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Jeffrey’s “Metadata-Viewer Preset Editor” Lightroom Plugin
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· Latest Download:
     metadata-presets-20091205.19.zip
· Version History
· Update Log via RSS
· Installation instructions
· “Donationware” Registration Info
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· My Photo-Tech Posts
· My Blog

This plugin allows you to create and edit tagset presets for Lightroom's metadata viewer. That is, it allows you to pick and choose which metadata items Lightroom should show for each photo, and in what order they should be shown.

To be clear: this plugin does not allow you to edit photo metadata itself.
It merely allows you to edit the list of items to be displayed.

This plugin is an in-Lightroom version of the web-based preset editor that I published a couple of years ago. That application continues to work, but this plugin should prove to be more convenient. Also, this plugin incorporates the ability to include the custom metadata from other Lightroom plugins in your presets, a feature that I have not gotten around to update the online tool with.

This plugin is currently in beta release, without much documentation.

Mini Instructions

After installing it, you'll see a “Configure Metadata-View Presets” button in the Plugin Manager itself. Clicking on it will bring up the preset-edit dialog. Please see the “help” link in its upper-right corner.

Availability

I distribute this plugin as “donationware”. I provide it for free and it is mostly functional for the first six weeks. Until registered, it can not create “static custom presets”, nor import/export presets.

After the six-week trial period expires, custom presets remain usable, but with an ugly “unregistered” heading inserted at the top.

If registered, the “unregistered” heading goes away, of course, and also, the plugin gets the ability to create “static custom presets” that remain even if the plugin is removed, and it also gains the ability to import and export presets (so that you can move them from one computer to another, for example, or share with friends).

Registration is simple and costs the minimum 1 cent PayPal fee; any additional donation you'd like to make in encouragement or thanks is up to you. For details, see my blog post titled Lightroom Plugin Development: Now With Added Encouragement.

Version History

( Update Log via RSS )
20091205.19Minor internal debugging tweaks.
20091027.18Minor UI tidyup for OSX.
20091027.17More LR3b fixes... actually seems to work now.
20091022.16Added a first draft of some rudimentary support for Lightroom 3 Beta. See this important note about plugin support in Lightroom 3 Beta and Lightroom 3, including future plans for features and my registration system.
20090714.15

Enhanced the one-click upgrade stuff quite a bit, now detecting ahead of time when it will fail because the plugin is installed where Lightroom can't write (if Lightroom can't write to it, it can't update itself). I also added a progress bar, and now download in smaller chunks to avoid 'out of memory' errors on the larger plugins. Do remember that this new functionality becomes available after you upgrade to or past this version, when you then upgrade with it.

20090626.14Added another new Video-Asset Management plugin field.
20090624.13Added fields in support of my new Video-Asset Management plugin.
20090617.12Added the new upload date/time fields for my other upload plugins (Zenfolio/SmugMug/Facebook/PicasaWeb).
20090603.11Added support for the new "Flickr Upload Date" and "Upload Time" fields that I just added to my Flickr plugin.
20090601.10Seems some Mac users were still losing presets each time... thought I tamed that bug, but indeed found another bug and fixed it. Hope this is the last one.
20090521.9Fixed a "loadstring" error some users got.
20090511.8

This update affects Mac users only

It seems that many (all?) Mac users had problems with Lightroom forgetting presets each time it restarted. I've discovered a bug in Lightroom that I think I've been able to work around in this version, but the change is not backward compatible, so Mac users who were actually able to make Custom User Presets will lose them upon upgrade. Sorry. This happens only when upgrading from before this version to this version or after, and subsequent upgrades should be lossfree. (Static User Presets, and all presets on Windows, are unaffected and should carry through unharmed.)

20090510.7Added a link in the Plugin Manager to the plugin's update-log RSS feed.
20090428.6Added custom metadata from my Megapixel Sort plugin.
20090426.5Added a bunch of debugging stuff to try to track down why presets are not saved for a few users.
20090425.4Oops, the one-button upgrade stuff didn't work due to a typo on my part, sorry. Upgrading to this version will still need to be manual, but upgrading from this version to whatever's next will hopefully work.
20090423.3Fixed "ID_PREFIX" bug that popped up when converting a custom prefix to static.
20090420.2

Wow, this plugin continues to be one of the most complex I've ever worked on. Tons of new stuff this time, including...

  • Now donationware.
  • Lots of UI cleanup.
  • Added "label" and "separator" links at the bottom, so that you can easily add labels and separator lines without scrolling to those entries at the bottom of the right-side master list.
  • Added a "show photo data from" toggle in the bottom-right corner, allowing you to toggle between photo data from the image selected when you invoked the dialog, or fully-filled-out fake sample data. (If no images are selected when you invoke the dialog, you get only the fake sample data.)
  • If you click on the active line in the left-side preset preview, the associated item in the right-side master list is scrolled into view and highlighted.
  • Some have been confused by how a new preset's title is entered, so I've added a bunch of visual hints (big flashing "EDIT HERE!!!" signs :-) ) until I can figure a more intuitive interface.
  • The "Blank Slate" built-in preset didn't really work. Does now, and has been renamed to "Empty (No Items)"
  • Added the ability to edit/save/create static user presets, and to import/export presets. I've left these as candy for when the plugin is registered.
  • Added a help page describing the different types of presets the plugin works with (Lightroom default, Plugin default, User custom, and Static user custom).
  • Added the "map" metadata item from my geoencoding plugin
  • Lots more I can't remember.

One of the big todos is to add the ability to set attributes to items, such as the the number of lines of a caption.

20090330.1

Initial public beta release.

The UI for this plugin has been by far the most difficult to do, and that's mostly what this plugin is about: a snazzy interface for editing a simple preset file. Lightroom's plugin infrastructure is still in its infancy and understandably Adobe has not yet filled out every feature required to make a rich, interactive presentation. Taking it almost as a personal challenge, I've expended enormous effort to try to work around some of the limitations. This is the best I can do for now.

At this first-beta-release stage, I'd appreciate comments via email, so I've turned off comment-submission for this post.

Because this is an early beta that I don't want to hang around very long, the plugin expires after a month. It'll certainly be updated well before then.