Feature Request: Turn off "n Images updated OK" Pop-up & jump to next file

[Beholder3]

Hi,

I'd like to suggest that it would be a wonderful imporvemnt on the usability side of things if the end-of-processing confirmation "n Images updated OK" Pop-up could be replaced by a text appearing somewhere other (no pop-up) and without the need to click away the "ok" button.
When manually chaning a number of items that can turn out to be a royal pain.

Second suggestion in that same use case is that it would be wonderful if - when editing a certain value in the right hand pane in the quick entry box at the bottom of the screen - after the confirming [return] key pressing the focus would not jump to the next exif field in the same file, but stick to the same entry and jump to the next file in the list of the center pane.

If you want to understand what I mean, just try to manually update the FNumber of say 10 pictures in a row to different values. There is a lot of unnecessary clicking around with the mouse involved.
This use case happens when taking pictures with old manual lenses where the camera does not insert most exif data by itself (e.g. said FNumber) and the photographer has to manually write that in.

[BogdanH]

Hi,
Both suggestions have a valid point and I'm ready to make improvements as far possible.

About showing confirmation messages:
Basic idea was, that user (especially beginner) would actually read resulting messages from ExifTool. Of course, as long files are fine, user only sees "xxx processed files", which, over the time, isn't all that funny.
What can I do... I can "pop-up" only error messages from ExifTool -I mean, those messages do deserve attention (?). The rest of messages comming form ExifTool can be written "elsewhere". Where is elsewhere? When processing a lot of files, resulting message can contain huge amount of lines (of "warnings", "minor errors", etc.). Right now, existing pop-up limit's amount of lines to about 20 (so pop-up wouldn't appear huge).
On main GUI window, I could create space for one or two lines.. this would look nice, but wouldn't be that informative. The only solution I can see right now is, GUI would have a (smaller) "companion" window, where all ExifTool messages would appear. Say, like some "sticky" info window... I think that's not that bad.

Your second idea (described perfectly):
I understand your point... As it is now, work is "optimized" for: user select a file (or more of them) and wish to enter more than one tag values at once (Artist, Copyright, Country, etc.) -IMO, this is much more common scenario than your is.
I will see if I can implement additional "mode", which would cover your needs.

Bogdan

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Bogdan,

Many applications have a "Log Window" or something similar that you can open to see the detailed messages if you want.  Not something sticky though.  A simple status bar could convey a 1-line summary of the last operation (ie. "0 files updated").

- Phil

[BogdanH]

Hi Phil,
Thanks. "log window" seems to be a good idea. In this case, user decides about it's visibility, right? Right now, I'm glad I decided to manage StdOut and StdErr separately

Bogdan

[Phil Harvey]

Right.

Separating these streams is definitely useful.  You could have a separate error log window if you want.

- Phil

[BogdanH]

Yes... I thought that on error messages, log window would automatically appear (regardless of settings). Otherwise, one might miss important err messages which do influence "the next step". And I can imagine, that once log window will be set to off, user will forget about it in regular work.

Bogdan

[BogdanH]

New GUI version 4.24 is available for download.
As can be seen, I only implemented first request. I'm confident, that this is very welcomed change and will hopefully work as intended.
I'm still thinking about your second idea... will see...

Bogdan

[Beholder3]

Thanks Bogdan for your great service! :-)

Regarding the second suggestion I totally agree, that it's more common to change multiple files at once with identical target values.

But that task at least I usually do by selecting the files in the middle and then changing things via the edit "^" button on the top right corner (e.g. for exif).

For said changes to a single item with different values I use the right lower corner quick entry thing. If only that would behave differently, I'd be happy. maybe via an option (actually two): 1. after quick entry jump to next exif field yes/no 2. after quick entry jump to next file yes/no.

[BogdanH]

1. after quick entry jump to next exif field yes/no

-I can do that.

2. after quick entry jump to next file yes/no.

-I can do that too, but what worries me is, user won't get any "feedback" (won't see changes he just made). Because, as soon "Save" button will be pressed, next file in filelist will be selected and metadata panel will show metadata of that file.
Would that be OK for you? If yes, then I think, it only makes sense to implement both of above options as single option.
And of course, such "mode" would work (as expected) only as long single file is selected.

Bogdan

[Beholder3]

-I can do that too, but what worries me is, user won't get any "feedback" (won't see changes he just made). Because, as soon "Save" button will be pressed, next file in filelist will be selected and metadata panel will show metadata of that file.
Would that be OK for you? If yes, then I think, it only makes sense to implement both of above options as single option.
And of course, such "mode" would work (as expected) only as long single file is selected.

Yes thats totally fine for me if the combination of the two options is correct (stick to field and move file selection).
I do see the no-feedback-issue. That would come back to the first feature request. Maybe single line feedback can be given somewhere on th GUI. many programs do that, e.g. browser provide progress feedback and other status information in a status line on the lower border of their GUI. This wouldn't replace the newly implemented log window (which is great for reading the full text of exiftool messages), but supplement it with a quick short view - as I said a one liner should be good. And still there would be no hardcoded need to confirm everything via extra button-click (as there was originally). Maybe you can even output a specific message in the status line then such as "file was updated and selection has now moved to next file" or similar.