new version => 5 : modify IPTC ?

[chcoste]

Hello !
I don't see in the new version how to modify IPTC (and EXIF, XMP) simply as in version 4.27, in the right panel ?
it was very easy with ^ in the right panel.
Thanks

[BogdanH]

Hi,
I see you didn't read manual... so, in short:
In previous versions, it was me, who decided about what tag you should edit in Exif, Xmp and Iptc. And if you didn't agree with my decission, well.. bad luck.
In GUIv5, you decide what tag you wish to edit: every tag listed in Workspace, can be directly edited. When you start new GUI the first time, few default tags are listed there -so you have at least something to start with. However, it is expected that user customizes Workspace content; that is, remove some tags there and add another.
I recommend you to visit GUI download page again and read manual, where I tried to describe how to adapt Workspace according to your needs. And there's also a short video, showing "real" workflow.

Bogdan

[chcoste]

Hello,

thanks, Bodgan,

I had "read" the manual, and also the video ! But effectly very bad (I understand english, but french is my native language) ! in fact, change old habits is sometimes difficult...

But effectly the new is also very simple... shame...

don't answer if it is in manual, but I have also not see this problem, is it also possible to modify in same time for example 3 or 10 images ? in the same directory (not in different folder I think) ?

Sorry and thanks.
Charles-André

[BogdanH]

Hi Charles-André,

Yes, you can modify more than one file at once: in Filelist, just select files you wish to modify. When you do that, metadata of first selected file in Filelist will be shown in Workspace. Now you can start editing tags in Workspace and every modifyied tag will be shown on yellow background. When you are done with editing, click on Save button -and that's all.
In short, in Filelist, you can select as many files as you wish to edit.

Bogdan

[chcoste]

Thanks Bodgan,

I thought it was not the good process, I have before exactly doing that !
But the problem was only finally - on my PC - that ... I must "refresh" after the process ... to see the result !!!!
For me Exiftoolgui for the dummy....

Is this possible - generally - in exiftoolgui to work recursively with directory ?

Have a good day.
Charles-André

[BogdanH]

Hi,

You can modify files recursively (in subdirectiries) only in ExifTool direct panel. In this case you select NO file in Filelist and then specify directory in command. For example:
-Exif:Artist="my name" -r -ext jpg d:\photos

Tryout on some test files first!

Bogdan

[pb]

Hi,
I see you didn't read manual... so, in short:
In previous versions, it was me, who decided about what tag you should edit in Exif, Xmp and Iptc. And if you didn't agree with my decission, well.. bad luck.
In GUIv5, you decide what tag you wish to edit: every tag listed in Workspace, can be directly edited. When you start new GUI the first time, few default tags are listed there -so you have at least something to start with. However, it is expected that user customizes Workspace content; that is, remove some tags there and add another.
I recommend you to visit GUI download page again and read manual, where I tried to describe how to adapt Workspace according to your needs. And there's also a short video, showing "real" workflow.

Bogdan

In defense of chcoste, I am a native English speaker and I also did not see from reading the manual how to modify IPTC values.  Upon rereading the manual in light of the comments in this thread, I still find that it is far from clear how to modify IPTC values.  However, I also note that Bogdan is not a native English speaker, so we can ascribe some lack of clarity to language issues.

As best as I can understand the manual, you need to know what exiftool is going to call the tag to add the ability to modify it in your "workspace."  In my opinion, this is a step backward from the idea of a user-friendly gui, because I will now have to look up in the voluminous exiftool documentation what the exact name of some tag is.  If I have to do all that, I may as well just run exiftool myself.

A better choice, imho, and consider this a feature request, is to make the set of default fields presented in the workspace be the same ones that you had selected for modifiability in older versions of gui.  This appeared to be a rich and useful set.

Of course, if you really wanted to do more work, you could provide the user with the set of all known tag names to select from in order to add them to the workspace.  This would be a more typical approach for a menu-driven system.

--peter

[Phil Harvey]

There are currently 5826 unique tag names recognized by ExifTool.

But I also vote for default set of tags in the Workspace that is equivalent to what was used in version 4.  It is easier to delete tags from the workspace than to add them.

- Phil

[BogdanH]

Hi Peter, Phil

I admit being wrong with my reasoning. As it seems, there's only minority of users, which think about using metadata the way I am thinking. I always felt, how limiting those fixed metadata editing panels were in pre-five versions. Maybe they were comfortable to some degree, but limited nontheless. Especially, because from time to time, there were requests from users, who also need to populate "other" tag instead of "that" tag.
What I wasn't aware of was, that most users actually don't wish to spend time by learning metadata tags, groups, sections, specifications, etc. They just expect (fool proof) predefined fields, ready to be populated...

In that sense, I will prepare additional Workspace ini file, which will contain all tags from v4 and maybe some additional, which might be of use. As Phil said: it's easy to delete some of them later

Bogdan

[Phil Harvey]

Thanks Bogdan,

Are you going to use this new .ini as the default for future releases?

- Phil

[pb]

Thanks, Bogdan and Phil.

Of those ~6000 tags, how many pertain to the subset of files handled by exiftoolgui, though?

--peter

[BogdanH]

Hi Phil, Peter

Good question. Yes, actually I had in mind to create only one companion ini file, which would be inside every zip package. I expect some will then ask for advice "which of those two tags should I use?", but that's ok. Anyway, I don't like the idea to "hardcode" all those tags. Especially because, sometimes I experiment with existing hardcoded tags, and it can easy happen I forget to put Workspace in previous state.
This ini file won't be loaded by default. However, if user loads it once (and change tags as necessary), it can be automatically used as default Workspace -I mean, Workspace already works that way.

How many tags will I put in there? No, I don't plan to put some "exotic" tags in there. GUI v4 had about 60 editable tags in three panels... thinking fast, I expect there will be about 20 additional tags -so, about 80 (most used) tags in total. 5826, huh? 

Bogdan

[Phil Harvey]

Sounds good, but is there any way for the application to load the default .ini if it doesn't find one in the system directory?  Say, look for it in the current directory?  It would be nice if this was somehow automatic.  Otherwise I think you'll probably still get people who ask questions because they didn't read enough to know they should load it themselves.

Yes, 5826 tags.  But many of these are not writable.  My stats program doesn't count the writable tags separately, but I did it just now by hand.  Of these, only 3256 are writable.

- Phil

[pb]

Yes, 5826 tags.  But many of these are not writable.  My stats program doesn't count the writable tags separately, but I did it just now by hand.  Of these, only 3256 are writable.

- Phil

Assuming you were responding to my question, my point was that exiftoolGUI is primarily concerned with still image files, though I now see that apparently it will happily run exiftool on any file you point it to.  So, I was thinking that the number of tags that have to do with still image files is probably smaller than 5826.

But, I think Bogdan has the situation well under control, and we'll be seeing an improved UI soon.

Of course, I guess someone could write some code that operates on exiftool's repository of existing tags to generate a workspace.ini file containing all existing tags, which could be run on each new version of exiftool, so nothing would have to be done by hand.  I'm not requesting that, but probably it could be done, perhaps by adapting your stats code.

--peter

[pb]

Hi Peter, Phil

I admit being wrong with my reasoning. As it seems, there's only minority of users, which think about using metadata the way I am thinking. I always felt, how limiting those fixed metadata editing panels were in pre-five versions. Maybe they were comfortable to some degree, but limited nontheless. Especially, because from time to time, there were requests from users, who also need to populate "other" tag instead of "that" tag.
What I wasn't aware of was, that most users actually don't wish to spend time by learning metadata tags, groups, sections, specifications, etc. They just expect (fool proof) predefined fields, ready to be populated...

In that sense, I will prepare additional Workspace ini file, which will contain all tags from v4 and maybe some additional, which might be of use. As Phil said: it's easy to delete some of them later

Bogdan

BTW, I think it's very useful to be able to specify any obscure tag you like in the Workspace feature.  This makes the program totally general, which is a plus.  My complaint just had to do with what was preloaded by default.

--peter