XNViewMP - Linux Mint 22

[Pegasusphil]

Hi - If I assign categories to files and then move the files (or a folder containing the files) to another location or another disk, the categories are lost. Should they not be 'sticky' to the files themselves? Does the 'move' have to be done inside XNViewMP? (I moved the files externally as there were a large number of folders). It's very frustrating as it means rebuilding all category entries whenever files are relocated. No sure if this reported already, I looked but didn't find it.
Thanks.

[jkm]

Hi - If I assign categories to files and then move the files (or a folder containing the files) to another location or another disk, the categories are lost. Should they not be 'sticky' to the files themselves? Does the 'move' have to be done inside XNViewMP? (I moved the files externally as there were a large number of folders). It's very frustrating as it means rebuilding all category entries whenever files are relocated. No sure if this reported already, I looked but didn't find it.
Thanks.

Welcome to the forums...

I'll try to help you... The app can deal with those things easily; it's done every day. Your issue is almost certainly not a bug, but user error, depending on either exactly what you're doing or how you have the application settings set. This would not have happened if you had moved or copied the files using XnViewMP, but that is not required if you have your settings set properly and do things correctly.

Handling metadata can be complicated generally, and the app has many settings that can seem tricky if you don't know what you're doing.

A couple of things to start:

- Better to post support requests in the MP-General forum. This is the Bug Report forum, for when you're sure you have a bug.
- You'll be more likely to get help if the subject of your thread has something to do with your question. "XnViewMP Linux Mint 22" doesn't say what you're asking about. I suggest you edit it to something like "Losing categories when moving files".

So, to try and figure out exactly what you're doing, you'll need to provide some answers:

1. What is the file type you're trying to assign categories to? jpeg, Sony Raw, bmp, what? This matters, because different type of files have different capabilities for holding metadata.

2. Are you using sidecar files or not? What are your settings in Settings:Metadata:Sidecar ? (post a screenshot, preferably) If you don't even know what sidecars are or have never heard of it, please say so.

3. What are your settings in Settings:Metadata ? Please post a screenshot of the Settings:Metadata page.

4. What are your settings in Settings:File List:Companion Files? A screenshot of that as well would be helpful

Some file types require sidecars to hold things like categories, because the format doesn't allow storing that type of data. Then you may have your settings set to not write the correct type of data into either the master file or the sidecar, as needed. Or the problem could be that the XnViewMP correctly stored the data in sidecars, but you neglected to move the sidecars when you moved the files.

So there’s lots of ways one can go wrong… But I'm sure we can sort it out.

[Pegasusphil]

Thanks - sorry for misposting as a bug - noted.

Your questions were helpful - I'm fairly knowledgeable on image management but had stupidly missed some of the settings (sidecar etc). I've made some changes to settings and things seem to be working now. Just a couple of short general questions if I may - are the xmp files only created after an edit is made to an image (none seem to be created by the application by default)? And for sidecar files created for video files (I have lots of folders that contain both jpg and mp4 files and I'd like to give them all categories , labels etc) - there's an option to include 'video files' in the settings (which I have ticked), but no option to edit the xmp file when you right click on an mp4 and select 'Metadata' on the pull down menu - it's greyed out). Is that because I haven't edited any videos yet for XNViewMP to see a change?

Thanks!

[jkm]

Right, the app does not just automatically start creating sidecars because "Create or update sidecar" is on; there has to be a reason: writing data. So if you edit metadata, the sidecar will get created as long as you have the export options set correctly, or you can force its creation by doing an "Update files from catalog" on the Metadata menu. Also, if you're going to use sidecars, make sure you've enabled the link options in Settings:File List:Companion files; that will make things seamless when you copy/move/rename within the app.

Regarding videos, I think you misunderstand that option. It's not to edit the .XMP file, it's to edit XMP metadata (which the app doesn't support for video; so it's greyed out). If you try Edit XMP on an image file, you'll see what it does. Remember, the right-click menu is not everything; there's also the main menu bar.

Obviously most video formats have an extremely limited or nonexistent capacity for metadata compared to common image files (Quicktime, MP4, and Matroska (MKV) are exceptions). And likewise, XnViewMP's metadata capabilities with video are currently very limited. You can assign ratings, keywords (categories) and color labels, and not much more. It will store those in sidecars for the video files.

More video metadata capabilities may be added to the app in the future, but right now it's quite limited.

You can write arbitrary XMP-type metadata to MP4 (or sidecars) with Exiftool, but XnViewMP will mostly not recognize it. But you should be able to see it in the Exiftool tab of the Info panel.

Hopefully this helps... I'm glad you were able to get your lost categories problem sorted by looking at the settings.


By the way, please do edit your 1st post and change the subject to something descriptive: that will help other users who are searching the forum for answers.