Catalog sets to keywords

johnbeardy · Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 9:42 am Post subject: Catalog sets to keywords

Here's a proof of the concept of updating the keywords from a keywords hierarchy in a catalog sets. You need a catalog set called "Keywords" (you can change this easily), with media items assigned to its subsets. I've tested it with 3 levels of subsets - firstly an A-Z, then individual keywords.

Any thoughts? Does this look promising?

John

johnbeardy · Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 4:41 pm Post subject:

Version 1.1 picks up keywords higher up the tree. Still in development...

johnbeardy · Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 5:48 pm Post subject:

Fixing a problem:

roberte · Joined: 18 Jun 2004 Posts: 2147 Location: Sydney, Australia

Hi John,

Maybe we add "the Baptist" to your name :). I go on a weeks hiatus and you work a miracle!

Your Catalog sets to keywords script works perfectly for me. I'm only testing on Sets three levels deep at this stage. If this works it will change my workflow.

Thanks mate.

-- Robert.

johnbeardy · Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 5:43 am Post subject:

Hi Robert

It's close, and I've tested it on hundreds of items with a 6 level deep structure. However I think the script fails when items are assigned to a branch as well as to its leaves. To see this, you need to set up a 3 level set - here I used Keywords / Travels / Italy / Tropea with no items assigned to Travels, 1 to Italy, and 2 to Tropea. What's happening is that the Italy subset is detected, but the code fails when it tries to count how many items are attached. At the Tropea leaf, it works correctly. I believe I'm hitting a bug in the VB model's MediaSet object - when a set has subsets, MediaSet.MediaItems.Count falls flat on its face.

So don't change the workflow yet. I've asked technical support for help here because I think it could be that useful for Windows users to get the VB engine updated in this area. After all, Windows users wouldn't know what to do with a Universal Binary, would we?

I'd much prefer a character from the "Life of Brian" :)

John

johnbeardy · Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:44 pm Post subject:

Anyway, not getting too theological here, but didn't you mean Evangelist? It bugged me all morning! Wasn't the Baptist into ducking folks' heads in the river?

John

gavingough · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 23 Location: UK

John

I'm going to find this script enormously useful for keywording from a hierarchical structure. I'm a convert from iMatch and this functionality is the one thing that I missed most from that application.

I'm setting up Catalog Sets in a hierarchical structure and also including synonyms separated by commas in the Catalog Set names. So, for example:

Europe, EU
- United Kingdom, UK
- - England
- - - Hampshire, Hants

Which produces discrete keywords of Europe, EU, United Kingdom, UK, England, Hampshire, Hants with your script.

Invaluable! Just wanted to say thanks, err, Harry The Haggler?

johnbeardy · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 7:43 pm Post subject:

Gavin

Glad it's useful. Do watch out for the problem I mentioned about leaves and branches a couple of posts up. I believe there's a bug in this area and I'm following it up directly with iView.

Also remember my "Keywords from place finder" script here. For geographical annotations, that may be more appropriate and controllable - the Place Finder is already hierarchical and corresponds to iptc fields.

John

gavingough · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 23 Location: UK

John

Thanks. Actually I do use your script to generate keywords from the Place Finder but the example that I originally used in my post was for a Wood Anenome and I couldn't find the correct Latin name to include as the synonym so gave in to my impatience and used the geographical example instead.

Now I just have to figure out how to get my iMatch thesaurus into iView Catalog Sets without retyping it all.

I think it's time to open a bottle of red.

Cheers!

johnbeardy · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 8:12 pm Post subject:

Gavin

Do you want to get the "tree" into iView, without assigning any images to the leaves and branches? One way might be to assign them all to a dummy image using Bridge and the iView panel in File Info. You'd first need to build a text string such as "Plants| Roses, Anemone" but with more branches - sync some metadata back to an image and then go to Bridge to see how iView records it. I'd build the text in Excel using the "&" to add text from two or more cells, then paste the result into Bridge. Then import the mule image (use a jpeg) into iView.

A bottle of (Spanish) red's half empty here as I watch the Arsenal game....

John

gavingough · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 23 Location: UK

I'm not sure that mixing wine and iView is a good idea - what the heck, let's open another bottle and give it a go.

I'll let you know if I succeeded or not when I'm sober.

Cheers (Hic!)
_________________
Gavin Gough Photography

roberte · Joined: 18 Jun 2004 Posts: 2147 Location: Sydney, Australia

Hi John,

Do watch out for the problem I mentioned about leaves and branches a couple of posts up. I believe there's a bug in this area and I'm following it up directly with iView.

FWIW there are similar issues with those using Applescript to achieve the same task. After three levels of Sets the keywords don't transfer.

I fear it may go deeper than simply iView and VB. Then again, I'm getting scared of stuff I know nothing about :).

-- Robert.

superben · Joined: 17 Nov 2005 Posts: 2

Hi there,

I am currently evaluating MediaPro 3 and still have some questions about realizing a hierarchical keyword structure using catalog sets.

1. The manual says that catalog set information can be synchronized to a "custom XMP annotation field". Does this work for DNG-files, too?

2. How do you manage to use the VB script "catalog sets -> keywords" in a bilingual setting; could you name a catalog subset "wedding, Hochzeit" for example and have these two entries written to keywords?

3. If synchronizing catalog set information to XMP annotation fields works, why should you write this information script-based to keywords at all? If I do so, will these keywords occur twice in the file after synchronizing?

I hope, these questions are not too stupid?!

Any hints are appreciated!

Thanks,

Ben

johnbeardy · Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 11:38 am Post subject:

1. Yes, the set metadata is written to XMP for any format that supports XMP, so that includes DNG, PSD, TIF, JPG etc.

2. Each word could be a "leaf" and the image would be dragged to both leaves. Or one word might be a branch and the other a leaf on it.

3. It's true that keywords will be in the catalogue file and synchronized to the original twice, but that's not much space. Some people like to enter keywords in a hierarchical format partly because it's easier to manage than a long list of hundreds of keywords, and it allows them to easily enter lots of synonyms.

Also look at the Vocabulary Editor and comma-separated entries, and at metadata templates. Using these tools flexibly is the key to entering the maximum relevant and consistent metadata with the least effort. SO yuo might have a general wedding template with keywords like hochzeit, matrimonio, wedding etc, and then save a variation of it for specific weddings.

If you are evaluating the product I'd advise you not to spend too much time on this. Hierarchical keywords are something that iView know their users want and a built in solution will come before long which will push my script to one side. You'd be better off testing iView's built in features while noting that such extensions and efficiency improvements can be added.

John

superben · Joined: 17 Nov 2005 Posts: 2

Hi John,

thanks for your super-fast and comprehensive answer!

I just asked these things because I am setting up my whole workflow (from scratch) and wanted to clarify the keyword process and how this can be realized with MediaPro.

But as you said, there is much more to explore and to set up - I will go on playing around with all the other features right away...

Thanks again,

Ben

Paul Wood · Joined: 30 Dec 2005 Posts: 14

johnbeardy · Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 7:50 pm Post subject:

Copy the catalogue file and delete all the files from the copy. The sets structure remains.

Peter's advice re yearly catalogues is only because of the need to work around the 2Gb file size limit. If that didn't exist, he would use a single catalogue.

John

garethjjones · Joined: 01 Nov 2004 Posts: 58

I can't get this to work!

Screen shot of the catalogue structure attached.

It appears to detect the top level catalogue set ok, but refuses to create the keywords

johnbeardy · Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 8:20 am Post subject:

I'll give it a test later. That structure should work as it's similar to one I used for testing. Are you selecting items before running the script?

John

garethjjones · Joined: 01 Nov 2004 Posts: 58

Ahh, that wasn't clear. Just tried it again, and selected all the images, and I've got keywords.

Guess I shouldn't try things so late at night as last night!

regards

Gareth
_________________
gareth

www.sports-alive.com
www.smart-pictures.co.uk

wparsons · Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 2 Location: Michigan

Hi John. I'm hoping you can clarify the bug you mentioned. Are you saying the issue occurs when you assign the same photo to both a branch and one of its leaves? Or do you mean it occurs when you assign any photo to a branch and any other photo to one of its leaves?

Any information on this, or an update on this script's status in light of the 3.1.1 update (if any changes) would be most appreciated.

-- Warren

johnbeardy · Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 5:50 am Post subject:

johnbeardy · Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 11:35 am Post subject:

As an update, I've just tested this area and there's no change from my previous findings. iView have acknowledged bugs in this area and I've recently given them a priority list for VB work - the bugs here were top of the list. So let's hope we won't have to wait long for a fix, certainly not until a full VBA editing environment becomes one of the fruits of Microsoft's ownership.

John
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iView scripts & utilities

wparsons · Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 2 Location: Michigan

Thanks a bunch for the clarification, John!

Even with this quirk, I may have a place in my workflow for this script.

drmrbrewer · Joined: 24 Sep 2005 Posts: 510 Location: UK

Dierk · Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 630 Location: Hamburg (Germany)

Two takes on this:

1. With Microsoft acquiring iView VB Script bugs should be squashed in no time.

2. With MEM v1 being the bug fix version that it is ...*

*If I have to spell this out ...
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xMedia v2 on Windows XP/SP2; 3.4 GHz, 2 GB RAM, loads of storage space.
Other: Nikon D2x, Nikon D200, Breeze DownloaderPro, Capture NX, Adobe CS3 Design Premium

johnbeardy · Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 3:00 pm Post subject:

No change when I last tested.

I'd love to think MS will put a full VBA editor behind MEM (just like iMatch has the Sax basic editor). We'd have user dialog boxes and full control of every aspect of the user interface, just like Excel. Some may say I'm a dreamer.....

John
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PC and Mac too
iView scripts & utilities

drmrbrewer · Joined: 24 Sep 2005 Posts: 510 Location: UK

... but you're not the only one.

Surely there must be something good in the pipeline for that $100 premium over MediaPro?

Mike