XnView Software

1. When I apply a category to the selected file, it does not immediately update the keywords - in fact it only seems to update the keywords after I browse to another folder or exit the program. (Edit: This is not fully correct - see more detail in next post )There are two problems with this:
   • I would like to see the list updated so I know which images have been categorized. (The "categories" column is the basically useless IPTC categories)
   • If I then edit image caption using ctrl-I, there sometimes are no IPTC keywords visible in the keywords tab, and when I save-all then XnView sees no keywords and removes the categories that I have recently applied (see next post for more details).
     It would fix these issues if you were able to update the files immediately, or perhaps when the categories pane loses focus
2. The program uses different parent-child separators depending on the process - this causes problems.
   • copying over from categories to keywords I get parent,child in the keywords
   • copying over from keywords to categories I get parent|child in the keywords
   It seems that when the program reads the second form, it imports either the child category only, or else creates a new category named "parent|child". But it does not do the second version very often, so I have not understood the situation that causes it. Today, for example, I got a total of 6 of these composite categories after processing maybe 200-300 images.
3. The children of the last category in the list never have the parent applied, so I have worked around that by creating a "zz_blank" category to make sure it is the last one.

• The "Thumbnails + labels" view (I think I added IPTC:Keywords to the Thumbnails" labels view option.).
• the tooltip does show the new categories, customised as {ITPC:Keywords}
• If I ctrl-I to edit IPTC, then the new keywords are visible (I think previously I said they were not)

• If I select a single image, tick a category and immediately ctrl-I, then the IPTC keyword edit tab shows the copied category;
• If I select multiple images, tick a category (apply to both) and immediately ctrl-I, then the IPTC keyword panel is blank;
• If I apply a category to one image, then add another (later image) to the selection then the IPTC keyword edit tab shows the copied category for the correct image. If I edit the caption and save-all, then, provided that I was currently on the image with the new keyword, the new keywords are applied to all selected images. However, the DB category is not updated;

CameronD wrote:Having worked on a couple of folders using the mixture of ticking categories and entering IPTC keywords, I went back and examined with exiftool and find the image file metadata to be very inconsistent.

danjcla wrote:How are you comparing the exiftool output to what's in the XnView MP database? ...

danjcla wrote: In fact I can close the app, manually delete the .xmp files, and yet the GUI still shows XMP info.

• create a new local user on Windows 7-64bit - to ensure I have no old settings lying around
• start XnviewMP Windows x64 V0.72, with initial config as default; selecting language:English might be necessary.
• Starting from default MP settings, change the following :
  1. General->File operations: untick each item under "Keep original date/time"
  2. Browser->Metadata->IPTC&XMP: tick/enable "Export DB Category to XMP ..." and "Automatically apply parent keywords..."
• In the Edit IPTC/XMP options tab confirm the following (should be default):
  1. The 3 IPTC options for multiple selection are all ticked.
  2. Mode: set to "IPTC-IIM, update or create XMP".
• Switch browser main window to "details" view
• right click on the details title bar and select "None" to delete all columns, then enable "Info, Caption, Keywords, Categories"
• shutdown program, save copy of APPDATA folder and restart program - allows restoration to known state.
• prepare folders with test images: folder 1 needs a single image with no embedded keywords or XMP:subjects. Folder 2 has sample including images with various new keywords. This complexity is because of bug number 1 and to make bug 2 start from a consistent place. Make backups of the image files.

1. The "Categories" sub-window is completely greyed out unless I have an image selected. I cannot even import or export category lists.
2. Browse to the starting folder 1 described above and select a file. Under categories management, export the current category list. Then also under "categories management" select "clear list" and then re-import the same list. The ordering seems odd - they are almost alphabetical, except "Audios" is now at the bottom.
3. Because of this automatic sorting, I can see no way to sort the list to my liking, putting common categories to the top. I found no UI for it, so was hoping to manually sort them via file.
4. Browse to another directory, containing images previously categorised with MP. For example I have an image with category "flower", subcategory "Drosera" and the XMP:lr:hierarchical subjects had been saved to the file. When I select the image (or probably when the folder was initially scanned), the top level "flower" is created, as is subcategory "Drosera". The category has Drosera ticked (but not the parent). However, MP has also created an additional spurious subcategory named "flower,Drosera" and placed it under "Audio"! This was partly a consequence of a bug listed further below (no 7?).
5. In another image (from the internet), the IPTC keyword is "Macbeth,ColorChecker" and it is duplicated in XMP:dc as Subject[1]=Macbeth and Subject[2]=ColorChecker. These are correctly recognized as two separate categories, but they are created as subcategories of "Audio".
6. Select an image with no existing keywords or captions and then ctrl-I (Edit IPTC/XMP). Select tab "keywords"; from the dropdown source, change "history" to "categories (database)" ; pick "Photographs -> Landscapes" and assign to image; save. The IPTC:keyword is given as "Photographs|Landscapes", and hierarchicalSubject[1]="Photographs|Landscapes" but XMP:dc only has Subject[1]="Landscapes". Also the parent "Photographs" has not been ticked in the database, only the child "Landscape" is enabled.
7. Select another image with no keywords and, in the categories subwindow, click on "Photographs->Pets" to assign that category to the image. The IPTC:keyword becomes "Photographs,Pets" (note the comma separator rather than '|'. XMP:dc provides Subject[1] and Subject[2] and XMP:lr: has hierarchicalSubject[1]="Photographs" as well as hierarchicalSubject[2]="Photographs|Pets"
8. as a secondary bug in this situation, the details listing does not show the updated keywords - they are visible in the Info tab for the file, but are never listed until I browse to a different folder and return.
9. Exit MP; Overwrite the two files changed above with backup copies; restart MP, select the files and select menu "view->update files from catalog". The files are not touched, but .xmp sidecar files are produced. MP does not read these files, possibly because there is already embedded XMP data in the image file. No IPTC data is created, therefore no IPTC:keywords.
10. Exit MP; delete the .XMP sidecar files; restart MP. Note the image files have no XMP or IPTC keyword content. Choose "update catalog from files" and nothing happens. The existing categories remain in the database, assigned to the files. On the other hand, if the process is done with image files that have some embedded keyword/subject content, then the category DB will be resynchronized as expected.
11. At this stage, I deleted the XnView.db file, and copied over a fresh set of images from my backups. Restarted MP and visited the test folder; because it reset the category list, the newly imported entries went under Others, rather than Audio.
12. Select 2 images with no existing keywords or captions; in the categories subwindow, tick "Photographs->Family"; (optional: check IPTC tab of Info window showing new keywords and reselect both images); then edit IPTM/XMP; type a caption; save-all. If I did the optional step then all is as expected. However if I went straight from category selection to Edit-IPTC then the previous keywords (or null) are retained and not updated to reflect categories.
13. clear the DB and refresh the files. Select 1 image with no existing keywords or captions; in the categories subwindow, tick "photographs->Family"; browse out to a different folder and back again; select the file just changed and also select another image with no caption or keywords; ctrl-I, type a new caption; save-all and look at details list. Keywords have been duplicated from first file to second, but categories DB has not been updated.
14. By the way, using '|' as a separator with no space is not a good choice, because other programs do not necessarily recognise it and regard the compound as a single word - making searches fail.

CameronD wrote: [*]The "Categories" sub-window is completely greyed out unless I have an image selected. I cannot even import or export category lists.
[*]Browse to the starting folder 1 described above and select a file. Under categories management, export the current category list. Then also under "categories management" select "clear list" and then re-import the same list. The ordering seems odd - they are almost alphabetical, except "Audios" is now at the bottom.
[*] Because of this automatic sorting, I can see no way to sort the list to my liking, putting common categories to the top. I found no UI for it, so was hoping to manually sort them via file.

[*] Browse to another directory, containing images previously categorised with MP. For example I have an image with category "flower", subcategory "Drosera" and the XMP:lr:hierarchical subjects had been saved to the file. When I select the image (or probably when the folder was initially scanned), the top level "flower" is created, as is subcategory "Drosera". The category has Drosera ticked (but not the parent).

However, MP has also created an additional spurious subcategory named "flower,Drosera" and placed it under "Audio"! This was partly a consequence of a bug listed further below (no 7?).
[*]In another image (from the internet), the IPTC keyword is "Macbeth,ColorChecker" and it is duplicated in XMP:dc as Subject[1]=Macbeth and Subject[2]=ColorChecker. These are correctly recognized as two separate categories, but they are created as subcategories of "Audio".

[*]Select an image with no existing keywords or captions and then ctrl-I (Edit IPTC/XMP). Select tab "keywords"; from the dropdown source, change "history" to "categories (database)" ; pick "Photographs -> Landscapes" and assign to image; save. The IPTC:keyword is given as "Photographs|Landscapes", and hierarchicalSubject[1]="Photographs|Landscapes" but XMP:dc only has Subject[1]="Landscapes". Also the parent "Photographs" has not been ticked in the database, only the child "Landscape" is enabled.

[*]Select another image with no keywords and, in the categories subwindow, click on "Photographs->Pets" to assign that category to the image. The IPTC:keyword becomes "Photographs,Pets" (note the comma separator rather than '|'. XMP:dc provides Subject[1] and Subject[2] and XMP:lr: has hierarchicalSubject[1]="Photographs" as well as hierarchicalSubject[2]="Photographs|Pets"

[*] as a secondary bug in this situation, the details listing does not show the updated keywords - they are visible in the Info tab for the file, but are never listed until I browse to a different folder and return.

[*]Exit MP; Overwrite the two files changed above with backup copies; restart MP, select the files and select menu "view->update files from catalog". The files are not touched, but .xmp sidecar files are produced. MP does not read these files, possibly because there is already embedded XMP data in the image file. No IPTC data is created, therefore no IPTC:keywords.

[*]Exit MP; delete the .XMP sidecar files; restart MP. Note the image files have no XMP or IPTC keyword content. Choose "update catalog from files" and nothing happens. The existing categories remain in the database, assigned to the files. On the other hand, if the process is done with image files that have some embedded keyword/subject content, then the category DB will be resynchronized as expected.

[*]Select 2 images with no existing keywords or captions; in the categories subwindow, tick "Photographs->Family"; (optional: check IPTC tab of Info window showing new keywords and reselect both images); then edit IPTM/XMP; type a caption; save-all. If I did the optional step then all is as expected. However if I went straight from category selection to Edit-IPTC then the previous keywords (or null) are retained and not updated to reflect categories.

[*]clear the DB and refresh the files. Select 1 image with no existing keywords or captions; in the categories subwindow, tick "photographs->Family"; browse out to a different folder and back again; select the file just changed and also select another image with no caption or keywords; ctrl-I, type a new caption; save-all and look at details list. Keywords have been duplicated from first file to second, but categories DB has not been updated.

[*]By the way, using '|' as a separator with no space is not a good choice, because other programs do not necessarily recognise it and regard the compound as a single word - making searches fail.[/list]

xnview wrote:...
The setting "Automatically apply parent keywords..." is when you select a category in the UI
For this file, the IPTC/XMP keyword is "flower,Drosera", not 2 words!! And the XMP:lr:hierarchical subject has only a category (Drosera), if you have 2 words, lr must be "subject[1]=flower,Drosera, subject[2]=flower"

[*]Select another image with no keywords and, in the categories subwindow, click on "Photographs->Pets" to assign that category to the image. The IPTC:keyword becomes "Photographs,Pets" (note the comma separator rather than '|'. XMP:dc provides Subject[1] and Subject[2] and XMP:lr: has hierarchicalSubject[1]="Photographs" as well as hierarchicalSubject[2]="Photographs|Pets"

I can't reproduce, i have always | not , as separator

[*]By the way, using '|' as a separator with no space is not a good choice, because other programs do not necessarily recognise it and regard the compound as a single word - making searches fail.[/list]

so a settings to choose between |,/\.: ??

CameronD wrote:But this is not happening in all cases. XnViewMP will write XMP data in one way, but will interpret it differently when it reads it back in.

xnview wrote:

CameronD wrote:But this is not happening in all cases. XnViewMP will write XMP data in one way, but will interpret it differently when it reads it back in.

in which case you have not the same thing??
Perhaps i need to add '*' as keywords separator if exiftools use it?

Subject[1] = flower
Subject[2] = Drosera

Subject = flower*Drosera

Subject="flower, Drosera"

CameronD wrote: However, sometimes my workflow has managed to create

Code: Select all

Subject="flower, Drosera"

where there is a single keyword entry and the comma is embedded on the file's metadata.
Because I was not aware of this distinction until now, I might have not reported it correctly.

I will do some more tests. I am quite confident that it is some process within MP that writes it in this way, but I will need to reproduce it.

So, Pierre, can you confirm the expected behaviour?

Is it that the only place the keyword separator should appear is in the XMP:lr:HierarchicalSubject items?
Should multiple keywords in IPTC and XMP:subject always be stored as multiple entries?