Congratulations on v5!

[Beholder3]

Thanks Bogdan for the good work again. The new feature (at least I have overseen it before) to customize the quick view is absolutely great! 

Some minor things IMHO:

   
• In the quick view customization popup you can only select a line to be deleted if you click on the input columns. If you actually click on the tag (left column) you only get that "sort" cursor between two entries.
• Thankfully it is now possible to copy (Ctrl-C) a tag value from the metadata panel. I now know it works, but I wouldn't suspect so - adding "copy tag value" might by added to the right click context popup window maybe, so the unsuspecting user also finds this nice feature.
• In the filelist you offer those 5 different details views: I know I brought it up already a long while ago... maybe there is some way to have a similar degree (and method) of customization as is for the single file quick view now. Maybe even link it to be the same.
• And cosmetically the GUI chosen color doesn't stick. After restarting the app we're back to grey.

[BogdanH]

Hi,

Thanks Bogdan for the good work again. The new feature (at least I have overseen it before) to customize the quick view is absolutely great! 

Thanks for nice words.

• In the quick view customization popup you can only select a line to be deleted if you click on the input columns. If you actually click on the tag (left column) you only get that "sort" cursor between two entries.

I made it that way, so one couldn't miss there's "move" option (that was the idea).

• Thankfully it is now possible to copy (Ctrl-C) a tag value from the metadata panel. I now know it works, but I wouldn't suspect so - adding "copy tag value" might by added to the right click context popup window maybe, so the unsuspecting user also finds this nice feature.

At first, I was thinking about that. But I somehow hate very "busy" menus and in future, some more "important" entry might be needed inside popup menu... Anyway, notice taken 

• In the filelist you offer those 5 different details views: I know I brought it up already a long while ago... maybe there is some way to have a similar degree (and method) of customization as is for the single file quick view now. Maybe even link it to be the same.

You mean something like "Move tag to User defined file details", I suppose. I'll look into that...

• And cosmetically the GUI chosen color doesn't stick. After restarting the app we're back to grey.

Yes, I know  At first, GUI was supposed to be "shaded grey" only and additional colors were added just before I finished GUI... just for fun, so to speak. I'll take care of that in next GUI.

Bogdan

[Phil Harvey]

My compliments.  I just spent the last hour playing with ExifTool GUI v5.00, and I'm impressed!!  (I wish there was something like this for the Mac!)

I've got lots of comments and questions, and maybe even a couple of suggestions.  But feel free to ignore any of my suggestions because I am a real newbie when it comes to the Windows GUI.

1. I love that you have implemented the -lang option. This is great, because this is a potentially very useful option that most people don't know about.  It is unfortunate that using this feature disables all items in the metadata panel pop-up menu, but I think I understand why this happens.  Maybe sometime in the future I'll add an exiftool option to output both tag name and description so you can fix this (this is already possible with the -X option of course, but parsing the XML output probably isn't something you want to do).

2. The -stay_open implementation seems to work perfectly, and the GUI is VERY responsive.  Well done!  It is so fast that I can't tell if you are using it for the Quick view or not.  Are you?  Or are you still using your own code for Quick view?

3.  I can see why having a sort feature is very useful in the GUI.  I think I'll keep this option checked all the time.

4.  I think all of the export options are great.

5.  I'm very surprised that you have an option to embed a preview image into RAW files.  I would think this would be a very uncommon task.  Similarly, I am surprised at the "group by instance" feature you have included.

6.  I like your date/time equalize feature.  You could easily combine the "date modified as in Exif" into this feature by adding it to the dialog box and allowing the user to select which date/time tags to copy into with an extra checkbox for each tag.  But maybe the way you have it is less confusing because it makes a clear distinction between metadata and file attributes.

7.  I love the way you can edit the quick view and custom view.  One funny quirk though is that the FilePermissions tag doesn't work in the Quick view... which makes me think you're still not using Exiftool for this view.

8.  You could simplify the metadata pop-up menu by removing 2 items and having "add tag to custom view" change to "remove tag from custom view" when in custom view, and "add tag to quick view" change to "remove tag from quick view" when in quick view.  Also, why can't I copy a tags between quick view and custom view?  In quick view the "add tag to custom view" is disabled, and visa versa.

9.  Why can't I mark/unmark a tag in custom or quick view?  I maybe understand quick view, but I don't understand why you can't do this in the custom view.

10.  When I select a file and edit some tags, I lose my changes if I select another file before saving.  I would expect a warning to pop up asking me if I want to save my changes first.

Well, I think that's enough for now.  Time for me to get to bed.

Let me congratulate you again on this version.  I think it's great!

- Phil

[BogdanH]

Hi Phil,

Thank you very much for taking time for trying GUI.
Before you start reading my answers/reasons below: keep in mind, that GUI was made for "average" user (like me), which you're not -this is ment to be a compliment

1. About -lang
Yes, you've recognized the problem correctly. For now, I will wait for feedback on this. Right now, it's important that ExifTool remains fast and if really needed, the same commands can be executed twice: with/without -lang (you get the idea).

2. GUI works using -stay_open all the time. ExifTool is additionally called in "classic" mode only for ExifTool direct (so I don't need to parse commands). And GUI's internal parsing is only used for predefined Details in filelist.
Having such fast response with -stay_open, it was possible to make Quick view customizable -as mentioned, it was the main reason for making GUIv5.

3. Yes, sorted... how come we waited that long with this?

4. Export options.. I need MIE or HTML sometimes, but quite often you ask here, user should send you this, or that...

5. Embedding preview in raw files.. I use this for my "five stars" photos. Canon DPP (raw converter which I use) doesn't embed "developed" image back to raw file -actually, no converter does that. And because most image previewers (I use FastStone) show embedded image only, one can't see "final" result when previewing. So I put developed jpg back into raw. But as said, only "best of the best" get this treatment -not many, that is
Group tags by instance: I noticed, you've asked for such listing few times here.. And you'll remember the issue I had not that long ago with showing duplicates?

6. As you may have noticed from my posts, I don't care much about file attributes nor do I understand all that "obsession" too keep them "perfect". It may sound stupid, but for me, every file "Date modified" option is somehow hard to include... I mean, metadata is what matters for archival purpose.

7. System tags are only visible in ALL and Custom view -and there, Add to Quick view doesn't work. For "advanced" users however, any tag (incl. FilePermissions) can be added manually by using QuickView manager.

8. Changing, instead of disabling "impossible options" -that's what you mean? Yes, this makes sense: pup-up would become "cleaner". I'll look into this.

9. Marking tags in Quick and Custom view... You've got me here: right now, I really can't tell the reason why's that. I'll re-check this.

10. You're right about edited (not saved) tag values can be lost quick -I'll add warning message.

I think, I need a short break.. to be able to recognize "important" changes needed to be done in GUI.. that is, maybe I should actually start using it 

Bogdan

[Beholder3]

   
• In the filelist you offer those 5 different details views: I know I brought it up already a long while ago... maybe there is some way to have a similar degree (and method) of customization as is for the single file quick view now. Maybe even link it to be the same.

You mean something like "Move tag to User defined file details", I suppose. I'll look into that...

Yes it could be like that or just simply have a detail view option called "user defined quick view" and this could display all the tags from the right side metadata panel "quick" view (which you can customize now to nicely) as columns in the center filelist.
I assume a user puts his/her most wanted tags in the metada quick view and would therefore also like to see them listed in the filelist for sorting and quick overview.

[Phil Harvey]

8. Changing, instead of disabling "impossible options" -that's what you mean?

Exactly.

I think, I need a short break.. to be able to recognize "important" changes needed to be done in GUI.. that is, maybe I should actually start using it 

Good plan. 

- Phil

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Bogdan,

I have a couple more questions this morning that I have been wondering about...

What exactly is the reason for having both Quick and Custom views with v5?  It seems to me that they now serve exactly the same purpose, although editing isn't allowed in Custom view for some reason.  Why not just simplify things and remove the Custom view altogether?  (and remove the restriction about adding System tags to the Quick view)

But I could see the advantage of having 2 custom views with different sets of tags in each, which is essentially what you have now.  Is this is the reason for keeping both?  If so, why not name them Custom1 and Custom2 (or some other pair of matching names) and give them the same capabilities?

Continuing on with this thought...  I would have imagined that it would be easier for you as a programmer to have the same capabilities for all views.  Then you use the same code for everything.  From a user standpoint this would be great too, because then you would have the editing feature in all views.

- Phil

[BogdanH]

Hi Phil,

Yes, "Custom" seems to be a relic from GUIv4... the reason why it's still here is:
When I do some "research" on metadata (mostly Makernotes), then I'm usually interested only on few tags, which I don't use otherwise, nor I'm after editing them. That is, it happens, I change Custom content quite often per session. Too bad, I didn't use the oportunity to rename it to "Temp" (for temporary) or similar -would be more appropriate.
That is, complete top row of buttons is ment to be metadata "viewers" only; for "let's see what else is written into image files". You know, i.e. not everyone can distinguish between Iptc and Xmp 
Quick view content on the other hand, is something I don't change often: that's data I'm interested on all the time and data I edit regulary -it's a "working" panel.

...(and remove the restriction about adding System tags to the Quick view)

But manually, all tags can be added to Quick view.

Same capabilities for all views is not far from one view with all capabilities (yes, it would be easier for me). Some probably wonder, why I keep GUI somehow restrictive. It's because I assume, not everybody is fully familiar with metadata and permanent damage can be done very quickly. This forum is rare exception, where some members/visitors wish to learn more.
But in first place, GUI was made for those, who don't care about all that. It's for those, who only "forgot to adjust camera time on vacation" and then (in GUI) they see, they can also put some additional info inside.
I don't know... am I trying to be too carefull? Am I underestimating users?

Bogdan

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Bogdan,

Quick view content on the other hand, is something I don't change often: that's data I'm interested on all the time and data I edit regulary -it's a "working" panel.

EXACTLY!  Even before you mentioned this, I was thinking that it should be renamed to the "Working" view.  This would have cleared up some of my initial confusion when I was trying to figure out why I couldn't edit any tags.

...(and remove the restriction about adding System tags to the Quick view)

But manually, all tags can be added to Quick view.

Yes.  I did this for FilePermissions as I mentioned, but the value was always "-" in the Quick view, whereas the value showed correctly in the Custom view when I added it there.  I checked my spelling a bunch of times and I think I got it right, but there is a chance I was fooling myself.

Same capabilities for all views is not far from one view with all capabilities (yes, it would be easier for me).

That's an even better idea.

Some probably wonder, why I keep GUI somehow restrictive. It's because I assume, not everybody is fully familiar with metadata and permanent damage can be done very quickly. This forum is rare exception, where some members/visitors wish to learn more.
But in first place, GUI was made for those, who don't care about all that. It's for those, who only "forgot to adjust camera time on vacation" and then (in GUI) they see, they can also put some additional info inside.
I don't know... am I trying to be too carefull? Am I underestimating users?

I understand this, and for this reason maybe I'm not the best one to give suggestions for you... 

...but I won't let that stop me. 

- Phil

[BogdanH]

Hi Phil,

I'm glad you've come back on this... sometimes I am affraid not using proper terms to expess myself and that I might sound rude.

You're right; as it is now (using -stay_open), all views are quick anyway. So, decission is final: this button will be renamed to...? .. I mean, I never saw "Work" button in some software before 

When you mentioned -FilePermissions the first time, I tried that, and it works here, showing rw-rw-rw-. If result is "-", then there must be type error -for all tags shown in Quick (for now) view, -f option is used.

Bogdan

[Phil Harvey]

I'm glad you've come back on this... sometimes I am affraid not using proper terms to expess myself and that I might sound rude.

That thought has never crossed my mind.

So, decission is final: this button will be renamed to...? .. I mean, I never saw "Work" button in some software before 

I'll think about this and see if I can come up with something.

When you mentioned -FilePermissions the first time, I tried that, and it works here, showing rw-rw-rw-. If result is "-", then there must be type error -for all tags shown in Quick (for now) view, -f option is used.

OK, thanks for testing this.  Must be me.  I'll try this again.

- Phil

[coz]

Perhaps "Standard View"

So, decission is final: this button will be renamed to...? .. I mean, I never saw "Work" button in some software before 

I'll think about this and see if I can come up with something.

[chcoste]

yes, beautiful, but there is no more renaming

[Phil Harvey]

No more renaming?  It sounded to me as if Bogdan was open to suggestions about this.

I was trying to think of a name that would imply that you could change things in this view (as opposed to others).  Working view gives this impression, but a "Working" button would be misleading.   But how about this?:

Remove the "Custom" button from the first row and the "Quick" button on the 1st row, and in their place add "Workspace 1" and "Workspace 2" buttons on the 2nd row.  These would both have the same functionality as the old Quick view, but allow the user to have 2 sets of tags.

Bogdan, please disregard this idea if you don't like it.

Oh, and tried out FilePermissions in the Quick view, and it worked this time!  I don't know what I was doing wrong before because my settings weren't saved so I couldn't see what I did before.  Which leads to another question...  I ran some tests to see why the settings weren't saved, and I can reproduce this:  In Windows XP, if you change some settings then log out before quitting the program, the settings aren't saved.  Is this expected?  On a Mac, logging out exists all open programs for you so all of their settings are saved -- I do this a lot because it is faster than quitting each program individually when I am done.

- Phil

[BogdanH]

Hi,

@ chcoste
I assume, you mean Rename files menu option. As usual, when making new GUI, I have concentrated on metadata manipulation in first place (this time, especially on new communication between ExifTool and GUI). Hopefully, no major bugs will be reported from users, then I'll start adding some of 'less important' options which existed in old GUI.

@ Phil

Remove the "Custom" button from the first row and the "Quick" button on the 1st row,...

-you probably mean "Quick" button in the 2nd row.

As I can see, you don't find much use for "Custom" view But as mentioned, I do use it occasionally to isolate tags of interest in separate view. And Quick view can't serve that purpose, because there, tag names can't be ID prefixed. Maybe name (Custom) has become misleading.. should be "Temp" or similar.
Btw. as it is now, optionally, composite tags are also shown in Custom, because this view usually isn't that busy.

Two "workspace" buttons with identical capabilites in second row... So, instead of having one "long" list of tags, user could separate between ie. Exif and Xmp (about photo) metadata, or whatever needed. I DO like the idea!
Added: This would require two popup menu entries: "Add tag to Workspace-1" and "Add tag to Workspace-2"...

I allways close programs before exiting Windows -habbit from old days probably . As it is now, GUI saves settings/state only when "properly" closing. Right now, I have no idea, how to catch "log off" event (never needed that), but I will look into this.
Added: Log off issue solved -so GUI will save settings in next update.

Bogdan

[Phil Harvey]

-you probably mean "Quick" button in the 2nd row.

Yes. Typo.

As I can see, you don't find much use for "Custom" view

Not true.  I was suggesting renaming it to "Workspace 2" and adding the edit feature to it as well.

And Quick view can't serve that purpose, because there, tag names can't be ID prefixed.

Oh.  I didn't realize this.  My idea won't work then.  I had thought the Custom view was essentially the same as the Quick view, but without the edit feature.  I should play with this some more to see what other differences there are.

I allways close programs before exiting Windows -habbit from old days probably . As it is now, GUI saves settings/state only when "properly" closing. Right now, I have no idea, how to catch "log off" event (never needed that), but I will look into this.
Added: Log off issue solved -so GUI will save settings in next update.

Thanks!!

- Phil

[chcoste]

Thanks for the work at an other version !

The rename file option in version 4.27 (where can I it download now ?) was really great !!!
The choice for datetimeoriginal and datecreated and datemodified, with format YYYYMMDD_HHMMS and other was simply and great, but I Think only for non recursive folder.

Thank for your work !
Charles-André Coste
(If you want an help for a french version... )

[BogdanH]

Hi,

You can get GUI v4.27 here. However, I expect rename option will be in next update 

Bogdan

[degentd]

Thank you Bodan for the new version, for all your efforts made developing this great piece of software.  I'm checking regularly your site for every little change in your software and hardly waiting any kind of updates!

Regards, zoli

[BogdanH]

Hi zoli,

Welcome in forum and thank you for kind words about GUI.
I expect to make next version available when I finish "rename" option -at that point, GUIv5 will have all "important" options which already existed in old GUI.

Bogdan

[Phil Harvey]

Version 5.03 is great!  I really like the changes since 5.00.  The popup menus are a lot cleaner, and I think the Workspace name makes things easier to understand for the first-time user.

This is a very useful tool.

I have a couple of questions:

1) Why does the "Show Composite data" apply only to the "Custom" view?  I would have expected this to apply only to the "All" view, which would allow you to choose which custom tags you wanted shown in "Custom".  Also, why "Show Composite data" and not "Show Composite tags"?

2) I managed to confuse myself a number of times trying to add/remove tags from the "Custom" view.  Maybe this is something I just have to get used to, but when I right click on a tag and select "Remove tag from Custom view", it isn't the tag that I right-clicked on that is removed.  Instead, it is the last tag that was left-clicked.  I had a bug report all prepared until I figured out what was happening.  Would it cause problems if a right click first changed the selected tag before raising the popup menu?

- Phil

[BogdanH]

Hi Phil,

Agree on popup menu being cleaner now -and you didn't miss icons I've added there, did you? 

1) Right now, I can think of two reasons:

• I don't see "composite" tags as "real" tags, because their values are calculated from various metadata sections/tags -they appear like metadata "summary" to me. So, in my view,  these tags belong outside of "real" metadata.
• At first (old GUI versions), composite tags were listed in view ALL, but "ALL" list can be quite long in some cases...

I don't look at composite tags that often, so I'm open to suggestions: anywhere, except in Exif, Xmp or Iptc -because these three views allow "Add to Workspace" option.
To be honest, I'm still not sure about "Custom" view.. it could also be used as template for csv file creation, or similar... we'll see.
About "Show composite data" vs "Show composite tags"... well, I've just picked something, without thinking any further. For me, it has similar meaning, but I can hardly judge that -you're lucky I didn't choose my language . I will change that. Added: Done.

2) Yes, first select, then right-click... I don't like that either, but my brains refuse to admit that, because it means: do something! . I will see how to change that. Added: Done (much better now)

Thank you for comments,
Bogdan

[Phil Harvey]

Agree on popup menu being cleaner now -and you didn't miss icons I've added there, did you? 

Yes, I saw these.  They look nice but I didn't look too closely at them yet.

I'm open to suggestions: anywhere, except in Exif, Xmp or Iptc -because these three views allow "Add to Workspace" option.

Agreed.  It makes sense if you can't add these to the Workspace.

My vote is to move the Custom Composite tags to the All view, and allow them to be added to the Custom view individually by the user.

Edit: I meant "Composite tags" above, but you knew that already.

To be honest, I'm still not sure about "Custom" view.. it could also be used as template for csv file creation, or similar... we'll see.

I like the custom view.  As you said, All is very long sometimes, and the Custom view lets you pick out exactly the tags that are interesting to you.

About "Show composite data" vs "Show composite tags"... well, I've just picked something, without thinking any further. For me, it has similar meaning, but I can hardly judge that -you're lucky I didn't choose my language . I will change that.

Thanks.   It think it makes some sense to have similar terminology between ExifTool and the GUI.

2) Yes, first select, then right-click... I don't like that either, but my brains refuse to admit that, because it means: do something! . I will see how to change that. Added: Done (much better now)

Thanks again!  I'm glad you agree with this.  At this point I'm still making suggestions about things that confuse me as a new user.   So feel free to ignore any of my suggestions if they don't make sense to you.

- Phil

[BogdanH]

Ok, composite tags will move (back) to view ALL -after all, there shuld be "all" . And I absolutely agree about terminology!!

Suggestion from you (as non regular Windows user) are even of greater value, because you "expect" by intuition. Ok, this right-click selection thing should be done from the first day, because all Win applications work that way.

Bogdan

[coz]

Bogdan/Phil,

The two of you are an amazing team.  Thanks for all you do!

Chris

[Phil Harvey]

Chris:  You're welcome!

Bogdan: I played some more with the GUI.  Those menu icons are really nice.  I didn't appreciate it before, but I realize now that is definitely one reason that the popup menus felt so nice.  They even make sense when I actually pay attention to them, which is saying something because I know how difficult it is to compose meaningful icons that are so small.

- Phil

[BogdanH]

Hi,

Chris: I'm just trying to convince Phil to switch to Windows 

Phil: I've decided for making icons, because there are three "Add tag to.." menu options which required attention and icons somehow make choice faster. Being that small, I had to choose Picasso look 

Bogdan