Best way to provide the user with a selection list of tags that can be inserted

[Cactus26]

Which of the -list... options is best suited for this? I already know that it is not clear in advance what can be actually written. That's ok.

Should there be an option to qualify the tags (g0, gi1, id)?

Thank you for your support!

Cactus

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Cactus,

-listw lists all writable tags, and may be followed by an argument of the form -GROUP:all where GROUP is a family 0, 1 or 2 group name.

- Phil

[Cactus26]

Thank you, Phil.
It seems to me that a list with the columns Category, Tag, Tag Description (en) would offer a good selection option for the user. I could use -listg2 and then -listw -CAT:all for each category. But I can't find a (good) option for the description. Is there one?
Cactus

[Phil Harvey]

ExifTool doesn't have good tag descriptions.  The descriptions for most tags are just the tag name with spaces between the words.

- Phil

[StarGeek]

You should recognize the fact that some of these lists will provide numerous tags that are obscure and relatively useless to most people.  For example, -listw -XMP:All has 2,955 tags.

[Cactus26]

Thanks again guys for helping me!

@Phil: I've analysed the -listx output and now I've realized that it makes no sense to request a new list option for the description. There are only few tags with advancing descriptions and allmost none of them is writable.

@Starkgeek: But how can I distinguish between useful and useless tags?

Cactus

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Cactus,

But how can I distinguish between useful and useless tags?

Useful tags are ones that you find useful. 

I don't know if anyone can answer this for you.  It depends on your individual requirements.

- Phil

[StarGeek]

@Starkgeek: But how can I distinguish between useful and useless tags?

I would say the useful ones are those that are part of the various standards. For example, the most useful would be those in the IPTC Photo Metadata Standard.

And assuming, based upon your other posts, that you are writing a program that uses exiftool, maybe have a way for users to add the tags they want to the list if they need some of the more obscure ones.

[Cactus26]

The suggestion makes me realize that the following categories of metadata tags could be useful for a database application:
1: Tags with dedicated database column and specific data type
2: Tags with generic database column and generic type
3: All other tags for viewing/changing without saving in the database

The 2nd category should be configurable by the user, which is what StartGeek suggests.

Currently I do not have the 2nd category, but am working on improving the 3rd category.
This makes sense to me because I have the feeling that for a good design of the 2nd category I have to dive deeper into the matter.

Thanks for the interesting link!

Cactus