Want an easier way to add multiple XMP keywords

[ProductArchitect]

Though I'm new here, I can already tell that XnViewMP has lots of useful features, a very responsive developer, and a nice community. So, I thought it would be worth describing a specific "use case" that I (and probably many others) are looking for: simple keywords + slideshow. (My platform: an old MacBook running OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard ... though shouldn't matter much for the 'MP' app.)

My parents have just started to scan slides from about 1960 (!) to the present. They drag each image to an appropriate subfolder (creating new ones as needed), and may or may not rename. That part works fine. What they need is a very simple app for adding keywords, and then viewing a slideshow with any combination of keywords.

I want to make sure that the work they do is 'futureproof', so:

1. the images should remain as regular files available in the Finder (e.g. not locked away in iPhoto) ... XnViewMP is great on this part. (I haven't experimented much, but it's important for the app to notice any filename and folder changes.)

2. the keywords should be easy to access, both by other off-the-shelf software (e.g. the very useful GraphicConverter, which reads and writes XMP & IPTC and perhaps more) and any custom tool that I might write (e.g. using data grabbed via exiftool, which also supports IPTC even though the name is EXIF).

It's (mostly?) possible to do this in XnViewMP 0.61 but it's not easy. Here are some specific ideas, though clearly not the only way to achieve the goal.

- ideally I could configure my copy (with a custom layout and whatever preferences are required) then email a settings file of some sort that they could import. This could hide panels that might be important for other XnViewMP folks but not for this specific need.

- when they launch for the first time (or open a folder for the first time), XnViewMP should read the XMP/IPTC info from all of their images, and automatically populate a keywords panel with all keywords that are found. (Note that keywords should preferably not be buried under 'other'.)

- the main screen should probably be reduced to 2 panels: thumbnail view and the new keyword panel. Important: the thumbnail view should display each image's keywords under the image -- otherwise it's not clear what has been done vs. is yet to be done.

- ... or perhaps 3 panels: Match, Thumbnail, Keywords. It would be nice to customize the Match panel, e.g. to (almost) exactly match the Keyword panel (but of course with different behavior).

- typical workflow will be to search (e.g. based on a general keyword like 'family'), then manually select a subset, then click checkbox(es) to add one or more keywords to those selected images (e.g. a place, year, or specific people).

- keywords should automatically be saved to the images, so that they are immediately available in any other app.

- the keyword panel should make it easy to add new keywords ... that seems likely to be required for every 'keywording' session

- for a slideshow (and even while adding keywords), it's important to be able to type multiple keywords, eventually with and/or/not (perhaps following the syntax of Google and other common search engines)

Of course I would be more than happy to 'buy' a copy of the above via donation. I've looked around and haven't found anything close. (I haven't tried Picasa but I don't trust Google with private data.)

Note that the keyword panel may also be a good place for a few user-selected XMP/IPTC fields, e.g. caption.

...

There have been other requests and proposals on this forum that touch on some of the above, e.g.

- How to: Categories Management - Categories Panel: http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=27999

- Very important: Metadata V2 for 0.70 (EXIF, XMP, IPTC etc.): http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=28345

- 0.60 - question to DB categories: http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=28337

- IPTC: edit panel in the main interface? http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=27788

- Autoload keywords list possible? http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=27751

Thanks for reading!

Scott

[m.Th.]

Perhaps you missed (one of) the most important:

The Auto-Complete Engine:
http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=28375

It is crucial to have a good tool to find the keywords which we want.

In a tree with 10-20 keywords is easy to find what one wants but when this starts to grow...

And it will start to grow very quickly when one takes the things seriously. Yes, I dare to say that I have little experience in the area.

The 'People' branch fills up quickly with different important people names... The Locations branch fills up quickly with different important/interesting location names... The Animals, Plants, Events... etc. etc. etc.

I think that if Pierre will not catch the train, the train will catch him.

The same stands with other things which from photo management subsystem: albums/collections - see http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=28322 (very important), metadata search and the parts left uncovered from on-disk file management (see http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=28297 )

I say it with love.

Also, about the http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=27751 , I replied there.