Jim Byram

Has the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer been updated in WinVista to show the title, subject, or any other metadata?

The Windows Picture and Fax Viewer has been replaced by the Photo Gallery Viewer. And an image organizer called Windows Photo Gallery is included. Both show the title and tags that have been entered for a selected image. You can enter tags on the screen of either tool for the selected image. Other data shown on the screen includes the filename, date/time stamp, filesize, and pixel dimensions.

Note, for example, that you can right-click on a JPG, select Properties and enter metadata on the Details tab. The JPG image that I looked at in WinVista has 75 metadata fields. Most clearly correspond to the EXIF fields used by digital cameras.

I agree the ORIGINAL shouldn't change. But TMG should be able to show it rotated if that is what I want. I don't want to change the original, just the way TMG and SS view it.

Teresa,

Just to be clear. If you rotate and save the image, you are editing and changing the original file. The viewer allows you to rotate the image for temporary viewing; however, if you exit the viewer, the original image in the EL is going to appear just like it began with no change. (when the current bug is fixed) Temporarily rotating the image in the viewer will have absolutely no effect on how the image appears in SS.

Jim

Just to clarify. Going through Help, there is nothing to suggest that the image viewer should do anything other than view the image or that the original image file should ever be changed.

The overall design of the Exhibit Log is incomplete and ambiguous. You can scan an image but editing tools are not provided even for simple editing and Help does not suggest that the viewer is intended to be an editor for scanned images.

And, lastly, the design of the viewer does not meet even the minimum requirements of an editor. You can't 'undo' or 'redo' a manipulation. You have no options to 'save' or 'cancel' after doing manipulations.

Is there a command I can add to the current configuration files that will allow me to increase the length of the View History to (at least) 20?

No. The list length is set to 10 as far as I can see.

Is there anyplace I can get a list of configuration options available by editing app.ini directly?

App.ini is not intended to be directly edited by the user. All changes to settings should be made through Preferences.

The only app.ini settings that need to be edited directly are entries for [ExternalUtilities] as explained in Help and that needs to be fixed so that direct editing of app.ini is not required.

Of course if the original compression factor can be "seen" by the TMG image viewer, it should be used when saving.

I've never used a graphics program that could determine the current compression value and use that when resaving a JPG. However...

If a JPG is saved compressed, each time that the image is saved, 2-3% of the image detail is lost. If the image is edited in TMG and the image is saved at 100% (with no compression), no image detail is lost. That would appear to be the conservative choice since JPG images should never be edited if at all possible. So... I don't have an issue with saving the JPG at 100% if it is edited.

By 'import' you seem to be saying 'link'. In other words, your exhibits are remaining as external exhibits.

Basically, you're on the right track. You want to always have an original archived uncompressed image file in a format like TIF, PSD or PNG. And you want a second JPG copy processed for TMG documents and Second Site. And maybe a third JPG if the TMG document and SS requirements differ.

You want to get your archive copies periodically copied to a more stable medium such as a CDR or DVDR. And every few years, refresh the copy on optical media to new disks.

Now that's really strange. I can replicate it and have reported the issue. Bottom line... if you are viewing the image only, the original file should not be touched. This is a bug.

Use the List of Events report.

Filter...

Tag Type... Label = (the custom tag name) END

Do you have any 'words of advice' for how to best use IMatch or TMG, so that I'll be set up well for future developments?

In a word... No. How you organize and store and label your exhibits is really independent of iMatch or TMG or any other program. The iMatch site has some interesting links to sites where people have discussed such schemes. As to the future, who knows what developments will occur with either program? I'm not being unhelpful. I just have no way to read the tea leaves.

- I'm thinking it will behoove me to use the IPTC Fields for City, Sublocation and State (rather than set up IMatch Categories for that info); hopefully, someday TMG will be able to 'read' this info

When adding an exhibit, what would TMG do with such data? While it makes sense for TMG to read standard metadata title and caption fields when adding an exhibit to fill the comparable TMG exhibit fields, it doesn't make sense to read any other metadata fields.

I asked for help on July 10 (see the reply above) and sent an email or PM to each of the four above persons who have the 'structure version missing' issue a few days later. So far I've heard nothing from anyone willing to help test this issue.

Although I do not have a version of Photoshop, I have found no other application that categorizes these Microsoft fields as "EXIF".

Paint Shop Pro X does.

Side note. Proprietary Album databases in various photo editor apps, may be just that: Proprietary databases, similar to TMG, and not applications that embed into fields in the jpg files for later cataloging and indexing by Windows (Vista) Explorer.

iMatch recognizes the WinXP Author, Comments, Keywords, Subject and Title fields as EXIF data. iMatch has the most extensive support of image metadata of any program that I'm aware of (IPTC, EXIF, XMP, all variants, other metadata as well) and can display 339 different possible image metadata fields if my count was correct.

It is my understanding that EXIF data is created by camera makers inside the camera, may be encoded, if not encrypted, and should not be messed with by users. However, MS Vista will apparently remap some fields from some camera makers to a "standard" display format.

That's not exactly right. Most EXIF fields are read-only but some such as the default Subject field are editable. The Win XP Title and Win XP Subject fields are legal custom EXIF fields and are editable.

The MIcrosoft metadata fields for comments, etc., providied in the XP Explorer file editor may be of a somewhat general nature and not specific to image files.

They are legal EXIF fields but you're right in that they only apply to certain files. EXIF per se is not specific to image files either. The more exhibit filetypes supported, the better. There is no reason to limit metadata to image files.

From testing of the Win XP Title and Win XP Subject fields (this will not be complete)...

WinXP supports these fields for: DCX, EPS, JPG, PCT, PCX, PSD, TIF, TGA, WPG images.

WinXP does not support this data for BMP, GIF, and PNG images.

And title only is supported for several a/v files (MP3, WMA, WMV). Title and subject are supported for MID and

RMI.

Win XP does not support this data for WAV.

The title and subject are also supported for TXT and PDF files.

Note that WinVista supports the same data as WinXP. The title and subject are displayed in the Windows Explorer status bar in WinVista.

Now... The reason that I suggested supporting the WinXP EXIF data is that the feature is available for every WinXP user now and, in the future, for every WinVista user. Users can add a title and, in most cases, subject to most of the possible exhibit file types so that this data would automatically be added to the Topic and Caption fields when the exhibit is added to TMG.

Since the operating system stores this WinXP EXIF data, there will be APIs to retrieve the data.

According to PhotoShop CS help, XMP is supported for TIFF, JPEG, EPS and PDF files. Period.

Whether EXIF or XMP is used in your graphics software or photo organizing software is not the issue because of the uneven support between different programs. The issue is maximizing the benefits to TMG users.

What is WG?

Wholly Genes Software

However, the FreeImage.dll software downloaded into the TMG 6.0x folder apparently has Adobe XMP and IPTC compatible metadata support, if WG should decide to use it.

Freeimage.dll is used by VCF, I believe. Exhibits use the Leadtools library.

Also search for the subject of MS very recently reneging on plans to inlude PDF support in Office 2007, if you want another slant on metadata and wrapper wars.

'Reneging' is not exactly right. MS Office 2007 Beta 2 does include the PDF export. It will not be included in the shipping version but will be available for download as an Office plug-in. So all that has changed is how the feature will get to users.

Seems like the most useful thing to support would be the WinXP EXIF extensions since that would provide for title and caption on import and are supported by WinVista.

OK. I ran a little experiment.

Used a test JPG.

1) Right-clicked on the image in WinXP. Properties.

Added the Title: AB

Added the Subject: ABC

(These are added to the image file as EXIF customized fields. EXIF is extensible.)

2) Opened the image in Paint Shop Pro X.

The Creator tab Image Title and Description fields are blank. Added the same data.

The EXIF Information tab shows the information added in WinXP as:

Win XP Title: AB

WinXP Subject: ABC

(PSP10 fully supports EXIF. The Creator tab info appears to be added as ICC info.)

3) Opened the image in Photo Shop Elements 3 and in Photo Shop CS (basically the same results in both).

The ICC profile is ignored (PSE3 says this).

However the PSP Description data appears in the 'Description Writer' field. Huh?

The EXIF information from WinXP is not shown anywhere that I could find. The EXIF support is elemental compared to PSP10.

Added the:

Document Title: AB

Description: ABC

Cleared the Description Writer field.

(The PhotoShop data is added using XMP.)

4) Checked the WinXP properties.

The Title data is gone. Re-added AB to the title field.

5) Opened in Paint Shop Pro X again.

The Creator tab Image title and Description data are gone.

Don't see the data added in PhotoShop anywhere.

More... Added the default EXIF image title in PSP10. Doesn't appear to show in any other program.

I can find the title under various fields in PhotoShop but am not clear exactly the origin of the data.

Advanced

1) PDF Properties / Subject

2) Adobe PhotoShop Properties / Caption

3) TIFF Properties / ImageDescription (alt-container) / x-default

4) XMP Core Properties / Description (alt-container) / x-default

5) Dublin Core Properties / description (alt-container) / x-default

This all appears to be coming from the PSE3/PS description field.

Now... Exactly what is it that TMG is supposed to do with which data?

EXIF can also have different 'Title' and 'Subject' fields depending on whether the defaults or extensions are being used. WinVista uses the same EXIF extensions used by WinXP and the title / caption data are shown in the Windows Explorer status bar in WinVista.

Something like this...

Use the Project Explorer.

Filter the Project Explorer.

ID# = (nn) OR

( Is an Ancestor of ID# (nn) AND

SEX = M AND

Surname = (surname) ) END

Also tick primary names only (cleaner but not necessary)

(nn) is the ID# of the base person.

(surname) is the surname of interest.

You can then use the names in the PE or add them to a focus group.

To add them to a focus group... Open the Focus Group window and make sure that it's empty. Then right-click in the PE and select 'Add all names to the Focus Group'.

then either...

1) Select all names in the Project Explorer.

Run the GEDCOM export and on Step 4, select 'Selected people on the Project Explorer'.

or

1) Run the GEDCOM export and on Step 4, select 'People in the Focus Group'.

Lots of small differences to do what you want but you should get the idea. The idea is to select the appropriate group of people and then to export that group.

It gets more complicated if the ancestors have changed surnames. In that case, you might want to use the Focus Group approach and change the surname in the PE filter as necessary and add any additional ancestors to the focus group until you get them all. The nice thing about a focus group is, once you get everyone into it that you want, you can save it for future use.

The labels I requested to be output are not? Why?

Experimenting I see it affects all "heading" column labels for output to csv and limits you to 10 characters...

Sorry. I missed the CSV part. Yes, that's the case and clearly appears to be by design. It happens with output to any spreadsheet format.

I had no problem setting up 30-character wide flag column and having it stick and show up in the output 30 characters wide. However, a flag is a single-character attribute. It seems wasteful to have a 30-character column for 1-character data. You should have a short creative heading label for your column and minimize the column width. Even 10 characters seems like too much wasted white space to me.

Updated 11 Jul 2006, 01:46 PM

Please update to the current program version. This error does not occur with v6.09.000.

The reason this issue is still out there is that it can't be replicated. One beta tester got the issue on his notebook and now can't get it any more.

I need one or two people who get the issue on a regular basis to help me. Contact me directly and I will sent you download instructions and detailed instructions to test this. The download will be about 6.5 Mb.

Basically, you will be using a Tmg.exe build which will create a log file when the 'structure version missing' message occurs.

Write me by clicking on the link below:

Jim Byram

Update: Could each of you please send me the PJC file from the project giving the 'structure version missing' message so that I can check the file.

When I look at the Exhibit Log for an individual whose photo is not carried across, there is only one photo, marked as the primary exhibit. The "save as" line reflects the folder where I have that photo stored, and the image does appear in my original project.

That doesn't make sense. If the path is correct and the file exists, the image should display. There is some more information needed here.

When I use List of People report to create a new project, I find that the Exhibit folder in the new project does not reflect that my TMGPics folder (under My Documents) but the TMG default.

When you create a new project, you need to set the preferences for that new project.

In my original project I have tried going into the Exhibit Log & "Refresh All Thumbnails". It tells me that "74 thumbnails were created. 2 external images were not found." Now so far I haven't found which 2 external images those are, however there are 6 images that do not carry across to the new project, not 2.

To identify missing external exhibits...

Go to Preferences and turn off the thumbnails.

Current Project Options / Advanced / untick 'Save image thumbnails'

Run optimize to remove the thumbnails from the data tables.

File / Maintenance / Optimize

Open the Exhibit Log.

Change the focus to 'All exhibits'

Look for the two with a frowny face icon.

Select each.

Look in the lower right of the Exhibit Log to identify how the exhibit is

used.

Right-click and select Properties.

Look at the path at the bottom of the General tab to identify the file.

Once done, go back to Preferences and re-enable thumbnails.

Also, you should use the Validate File Integrity / Exhibits tool to find missing exhibits. However, in v6.09, it has a bug if multiple paths are selected for the search.

Also, after running the VFI exhibits tool, check the Last_VFI.log in your program folder. Missing exhibits are noted at the top of the file.

Does anyone know if it's possible to have different colors in the Detail person view?

Not as you describe. Accenting is by person only.

[*]If I import my data via GEDCOM all Social Security Numbers and other data types import as places (in the Country field). The import wizard doesn't allow me to map tag types as is available when I import .FTW files.

The problem is how FTM exports the SSN fact.

1 SSN

2 PLAC 123-45-6789

TMG imports this correctly as structured but that's not what is wanted.

A correct GEDCOM SSN tag should be:

1 SSN 123-45-6789

TMG will import this with the SSN going to the memo field of the SSN tag.

The FTM GEDCOM can be corrected by a global search and replace in Word which allows wildcards.

Search for: '1 SSN*PLAC'

and replace with: '1 SSN'

Using wildcards in Word allows many global GEDCOM edits that would be impossible otherwise. The edited GEDCOM file must be saved as an ANSI text file and the final GEDCOM must have a filetype of .GED.

Whether this approach can be applied to other FTM facts that were exported to GEDCOM depends on the GEDCOM tag and the subordinate tags. Most others are much more difficult to correct than SSN and may not be amenable to the global search and replace approach.

Ouch, so there are no edits I can make to my FTW sources/citations that will make them survive the TMG import?

The issue is subtle changes in the FTM database from version to version and trying to get the import code to deal with those changes.

I'm curious if I had to use GEDCOM for my imports if there was any text pre-processing I could do on the GEDCOM before importing it into TMG that would change those bits of data that are treated as places to be handled differently?

 

Is there any third party application that could be used as an intermediate step that might keep things in order?

The problem is the need to check every event in the GEDCOM to determine if the data for that event is comment or place. Since it has to be done event-by-event, I don't see how a utility could be designed to help.