ExifTool for Dummies

[Phil Harvey]

Ah, it seems as if the Wiki page had an expiration date.  Oh well.  That went nowhere anyway.

You can email me the document if you want.  My mail is philharvey66 at gmail.com.

Ideally an HTML document would be best eventually, but a Word document is fine for now.

- Phil

[terrypin]

What link are you talking about?  These 2 still work for me:

https://exiftool.org/dummies.html

https://exiftool.org/examples.html

- Phil

http://ninedegreesbelow.com/2011/imaging/exiftool_digikam/exiftool_digikam.html


I was unfamiliar with the forum when I posted; I should have used Quote. It was in Elle Stone's post dated 25th January 2011. Extract:

Do you think it might be useful to new ExifTool users if you posted a collection of links to "how to" web pages? I bet a lot of the forum members have posted ExifTool "how to" examples to their own websites. I just put one up for the benefit of digiKam users. In case you are curious, here it is: http://ninedegreesbelow.com/2011/imaging/exiftool_digikam/exiftool_digikam.html

And no, my feelings won't be hurt if you do post links with examples and don't post mine!

Elle Stone


--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[tripper]

I just registered to tell Phil Harvey what a pompous fool he is.  Yes, pompous fool!  Why?  When you write nonsense like...

"What? A dummy running Linux? I don't believe it."

...it looks like you were born bright.  Yes, you never had to learn Linux because you are a genius.  Well, let me tell you a secret: Linux remains at the bottom of the barrel and will never be as popular as Windows because of fools like you.

Have a good one fool. ;-)

[Phil Harvey]

Have a good one fool. ;-)

Thanks!

- Phil

[mpegleg]

Am I going to get hounded for brushing off the cobwebs of this old thread? I hope not. 

Wow. It's a shame this went nowhere. That tripper guy certainly was rude. I think he was trippin'... on misery.

Phil... I hope that didn't dampen any enthusiasm you may have had to carry on with a ExifTool for Dummies. It's a great idea, but I now understand some of the complexities of the project, esp. with so many different facets to it, and multiple operating systems/computer languages that you have to cater to.

I was wondering... what happened to the ExifTool wiki idea? Couldn't it perhaps be managed by some of the more knowledgeable members here, which would mean that you wouldn't have to spend too much time working on it?

Anyway... I was just reading through this thread, and kind of wondered what happened? Are there not that many n00bs perusing this forum like me anymore?

_{I guess you guys are so helpful to us n00bs that it may not be so necessary. I've certainly learnt so much already from you all, except most folks probably wouldn't be as bold as to ask so many n00b "school science project homework" type questions as I have over the past few days.}

Cheers
-Paul

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Paul,

The "ExifTool for Dummies" idea never went anywhere basically because ExifTool is just too darn flexible.  There is often a very simple way (ie. a "dummy" solution) for what someone wants to do, but there are just too many different things that people want to do with ExifTool.  This makes for a document that is too lengthy to read.

Also, most of the problems that people have running ExifTool are with the operating system and terminal that they are using, and not with ExifTool/metadata itself, and I have trouble motivating myself to spend time on this sort of thing.

- Pil

[mpegleg]

That's cool.

I'm just beginning to see what would be involved, and yes, I see that (by reading some of the forum posts) that most people who frequent this forum already have quite a technical ability anyway, so I completely understand where you are coming from.

I can see now that ExifTool really is more geared up to being used in other GUI tools and editing software packages, etc, so most folks would not need to get too involved in the nitty gritty of how ExifTool functions. I am so glad that I discovered it though. That was a great stroke of luck. 

Cheers,
-Paul

_{I'm awaiting the announcement by Google of their new GET engine. (GET = Google ExifTool Translator)
"When you just don't get it... GET it"}

[mpegleg]

use Acme::Comment start => '[[', end => ']]';

[[

*start-of-2c-rant*

I will just quickly add my 2c though Phil... and don't feel you have to respond... as I think you've said your piece already, and I can see your eyes rolling, and hear you grumbling about that damn pesky mpegleg character that just won't shut up, but...

having looked at this page: ExifTool Command-Line Examples, and played around with the selectable features and headings, etc. My first thought was...

That is brilliant. If you (or some other willing participant) were to gather every snippet of working code examples from this forum, and put them on that page, you'd have a winner!

Currently the examples are good, but there's just "way" too few of them. Naturally the collapsible text headings is the way to go, so that one doesn't drown in a sea of text, but I think this could be easily be rigged to show a few examples first, with some [+expand for more examples] style buttons to add extra info for those looking for extra examples, etc.

Note: Personally I'd prefer minimal discussion of how the code does it's magic, and more "real-life" examples of code snippets with accompanying output.

...a n d... I'd love to see some example of ExifTool + Regex... because it appears to me... that's when the magic really happens!... but of course you'd need to put that on a separate page so that the n00biphiles don't confuse what is pure unadulterated ExifTool code with the combo ExifTool + Regex code.

ps. You only have to look at the view count for this particular topic (currently: 97603 Views) to realise just how many people are searching for "ExifTool for Dummies".

*end-of-2c rant*

]]