I see that, because it causes loss of data, this qualifies as critical.
Try this: on an image, set a template that does not have the origin city field set. then, use kipi metedata XMP editor to set origin City. check that city is now updated using metadata viewer. then, modify the caption of the image. you will see that the city you set is now erased. this is caused by the template.


Sorry to clone an existing open bug, but I see no way to update the severity and version on the existing bug.

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #231114 +++

Version:           1.0.0 (using KDE 4.3.2)
OS:                Linux
Installed from:    Ubuntu Packages

Not sure if this is a bug or change request.

I use the metadata template to automatically fill a couple fields. However, I do not use the template for setting the location fields, such as sublocation, city, etc. In other words, those ones are left blank in the template.

However, I recently found that, after applying the template to a folder of images, this caused all the data in those location fields to be deleted.

I think that if there is already data in a field, when you apply a template, that data should not be touched unless the template has something different for that field.  It is better to leave more information, which can always be deleted later, than to delete information unexpectedly (at least, I did not expect to happen.) Or, perhaps the best way is to allow user to choose, for each field in template with null value, whether existing data will be removed. So, maybe each field has a checkbox (that appears or becomes active when null value is present) that you can check to "clear existing data?" or something.

Or, you can forget the checkbox and just let people clear fields on multiple files once the sidebar metadata-edit feature (for fields other than comment) is added, if that is something they need to do.

But I think it is bad to leave it deleting data.

Thanks for a great software.