When using the Dialog Builder, FotoStation now shows you the IPTC field numbers of the fields placed in the editor:
This can be particularly useful when creating a dialog for a heavily customized metadata configuration, with many custom fields.
Caveat lector: I used to work with support at FotoWare. This blog is my own space, I am not paid to write it. I write about FotoWare and FotoWare products because I believe in them.
Category: FotoStation
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Did you know that the FotoStation Dialog Builder displays field numbers?
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Clearing FotoStation Quick Search history
FotoStation stores all searches made in Quick Search, displaying previous searches when a new search is made. You may, however, want to clear this history. This is done differently on the Windows and Mac versions.
On the Windows version, open the File menu, choose Preferences, then Clear quick search history.
On the Mac version, click on the arrow next to the magnifying glass in the Quick Search field and choose Clear.
Caveat lector: I used to work with support at FotoWare. This blog is my own space, I am not paid to write it. I write about FotoWare and FotoWare products because I believe in them. -
Downgrading to a previous version of FotoStation
As a FotoWare Customer Support Engineer, one of the issues I see on a somewhat regular basis, is that users have installed the most recent version of FotoStation, without having a valid license for that version. Simply put, if so, they will not be able to run FotoStation. On Windows, you simply uninstall the new version, install the version for which you have a license, and, as they say, Bob’s your uncle. On a Mac, however, you need to also remove the .bom and .plist files before you can install the version. Here’s how:
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Applying a metadata macro when saving metadata
Did you know that you can apply a metadata macro when closing the metadata editor?
FotoStation’s metadata editor can automatically apply a metadata macro after adding metadata to a file. Here is how you activate that option:
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How to: Use synonym lists to modify search results
By modifying the thesaur.xml-file, Index Manager will return hits containing synonyms to the specified search words.
Say, for example, that you want to search for fast food, and want your search results to also find more specific kinds of fast food, such as pizza, hamburgers and french fries. Included with every installation of Index Manager is a file called Sample-THESAUR.XML, which can be modified to achieve this. To make your own synonym list, and enable them for search, follow these steps:
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Searching for images with no metadata or no metadata in specific fields?
By entering xnoword search into the search box, you will get hits in images which do not have metadata. When searching for xnoword in a specific field, you will get hits for images where that field is empty.
Note: For indexed archives you also need to make sure that the fields that you want to search as empty are “indexed as empty” inside the “Fields” tab on index properties. For all changes a rebuild is required.
Caveat lector: I used to work with support at FotoWare. This blog is my own space, I am not paid to write it. I write about FotoWare and FotoWare products because I believe in them. -
Password protecting your FotoStation Configuration
As a system administrator, you may want to limit access to certain program features in FotoStation, and even access to the entire configuration dialog, as well as prevent users from accessing certain types of side panels and program functions.
Security settings are accessed from the Configuration Menu, under General:
To prevent unauthorized access to the program configuration dialog, select the checkbox labeled Protect configuration dialogs with a password. Then click on the set password button to specify a password to access the configuration.
To prevent access to certain critical program features, click on the Add button. In the dialog that appears, press the Ctrl key to choose more than one option from the list.The following features can be disabled:
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FotoStation Actions: Send to Flickr
Last week, I detailed how I built a custom Metadata editor that shows me only the fields I can use for Flickr. However, that’s not the only thing I’ll be using FotoStation for.
While FotoStation is not able to talk directly to Flickr’s API, it is able to call on other applications, and so, by installing the Flickr Uploadr and creating a simple action that sends the images to Flickr Uploadr, we have a semi-automated upload process.
We could make this a simple Launch application action, which just launches Flickr Uploadr and loads the images there, or we could create one or more checks of fields, such as Keywords (Tags), Object Names (Title) or Caption (Description). We can even allow or bypassing required fields, depending on how rigid we want to be.
The above screen capture shows three actions, two that looks alike (Check required text fields), and a simple Launch Application action. The Check required text fields actions check different fields (the first one just checks Keywords, while the second checks both Object Name and Caption), and only the second one has the option “Allow to bypass when a required text field is missing” enabled.
The order of operations matter here, anything I want FotoStation to do, needs to be listed before the Launch Application action. Likewise, any modifications to the file, such as cropping, resizing, Sharpening and Watermarking should be followed by a File Format or Save File action before the Launch Application action. If not, the changes will not be saved.
The reason why we don’t need to do that for the Check required text fields action, is that, when triggered, it opens the metadata editor, where you can make and save the changes before the image is sent to the Launch Application action.
Caveat lector: I used to work with support at FotoWare. This blog is my own space, I am not paid to write it. I write about FotoWare and FotoWare products because I believe in them. -
FotoStation: Building a custom Metadata editor for Flickr
As I’ve mentioned in several blog posts, I’ve recently started a new job, working for Norwegian software developer FotoWare. Their client-side software is called FotoStation, and is a very powerful tool for processing photos.
Having been an amateur photographer for a while now, I have got a Pro account at Flickr, and upload a number of photos every year. Combining my job and my hobby is great, and I have used FotoStation for a number of tasks involving my own photos already.
The best way to do this, seems to be to create a custom Metadata editor, which shows only the fields relevant to uploading photos to Flickr.
The first part of this, was finding out which fields of the XMP metadata are utilized by Flickr. I used the Flickr Uploadr, and found that the three fields shown there, grabs data as follows:
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