XYplorer Beta Club

When I recently browsed my digital beach fotos I thought about EXIF stamping. It's extremely easy to implement (hey, of course you can also buy a 5 MB fat software for 39,95 Euros for the job), but... is it bloat???

What do you think? Any demand?

admin wrote:When I recently browsed my digital beach fotos I thought about EXIF stamping. It's extremely easy to implement (hey, of course you can also buy a 5 MB fat software for 39,95 Euros for the job), but... is it bloat???

What do you think? Any demand?

Could you define EXIF stamping as you see it, please? The beginning of this thread http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic.php?t=1134 appears to define that a desire exists, but how complicated it would be is the issue, as various vendors have differing usages/extensions that would be needed to be supported to make it fully usable.

j_c_hallgren wrote:

admin wrote:When I recently browsed my digital beach fotos I thought about EXIF stamping. It's extremely easy to implement (hey, of course you can also buy a 5 MB fat software for 39,95 Euros for the job), but... is it bloat???

What do you think? Any demand?

Could you define EXIF stamping as you see it, please? The beginning of this thread http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic.php?t=1134 appears to define that a desire exists, but how complicated it would be is the issue, as various vendors have differing usages/extensions that would be needed to be supported to make it fully usable.

There are 3 EXIF datestamps:
exifDateTimeMod
exifDateTimeOrg
exifDTDigitized

The job: Change them to any date you want.

admin wrote:There are 3 EXIF datestamps:
exifDateTimeMod
exifDateTimeOrg
exifDTDigitized

The job: Change them to any date you want.

I don't care for that one personally, but if you were to add it, I would think that those three dates should be available as <xyvars> for scripting then, and you might expect wishes for new columns as well, of course, as well as addition on the FF:Date criteria.

BTW slightly unrelated but, the new "Show Weekday" thing, shouldn't it be used as well on date variables ?
That is, when using <datec List> for example since it should be same as in List I think (same could be said about Show Age as well); but maybe also a way to "force" it, on demand, regardless of that setting. Eg. using <date WD(mm.dd) \a\t hh:nn>

jacky wrote:Eg. using <date WD(mm.dd) \a\t hh:nn>

That could be confusing, how about just <date WeekDay>, in the same vein as Zodiac and ISOWeek, which can be combined with other patterns?


As for the exif data, I'm of no real opinion, but adding it may re-open the doors for requests to support other media tags, like ID3v2.4, Vorbis, etc, or just other exif tags.

TheQwerty wrote:

jacky wrote:Eg. using <date WD(mm.dd) \a\t hh:nn>

That could be confusing, how about just <date WeekDay>, in the same vein as Zodiac and ISOWeek, which can be combined with other patterns?

I thought of that, but if the date isn't from the past week, then what format should be used ?? Right now, it's an option so it uses the format used when option is disabled, but here it's different and we don't know what format to use.

Another idea would be to use an "option" as well, eg. <date "dd/mm/yy", w>

jacky wrote:

TheQwerty wrote:

jacky wrote:Eg. using <date WD(mm.dd) \a\t hh:nn>

That could be confusing, how about just <date WeekDay>, in the same vein as Zodiac and ISOWeek, which can be combined with other patterns?

I thought of that, but if the date isn't from the past week, then what format should be used ?? Right now, it's an option so it uses the format used when option is disabled, but here it's different and we don't know what format to use.

Another idea would be to use an "option" as well, eg. <date "dd/mm/yy", w>

Hmmm.. good point.


I'm beginning to get a slight bit worried that we're trying to shoe-horn too much functionality into these date variables.

TheQwerty wrote:I'm beginning to get a slight bit worried that we're trying to shoe-horn too much functionality into these date variables.

Yeah, maybe, and that would be my fault, so that's really not good ! Though I do think that at least <date List> should probably show the same as List does, thus showing weekday/age when options are enabled.

jacky wrote:Yeah, maybe, and that would be my fault, so that's really not good !

Well I was thinking the variables needed to access this too at first, and I'd still like to have this available in the customized status bar. So it's not just you.

Here's an odd 2-part thought..
What if there were a new Date() command:

Date(OutputVar, [Format], [Options], [SourceItem], [SourceDate])

OutputVar is obviously the variable the date is stored in.
Format would be the pattern like now.
Options would allow for switches to replace the date with the age or use this new relative weekday.
SourceItem would use the date of the specified file. <curitem> would allow for the selected & focused. Omitted would be current time.
SourceDate would define whether to use the Created, Modified, or Accessed date from Source.


Now that's part 1. Part 2 is a new variable, the script variable:
<script Var, Script>
This special variable would execute the script, and when it is finished be replaced with the contents of Var.

Thus we could replace <date> with <script %date%, Date(%date%)>
But we could also use some of the other script functions, like regexreplace.

The problem of course being that there would need to be a way to limit what scripting commands can be used within this variable and where this variable can be called.


Overall it would be pretty challenging to do correctly, and Don would need a lot of time to implement it. But I think it may give us quite a lot of power and be worth the long wait. Though I think we'd agree that Scriptable Mouse Actions and Taskbar Buttons is more important.

TheQwerty wrote:

jacky wrote:Yeah, maybe, and that would be my fault, so that's really not good !

Well I was thinking the variables needed to access this too at first, and I'd still like to have this available in the customized status bar. So it's not just you.

Here's an odd 2-part thought..
What if there were a new Date() command:

Date(OutputVar, [Format], [Options], [SourceItem], [SourceDate])

OutputVar is obviously the variable the date is stored in.
Format would be the pattern like now.
Options would allow for switches to replace the date with the age or use this new relative weekday.
SourceItem would use the date of the specified file. <curitem> would allow for the selected & focused. Omitted would be current time.
SourceDate would define whether to use the Created, Modified, or Accessed date from Source.


Now that's part 1. Part 2 is a new variable, the script variable:
<script Var, Script>
This special variable would execute the script, and when it is finished be replaced with the contents of Var.

Thus we could replace <date> with <script %date%, Date(%date%)>
But we could also use some of the other script functions, like regexreplace.

The problem of course being that there would need to be a way to limit what scripting commands can be used within this variable and where this variable can be called.


Overall it would be pretty challenging to do correctly, and Don would need a lot of time to implement it. But I think it may give us quite a lot of power and be worth the long wait. Though I think we'd agree that Scriptable Mouse Actions and Taskbar Buttons is more important.

Well... well... I proposed EXIF stamping because "it is very easy to do", not to inspire any wild complications...

Somewhere on my list for scripting 2.0 is also functions which is, if I got you right, similar to what you mean by "This special variable would execute the script, and when it is finished be replaced with the contents of Var." Right now, XY scripting has only statements.

Concerning Exif stamping: As a conclusion from all your answers I decided to drop the idea. There's more important things to do!

Case closed.

That statusbar issue: post-poned.

admin wrote:Somewhere on my list for scripting 2.0 is also functions

Ah yeah, scripting 2.0, can't wait for that baby! Any idea of where on your list it is located at this moment ?

jacky wrote:

admin wrote:Somewhere on my list for scripting 2.0 is also functions

Ah yeah, scripting 2.0, can't wait for that baby! Any idea of where on your list it is located at this moment ?

No, no idea.

admin wrote:

jacky wrote:

admin wrote:Somewhere on my list for scripting 2.0 is also functions

Ah yeah, scripting 2.0, can't wait for that baby! Any idea of where on your list it is located at this moment ?

No, no idea.

Damn! I am jack's sense of impatience...

admin wrote:Well... well... I proposed EXIF stamping because "it is very easy to do", not to inspire any wild complications...

Just trying to keep the forum tradition of taking threads way off topic going.

admin wrote:Somewhere on my list for scripting 2.0 is also functions which is, if I got you right, similar to what you mean by "This special variable would execute the script, and when it is finished be replaced with the contents of Var." Right now, XY scripting has only statements.

Kind of.. The main idea was a way to allow a script to be called anywhere that an XY variable would be resolved. This script would be used to create and format the value that would be returned.

If with functions we get a way to access them from a special XY variable, then it would basically be the same thing.

As I said, it's a pretty complex idea, and perhaps it's not worth it, but it would certainly make XY variables incredibly powerful.