Bug 193232

Bump, still not present in 2.5.0

It's probably fixed by Marcel in current implementation from git/master (next 2.6.0-beta3)

Gilles Caulier

We handle standard XMP sidecars now; this is apparently about files with the suffix .pp2, so it falls into the "proprietary/non-standard sidecar" category, like the request to support .thm. Maybe we need to support these at least for copy/move as well.
Question here: for what purpose is it needed to have this filter? If they are text files, digikam is of not much use to access them.

digiKam is a program designed to help people manage their photos. You have decided that it will also support audio and video files. I see no inconsistency why it should not allow the same people to manage sidecar files as well. In fact it already does so, except it limits the types of sidecar to just one: XMP. The fact is that people do use other software to develop their photos and would like to use digiKam to manage those photos.

By manage I mean two things:
1- to recognize sidecar files as such,
2- to let us use digiKam's MIME type filters on these sidecar files without having to do silly things like adding them to the "movie files" or "audio files" group,
3- and to let us easily move bundles around (or whatever you call a collection consisting of a photo, versions of that photo, and any other files directly related to that photo such as the sidecar file in XMP or any other format, which is one of the new features introduced in digiKam-2.0 http://scribblesandsnaps.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/new-features-in-digikam-2-0-versioning/ )

"But digiKam provides an elegant solution to the problem: you can combine the original and all its versions into a single group. To do this, select the original and its versions, right-click on the selection and choose the Group Selected Here command. This combines all the selected photos as one neat bundle"
If this group could also contain sidecar files, that would make managing them easier.

Just to be clear, I'm not asking for digiKam to understand the things contained in these non-XMP sidecar files, I would just find it useful if digiKam recognized these sidecar files, included a file type group for sidecar files, and let us bundle them with the photos each sidecar file corresponds to manually (via right-click + Group Selected) and/or automatically (pairing by matching filenames).

I see the need to move/copy them along with the main image, but why is it necessary to see the files in the album view? For me, it would be a nuisance to see files which we dont understand and do nothing with them

I agree with Marcel. sidecar files are metadata, and a panel to right sidebar is dedicated to display metadata. There is nothing to see about sidecar file in Icon view.

Gilles Caulier

Marcel: I need to see them to know which photos I've developed, or to move them with those photos, or to fire up a text editor and edit them, or to delete them. You're right that it would be a nuisance to see them all the time - I only want to see them when needed.

Caulier: well yes they are metadata, but as was stated they are metadata which digiKam does not understand. RawTherapee is switching from PP3 to XMP in the near future, but this XMP will only be partially compatible with digiKam: just the IPTC stuff. The rest - instructions for RawTherapee how to edit the photo - will obviously be Greek to digiKam. The metadata right panel will be of no help here. There are other raw converters which also use sidecar files, and they also don't and perhaps won't use XMP, or if they do use XMP then digiKam will only understand or share the tags and ratings, nothing else, and users of that software will also find it troublesome to move their photos with digiKam but then have to fire up a file manager to move the corresponding sidecar files.

Now imagine you rename photos with digiKam and your file manager doesn't handle batch renaming...

Adding these PP3/XMP/whatever sidecar files to a sidecar group optionally visible in digiKam would solve these problems.

Bump, please look into this.
Adding support for a sidecar group with user-configurable formats (.pp3, .pano, .pto, .txt) is probably just a matter of copying existing code and should not take long to implement. All we want is to be able to see these files (MIME filters), move them together with the images and edit them in an external application.

And to be able to rename them along with the images, so if I batch-rename the raws in a folder, the corresponding sidecar files, if they exist, get renamed too.

Hmm, hijacking "Audio files" for sidecar file support used to work, I haven't used it for two years or more, and now I tried and I can't get it working.
I added "pp3 pano lhdr txt p2vr pef.pp3" to the audio extensions list, hit OK, re-scanned for new images, even restarted digiKam a few times, and it still won't show any of these files.
http://i.imgur.com/JoLIUCB.jpg

There is a bug about audio management. Files are just ignored.

Gilles Caulier

OK, it doesn't work for Movie Files or Image Files either.

Movies files work well. Only Audio management is a problem. Look bug #319921

Gilles Caulier

I added pp3;pano;p2vr;txt to Movie and Image, refreshed, restarted, and they do not show.

Still does not work in 4.3.0. I tried adding "pp3" to Images, Movie and Audio Files, then re-scanning and restarting. PP3 files would never show.

Please look into this. Without it one cannot move e.g. raw file + sidecar file to a different folder - I have to use an external program which defeats the purpose of using digiKam.

In 4.6.0 adding custom extensions to Image/Movie/Audio Files in Configure > MIME Types finally works. Please add a fourth option, "Sidecar Files", so we don't have to hijack the Audio or Movie categories to be able to move our sidecar files along with our image files.

Ignore my previous comment. In 4.6.0 is it still broken. I am absolutely certain digiKam showed me the .pp3 and .pano icons in the album view, but this must have been a one-time quirk of digiKam (one of many). I couldn't see then after restarting digiKam. I even deleted the database and every config file related to digiKam, re-added the collections, added pano;pp3;pto;p2vr to the MIME Types, and still can't get it to show me those files again.

Created attachment 90116 [details]
digiKam

No active filters, pano;pp3;pto;p2vr added to MIME Types, Albums tree view correctly shows there are 4 items, but I only see the one JPEG.

 73K 2014-12-24 13:42:28 test_jpg.jpg
1.7M 2014-12-24 13:38:30 test_pano.pano
5.9K 2014-10-15 12:13:58 test_pp3.pp3
1.3K 2014-12-24 13:40:29 test_pto.pto

*** Bug 288513 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Would it be possible for Digikam to read metadata from THM files when using "Reread metadata From Images"?

Bump, please add support for digiKam-5 to treat user-specified file types as sidecar files so that when you move photos, these files get moved too.

*** Bug 379511 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Created attachment 105376 [details]
Introduce additional sidecar types and refactor

This adds the new tab "Sidecars" to the metadata setup. It contains the existing settings about sidecars and a new field to enter sidecar extensions. These files will neither be displayed nor read from or written to. Only if the corresponding item is renamed/moved/copied/deleted, these files are transformed accordingly.

Screenshot of new metadata setup tab: http://i.imgur.com/5goLygr.png

Thank you.

DrSlony,

Did you have tested the Simon patch ? I do not do it yet myself.

Simon,

The setup panel is very good. Congratulations.

Gilles

I have not tested it yet, I probably won't be able to do that for a few weeks, but the screenshot and description look and sound good.

I've tested it, working as expected. Simon, I find cleanUserFilterString () quite complicated. What do you think of this code, it is not tested:

QString filter = filterString.trimmed();
filter.remove(QLatin1String("-*."));
filter.remove(QLatin1String("*."));
filter.remove(QLatin1String("-."));
filter.remove(QLatin1Char('.'));
filter.replace(QLatin1Char(';'), QLatin1Char(' '));
QStringList filterList = filter.split(QLatin1Char(' '), QString::SkipEmptyParts);

Maik

Simon,

Tested here too. It work fine for me...

Gilles

Created attachment 105399 [details]
Introduce additional sidecar types and refactor  - 2

I agree, this function is too complex for what it does. Your code would delete the dot out of e.g. "out.pp3" and leading minuses must be preserved, so what is in the updated patch is a little less simple.

A question about the copyright notices: Should I add my name when I do (significant) changes?

>A question about the copyright notices: Should I add my name when I do
>(significant) changes?

Of course, with pleasure (:=))...

Gilles

Git commit 6485f23ed94757c31d4613fe8f45c983d847d8df by Simon Frei.
Committed on 12/05/2017 at 23:15.
Pushed by sfrei into branch 'master'.

The previous commit also included option to specify additional sidecar extensions

This commit does not contain the actual changes, refer to the previous one.
The newly specified sidecar files are not read from/written to, they are only
processed alongside the item they belong to (i.e. renamed, moved, deleted...)
FIXED-IN: 5.6.0

M  +2    -1    NEWS

https://commits.kde.org/digikam/6485f23ed94757c31d4613fe8f45c983d847d8df