New Features in digiKam 2.0: XMP Sidecar
In addition to writing tags, ratings, labels, descriptions, etc. directly into the photos, version 2.0 of digiKam can save metadata in a separate .xmp file. This approach has several advantages. First off, it speeds things up, as writing data to a text file is faster than embedding metadata into photos. This also allows you to store metadata for RAW files, since writing metadata directly to RAW files can sometimes be problematic.
The feature that allows digiKam to store metadata in .xmp files is called XMP sidecar. To enable it, choose Settings ยป Configure digiKam, switch to the Metadata section, and select the desired option from the Metadata Writing Mode drop-down list. You can choose between Write the XMP sidecar only and Writer to image and XMP sidecar. Tick then the Read Metadata from XMP sidecar files check box, hit OK to save the settings, and you are done.
This breaks multi-user environments. Take an example: Pupils are given photos as read-only files and the directories obviously have to be read-only too. So this totally fails right from the beginning, along with the writing of metadata to image files, by the way (which is a horrible thing for managing backups). And even in writable places this means chaos, because which users sidecar file will get precedence will be purely random (ignoring missing permissions to access it any way).
Darktable went the same way and it took them some time to understand it’s a really bad idea. Put the sidecars in a user-definable place somewhere in ~ or keep them in an sql and give an explicit option to export them, so they can easily be sent to another user for sharing the editing stack (which I consider a good idea).
nn
2011/05/12 at 10:49
Hi nn,
I think there are as many people complaining about the files being in the same directory as there are people who complain about the metadata being stored only in the database or the files in some other directories, because in this case managing the files with simple tools like Dolphin will break, as the references to the files have to be updated.
Anyway, sidecar files are an optional feature, so if it does not fit your way of working, you can at least turn it off.
Michael
Michael
2011/05/12 at 11:47
i enable XMP side car for read only files…which are basically all the raw files that are in collection…however i also have the issue of them being in the same directory as the pictures….an option to keep them somewhere else or making them hidden would be a great choice…may be that is something that could be implemented in the future development!!
Mohamed Malik
2011/05/12 at 12:42
As far as I can see, there is no wish list bug report about this issue yet, would be great if you could file one so the discussion will not get lost:
https://bugs.kde.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=digikam&format=guided
Michael
Michael
2011/05/12 at 14:43
Finally Digikam gets the sidecar XMP.
To my mind it’s a great feature. I want to tag my pics but I want to store the tags outside my pictures (because of privacy issues, e.g. on upload or sharing). Also I want to stay flexible for using my tags with different tools / plattforms, that is why I want to store the tags outside of a specific db. So XMP sidecar is the logical solution.
Thank you for your work guys. Now I can finally migrate my pics to Digikam
TheGhost
2011/05/12 at 13:06
Hi Micheal…..Thanks…I Have Made A Bug Report…
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=273137
Mohamed Malik
2011/05/12 at 19:18
Maybe not the place but I will ask anyway: I shoot raw and usually convert to dng and tag the dngs. Raws go off to a backup untagged (not great). Dngs I want to publish go to jpeg, which brings the tags from the dngs along (don’t have to re-tag). Upload to flickr-like sites brings along tags too for those kinds of sites. Curious how work path could change with sidecars- if tagging raw, then converting to dng (necessary for some software I use at this point), will that bring along the tags, and also to subsequent jpgs? Uploading a jpeg to a site like flickr? Or do the sidecars at some point have to get written to the image? many thanks.. I could ask this on the digikam listserv but what the hey.. have to resubscribe to do that.
JimD
2011/05/13 at 23:00
Hi
I’m using Digikam and Darktable. Will Digikam destroy XMP files from Darktable?
Thank you
Conde Mor
2011/05/14 at 16:40
I ran a quick test, and it seems that digiKam simply writes its own data into .xmp files created by darktable.
Dmitri Popov
2011/05/15 at 11:32
Thank you a lot Dmitri!!! I had exactly the same doubt. But I’m in trouble with Digikam. After editing in ShowPhoto a raw file and export it, the original raw file doesn’t not appear in Digikam!!! (but it is there fortunately). Is this a bug?????
Thank you
Conde Mor
2011/08/18 at 10:59
I had the same problem, and it took me hours to figure out what was going on. The fix turned out to be very simple. Go to Settings -> Configure digiKam -> Editing Images and make sure that the Always show original images option in the In main view section is enabled.
Dmitri Popov
2011/08/18 at 11:32