Re: [Shotwell] Any progress on writing metadata back to Nikon NEF files?

[Michael Hendry <hendry michael gmail com>]

On 26 Sep 2014, at 01:40, Jim Nelson <jim yorba org> wrote:

Shotwell never could write metadata to RAW (i.e. .NEF) files:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=716790

Thanks, Jim.

I understand that writing to a RAW file is potentially dangerous.

My concern is that I’ve invested a lot of time in tagging my large photo-library, and after a number of painful transitions from a standalone Ubuntu setup to an iMac with Parallels-supported Ubuntu 12.04 through to 14.04, I’d be happier not to be dependent on “photo.db” as the repository for much this work.

As there is no Mac version of Shotwell, and I have systematically transferred other Ubuntu applications’ data across to a Mac version or equivalent, I’m left with only one major activity for which I’m dependent on Ubuntu.

I’m not actively looking for an exit strategy, as I have enjoyed using Shotwell, but the migration problems I’ve encountered, and numerous recent crashes, would make anyone uneasy!

I have just read about the sidecar files which are used to attach metadata to RAW files - from a position of ignorance, it looks to me as if this might be a better way of dealing with the issue.

However, there is an outstanding bug about writing metadata back to the developed JPEG version of a RAW file.  That's ticketed at:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=717899

No movement on either at the moment.  If there's enough demand, maybe someone in the community could step up to attack either, or both.  Bountysource is one possible way to generate interest with contributors.

One suggestion: If it’s not possible to write the tag to the file, the message in the log should be changed to indicate that.

I've pushed some improved logging to the MetadataWriter.

Thanks. Could I also suggest a warning when the “Writing metadata…” message comes up, indicating that RAW files are not being updated?

Michael

-- Jim