append...
Import... (=Clear All + Append)

Also, it would be a plus to provide a MRU (Most Recently Used) list.

Of course, the above options, will assure not only the intercommunication with the other DAMs (a critical point IMHO, because I don't see many people who'll dare to accept to rewrite everything from their older systems just in to be locked in in an "unknown" system like XnViewMP) but also the backup/restore functionality for the categories tree.