Get/Set metadata set by XMP Custom Panels in InDesign CS

I am using XMP Custom Panels to set metadata unique to my application in InDesign CS. That works well. I would like to be able to retrieve or modify those properties with a script.
Can you identify the object that would contain the metadata set by XMP Custom Panels and the properties or methods I would use to access them?

Thanks for the confirmation. This is a serious and surprising limitation. And if Bridge isn't going to handle complex types properly, it should at least not go ahead and stick invalid data in the field, as it does now.
I guess the only way to update complex types is to use a metadata template, or another tool.

Similar Messages

Use of XMP Custom Panel to automate insertion of metadata into PDF file.

I'm new to the world of XMP so please bear with me.
I'm exploring ways of automating the insertion of metadata into PDF files, either at the time of creation, or through a batch process. The metadata values for a given set of documents would be static, so these could be "hard coded" into the mechanism use to insert the metadata.
Would an XMP Custom Panel be something I could use to achieve this goal. If so, can you please provide some details on how to go about doing this.
Thanks in advance.
Louis

Were you able to find a solution to this problem? I am having the same issue.
Jason

Searching metadata added in a Custom Panel

Hello,
I have created a Custom Panel. Only problem is that when I try to do a search through the File Browser, it does not seem to search any of the data I entered into the custom fields.
Any thoughts?
thanks!
-Alicia

Yes, I can see all the data values. They are under the Advanced > XMP Core Properties. I have the fields of EventName, EventDate, People, BuildingLocation. All the data shows in the advanced tab, and if I export the data. But in the file browser, even if I select "Other Metadata" in the search field, it won't pull up any images in the search results.
If there was something wrong with how I wrote the custom panel (which is possible since I really don't have experience in that sort of thing) then it would have even showed up in the advanced tab, right?

XMP Custom Panels

I would like to know where to install my custom XMP Panels. I put them in the same location as in CS6, but they don't show up when I launch CC Photoshop.

OK, this is what I have done.
The swf file is named generic.swf
I made a text doc and put this path in the text
C:\Users\Chyron\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\XMP\Custom File Info Panels\4.0\panels\Athletes (US)\bin\
then saved it and renamed the .txt to .cfg and then created folders like you said above because they did not exist.
and put the file there.
C:\Users\chyron\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player\#Security\FlashPlayerTrust
and still does not work

XML Custom Panels: Samples With Doc are Not Well Formed XML

The custom panel samples in the XMP Custom Panels document (and the accompanying sample file) is not well formed XML (which means that CS3 can't be parsing the file as XML, which would explain how this error made it publication). In particular, the XML declaration is missing the closing "?".
 
 As published it is:
 
 <?xml version="1.0"?>
 
 It should be:
 
 <?xml version="1.0"?>
 
 Note the "?>" rather than ">".
 
 This is in addition to the DOCTYPE SYSTEM URL not resolving to an actual DTD declaration set (which would be:
 
 
 title CDATA #REQUIRED
 type NMTOKEN #REQUIRED
 >
 
 Cheers,
 
 Eliot

You'll have to do something to prevent your logger from appending to old logs that have been closed. Sorry if that is not very helpful, but I'm not familiar with the logging features in SDK 1.4. For your interest, though, Log4J (which you can get from Apache) also features XML logging, and it solved that rather obvious problem thus:
"The output of the XMLLayout consists of a series of log4j:event elements as defined in the log4j.dtd. It does not output a complete well-formed XML file. The output is designed to be included as an external entity in a separate file to form a correct XML file."
In other words, you would have to wrap the output in an XML header and a root node to be able to use it, which is not difficult to do.

How to create a custom panel in the right way (without having an empty panel in the file info) ?

Hi Everyone
My name is Daté.
I'm working in the fashion industry as a designer and Design consultant to help fashion brands improving the design workflow by using Adobe softwares and especially Illustrator.
I'm not a developper, but i'm very interested about the possibility to introduce xmp technology to provide more DAM workflows in the fashion industry.
Fashion designers produce a lot of graphical objects in illustrator or Photoshop. Unfortunately they are faced to a big challenge which is about how to manage, search, classify and get this files faster. Of course PDM system or PLM system are used in the Fashion industry to manage data, but for many companies, implemanting this kind of database is very complex.
When i look at what you can do with xmp, it seems to be an interesting way of managing design files, then i started to follow Adobe instruction to try to build a custom panel.
The main idea is to (Theory) :
create custom panels used by fashion designers to classify their design files.
Use Adobe Bridge to search files, create smart collection to make basic reports in pdf and slideshows
Find someone to make a script able to export metadata in xml files
Use indesign and the xml file to generate automatically catalogues or technical sheets based on xmp values
I have created a custom panel by using the generic panel provided by Adobe and i have modified the fields to feet with the terms used in the fashion industry and it works well.
But unfortunately, when i try to create my own custom panel from scratch with Flashbuilder (4.6) and the Adobe CSExtensionBuilder_2 (Trial version), it doesn't work!
Here is the process :
I have installed flashbuilder 4.6
I have download the XMP Fileinfo SDK 5.1 and placed the com.adobe.xmp.sdk.fileinfo_fb4_1.1.0.jar in C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.6\eclipse\plugins
In Flashbuilder, i have created a new project and select xmp Custom panel
The new project is created in flashbuilder with a field with A BASIC Description Field
To generate the panel, right click the project folder and select xmp / Publish Custom Panel
The panel is automatically generated in the following folder : C:\Users\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\XMP\custom file info panels\3.0\panels
Go to illustrator, Open the file Info
The panel appears empty
The others panel are also empty
The panel is created and automatically placed in the right folder, but when you open it in Illustrator by selecting the File Info option in the File Menu, this custom panel appears empty!!! (only the title of the tab is displayed). This panel also prevent the other panels to be displayed.
When you delete this custom panels from the folder C:\Users\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\XMP\custom file info panels\3.0\panels and go back to the File Info, the other panels display their content properly.
I also try to use the plugin XMP Namespace designer to create my own namespace. this plugin is also able to generate a custom panel, but this one also appears empty in AI or Photoshop.
I try to follow the process described in Adobe xmp documentation many times, but it didn't works.
It seems that many peaople have this issue, but i dodn't find a solution in the forum.
I try to create a trust file (cfg), but it didn't work.
It would be so kind if you can help me to understand why i can't create a custom panel normally and how to do it in the right way.
Thanks a lot for your help,
Best regards,
Daté

Hi Sunil,
After many trial, i realize the problem was not coming from the trust file, but from the way i have created the custom panel.
There is 2 different ways, the first described below is not working whereas the second is fine :
METHOD 1 :
I have downloaded the XMP-Fileinfo-SDK-CS6
In the XMP-Fileinfo-SDK-CS6 folder, i copied the com.adobe.xmp.sdk.fileinfo_fb4x_1.2.0.jar plugin from the Tools folder and i pasted it in the plugind folder of Flashbuilder 4.6
The plugin install an XMP project
In Flashbuilder 4.6 i have created a new project (File / New /Project /XMP/XMP Custom Panel)
A new xmp project is created in flashbuilder.
You can publish this project by right clicking the root folder and selecting XMP / Publish Custom Panel
The custom file info panel is automatically published in the right location which is on Mac : /Users/UserName/Library/Application Support/Adobe/XMP/Custom File Info Panels/3.0 or /Users/UserName/Library/Application Support/Adobe/XMP/Custom File Info Panels/4.0
Despite the publication of the custom file info panel and the creation of a trust file in the following location : "/Library/Application Support/Macromedia/FlashPlayerTrust", the panel is blank in Illustrator.
I try this way several times, with no good results.
METHOD 2 :
I have installed Adobe CSExtensionBuilder 2.1 in Flash Builder
In FlashBuilder i have created a new project (File / New /Project /Adobe Creative Suite Extension Builder/XMP Fileinfo Panel Project)
As the system display a warning about the version of the sdk to use to create correctly a custom file info, I changed the sdk to sdk3.5A
The warning message is : "XMP FileInfo Panel Projects must be built with Flex 3.3, 3.4 or 3.5 SDK. Building with Flex 4.6.0 SDK may result in runtime errors"
When i publish this File info panel project (right click the root folder and select Run as / Adobe illustrator), the panel is published correctly.
The last step is to create the trust file to display the fields in the panel and everything is working fine in Illustrator.
The second method seems to be the right way.
For sure something is missing in the first method, and i don't understand the difference between the XMP Custom Panel Project and the XMP Fileinfo Panel Project. Maybe you can explain it to me.
So what is the best solution ? the right sdk to use acording to the creative suite (the system asks to use 3.3 or 3.5 sdk for custom panels, so why ?)
I'm agree with Pedro, a step by step tutorial about this will help a lot of peaople, because it's not so easy to understand!!!
Sunil, as you belong to the staff team, can you tell me if there is :
A plugin or a software capable to extract the XMP from llustrator files to generate XML workflows in Indesign to create catalogues
A plugin to allow indesign to get custom XMP in live caption
A plugin to allow Bridge to get custom XMP in the Outputmode to make pdf or web galeries from a smart collection
How can you print the XMP data with the thumbnail of the file ?
Thanks a lot for your reply.
Best Regards
Daté

Mousewheel not working when over contents of custom panel.

So I have a custom collapisble panel, that when the user mousewheel's while over the header or footer of the panel it the entire page will scroll appropriately, but when the mouse is over the content inside the panel, the entire page won't scroll. I thought it might be the s:Scroller, but taking it out doesn't help. Anyone have the same issue?
Here is the contents of my custom panel.
<s:VGroup width="100%">
 <s:Scroller width="100%" >
 <s:Group>
 <s:layout>
 <s:VerticalLayout horizontalAlign="justify" />
 </s:layout>
 <custom:DG id="connectionsDG" width="100%"
 excludeFrom="blah"
 />
 <custom:Something id="multipleBlah"
 includeIn="blah2"
 />
 </s:Group>
 </s:Scroller>
 <s:Group width="300" bottom="5" top="5" left="5">
 <view:customAddButton id="AddButton"
 excludeFrom="blah" enabled="{enableAddBtn}"/>
 </s:Group>
</s:VGroup>

So the issue is setting MouseChildren = true on my custom Panel, by setting this the children are catching the mouseWheel event, I guess. If I set mouseChildren=false then the mouseWheel works correctly, but then the buttons and scroller within my custom Panel don't work, of course. Anyone have any work arounds?

Custom "Metadata Sets"

Version 1.0 has 5 pre-defined subsets of the metadata display in library in Addition to ALL.
There are a LOT of fields that I use only very rarely. And none of the pre-defined subsets include all the fields I use for nearly every image. SO, I would really like to see the ability to create 3 or 4 customized Metadata Sets that would facilitate entering/viewing the fields I want and not be cluttered with the ones I usually ignore.
Thanks,
Robert

Thanks for the response David.
I looked over the regex.info web page and will work with the program soon as I get a chance. Not as convenient as a function built into the program, but as good as we can get until Adobe incorporates something similar into LR.
Thank You very much for providing this.
Robert

Read XML function - can't get it to work correctly to set metadata

I've been working with the Read XML function in order to set metadata on assets with no avail. I'm using the following simple XML file in a Watcher folder with a poll watcher setup every 5 seconds, that then references a Read XML Response named "Update Asset Metadata" - to read the XML file and update the asset metadata. Nothing really happens even though the FCS Log file shows that the process is taking place to "update" the asset metadata. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
FILE:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<FinalCutServer>
<request reqId="setMd" entityId="/asset/10">
<params>
<mdValue fieldName="Title" dataType="string">Text Info Change</mdValue>
</params>
</request>
</FinalCutServer>

I got the answer. You must type “*.xml” (that is, asterisk-dot-xml) in the Value field of Wildcard Include Filter for it to work correctly.

Custom metadata sets for Productions?

I've added a new metadata set that suits our needs, but it is not showing up as an option when creating a new production - is there some option that I missed in order to allow this, or is there a completely different process involved with creating a new metadata set for production folders? Can someone tell me what I missed or walk me through how to do that? Thank you!

Did you make sure to assign the new MD Set to Productions and not Media? If so there must be something else wrong with the way you set it up. Make sure the ID says:
paproductionyourmetadatasetname
If it does not ID this way it will not show in new Productions.

Checkboxes in custom panels/boolean XMP properties

I have a large and expanding collection of photos, the majority of which are either (a) gig photos or (b) photos of railway signalling. The latter include a 'legacy' collection of some 2,000 35mm slides which I am slowly but steadily digitising using a film scanner. I make a lot of use of Adobe Photoshop CS2.
To assist in cataloguing my collections, I have created two custom XMP metadata panels, one for the gig photos and the other for the railway ones. I have installed both of these in the appropriate directory on my PC and they work very well, with the exception of the one small issue described below. Can anyone help me with that?
As I built up my railway slide collection, I adopted a system of numbering and categorising the slides which I have now incorporated into my custom panel and its underlying XMP extension schema. One of the properties within my system is a boolean setting, so I incorporated this as a check_box control within the custom panel for the railway photos.
What I am now finding, however, is that whenever I update the metadata of
any image on my PC, the default value of false is inserted for this property regardless of whether or not I have set any of the other properties defined in the custom railway photo metadata panel. I would prefer for this property to remain unset unless I specifically set it via the dialogue box. Is there anything I can do to achieve this?
For reference, the check box definition from my railway photo custom panel is:
check_box(name: '$$$/RailwayPhotos/item=Substitution ',
hotizontal: align_right, xmp_ns_prefix: 'RailPhoto',
xmp_namespace: 'http://www.roscalen.com/RailwayPhotos/1.0/',
xmp_path: 'substituted');
TIA
Adie

OK, this is what I have done.
The swf file is named generic.swf
I made a text doc and put this path in the text
C:\Users\Chyron\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\XMP\Custom File Info Panels\4.0\panels\Athletes (US)\bin\
then saved it and renamed the .txt to .cfg and then created folders like you said above because they did not exist.
and put the file there.
C:\Users\chyron\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player\#Security\FlashPlayerTrust
and still does not work

Saving metadata from Lightroom erases custom XMP data in DNG...

Hello,
There seems to be an issue with the way Lightroom applies changes in from the LR catalog to the assets metadata. The setup is LR 2.5 and there is an orginal set of images that have custom XMP data applied to them via Bridge. There is one LR catalog that points to these images and the LR catalog ratings and labels match those that are in these images. A second LR catalog copy (not export) was made where additional changes were made only to ratings and labels. This catalog also points to the original assets. When using the Save Metadata to files function in LR for this catalog (and selecting ALL files), LR erases all the original custom XMP data contained in the DNG images and writes only the ratings and label information.
It doesn't seem that LR should be overwriting the entire XMP packet when only ratings and labels have changed and are saved back to the assets. Is that the way this is designed or is this a malfunction?
Thanks for any help on this!
David

I may have answered my own question as we have run into this issue before. Lightroom is really not designed for any type of simultaneous workflow on the same files. Most content management applications utilize the check-in/check-out mechanism to avoid having to perform any type of merging or implement a logical business rule to determine which content updates "win" It is no different with Bridge and LR. You work in one application at a time doing specific things to the same files and then read from each other when those actions are complete. Working in this manner you never run into the merge issue or lose data from either side.
Our simple answer to this question is adjust our workflow timing for things to accommodate this behavior. The one thing that I will say is that LR does really need to provide some type of catalog history functionality that can be queried. I believe that LR does interact with the catalog database in this manner when you use the Save functionality from the context menu and have not imagery selected. It scans the database looking for any changes and then only updates those files it finds changes for. If we could only see this type of functionality added in a way that would show us history for changes to the catalog at large and not have to dig into individual assets to look for these changes that would be great.
We are going to look at a way to query the LR database itself to see if there isn't some time stamp information and file ID/filename data that can't be accessed as it would be invaluable to be able to look across large catalogs (well over 1000 images) and find the files that had been most recently updated (in updated I mean only simple updates to rating and label) and then separate these out to work with in their own group (collection).
I could also look at this as yet another opportunity to refine a workflow that doesn't create changes to identical data each time changes are incurred. I will look at that option much more closely as it is really the only thing we can easily control.
Cheers!
~David

Setting metadata in Bridge

Can someone give some advice on setting metadata values within Bridge using javascript? The examples all seem to deal with Text types like the following:
md = tn.metadata;
md.namespace = "http://ns.adobe.com/photoshop/1.0/";
md.Author = "Jane Smith";
But when trying to set other types, like the "caption" (which gets mapped to "http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/description"), the script will throw an exception.
md.namespace = "http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";
md.description = "New Caption"
-- Uncaught exception description --
I'm thinking this is probably because dc:description is defined as a "Lang Alt" type in the xmp specification which in turn is defined as:
"Language alternatives are a form of rdf:Alt array, referred to as the Lang Alt type. In this
example, each array item is a simple text value; the value has a property qualifier, specified as
the property xml:lang, giving the language of that value. "
But no matter how I try accessing this object (there is no "reflect" available on metadata objects), I can't seem to change the string value.
Any ideas would be much appreciated.
On another topic, would it be possible for someone to post the Export Metadata Script here in this forum for those of us who don't have access to the partners site? Here's is my working go at an export metadata script for Bridge that simply prints to the debugger. It's basically a quick hack of some of the routines in AdobeLibrary3.jsx which it also needs in order to run.
Thanks,
Bruce
#target bridge
if( BridgeTalk.appName == "bridge" ) {
DebugMeta = {};
DebugMeta.execute = function() {
// print out the metadata for the selected thumbnails
var sels = app.document.selections;
for (var i = 0; i < sels.length; i++) {
var t = sels[i];
var m = t.synchronousMetadata;
// loop through all possible elements (properties)
var elements = MdNs.elements.keyList;
for (var j = 0; j < elements.length; j++) {
var el = MdNs.elements.get(elements[j]);
if (el.scriptAccessible) {
try {
// print the value (and the mapping if it's redirected)
var val = el.getValue(m);
if ( isValidReference( val )
&& ( val.length > 0 )
&& ( trim( val ) != null ) ) {
$.write(el.handle + " = " + val);
if (el.redirected) {
$.writeln(" (" + el.redirectElement.ns.ns + el.redirectElement.property + ")");
} else {
$.writeln();
} catch (e) {
// setup menu
var myMenu = createMenu( "command", "DebugMeta",
"-at the end of Tools-", "tools/DebugMeta", DebugMeta.execute);
var contextMenu = createMenu ( "command", "DebugMeta",
"-at the end of Thumbnail-", "thumbnail/DebugMeta", DebugMeta.execute);

Bruce,
I think most people here agree with your 2c, but there just wasn't time to do everything.
But one of the great things about Bridge Scripting is, if you don't like it, change it, or create something that will do what you need. If you don't like the way collections work, create your own browse scheme, and do it your way.
The MdNs object has a definition for an object, MdManager. The MdManager constructor takes a thumbnail object. It's "grab" method creates 2 enumerations. MdManager.enumeration contains a KeyedArrayList (object defined in lib3 just above MdNs) of all the metadata elements that actually have values. MdManager.noValue is a KeyedArrayList of metadata elements that do not have values. Now, the standard MdManager only provides checks against the standard XMP schemas. But if you want to extend that, just add a MdNs.MetadataNamespace and the MdNs.MdElement 's necessary to define the non-standard data you want to enumerate.
So while you can't use the metadata object to traverse the metadata structure, there are always other ways.
The concept of modifying the scripting features of Bridge didn't stop there. In Lib1, we extended the File object prototype in Bridge:
File.isFileType() - give it a comma delimited list of extensions, returns true if file matches any of the extensions
File.isPhotoshop() is the file one of "PSD,PDD,8BPS,JPEG,JPG,GIF,"
File.isPageMaker()
File.isInDesign()
File.isPDF()
File.isIllustrator()
File.isOpenableIllustrator()
File.isOpenablePhotoshop()
File.isScript()
File.getExtension( noDecode ) - gets you the extension of the file - noDecode is a boolean - if true it will not perform a decodeURI on the result. Default is false
File.getNameWithoutExtension( noDecode ) - gets you the name of the file without the extension. noDecode is a boolean - if true it will not perform a decodeURI on the result. Default is false
File.getFileWithExtension( ext ) - creates a new File object with the original file name and the provided extension. You provide only the extension ( "jpg" ), the function adds the dot (".jpg").
We also extended the Thumbnail object prototype:
Thumbnail.isFileType( ext ) - same as File.isFileType but for Thumbnails.
Then there's handy functions like:
ensureUniqueFile( file ) - pass it a file object. If the file object exists, it will return a new File object with a "(integer)" added to the filename. So if My Documents/foo.jpg exists, and you called:
ensureUniqueFile( new File( "~/My Documents/foo.jpg ) );
the result would be a file object: My Documents/foo(1).jpg
These next two are defined in lib3:
ensureUniqueFolder( folder ) - does the same thing for a folder
And one of my personal favorites:
verifyFolder( folder, silent ) - if you give it a Folder, it will verify that the folder actually exists, creating the entire path to the folder if necessary. "silent" is a boolean. If true - it will just make the folder (and path to the folder). If false (the default) it will flip up a "Folder does not exist - Do you want to create it" alert to the user, to give them the choice. IF the user opts not to create the folder, it returns undefined.
If My Documents is empty (no files/folders), and you want to write a file into My Documents/1/2/3/My Folder/foo.txt
var f = new File( "~/My Documents/1/2/3/My Folder/foo.txt" );
var folder = verifyFolder( f.parent, true );
f.open( "w" );
f.write( "Four score and seven years ago..." );
f.close();
The result of that ditty will be the successful writing of the file, and the creation of the entire path to the file. It will only create the path elements that do not exist.
Bob
Adobe Workflow Scripting

XMP Custom File Info Panels

I've downloaded the new XMP Custom File Info Panels software. I installed the sample xmp panel descripter files in the proper location. Is it possible to view the customized metadata on a computer that doesn't have the descripter files? I hope the descriptor files get imbedded in the image with the customized xmp metadata.
-Mark Thiessen

Mark,
The PDF/A extension schema provides a big step to the self-sufficient functionality that you are asking about. It permits the XMP schema description information of custom XMP schemas to be embedded into the XMP as payload so that the file can be opened in years to come and the target metadata acurately interperted. Currently, PDF tools are active candidate to make use of this facility. However, there is nothing preventing future use with other file formats, and other tools (via plug-ins?).
It does not include vocabulary, static text, and panel presentation layout information.
http://www.pdfa.org/doku.php
It defines a "known" subset of standard XMP properties from the 2001 XMP Spec. Everything else is "custom".
You could craft a custom File Info "template" with the PDF/A extension for your custom XMP fields. Then import the template into each file.
The PDF/A extension schema itself is implemented with multi-dimensional XMP arrays. MetaGrove Plug-in dialog screen shots can be viewed on http://www.poundhillsoftware.net/Acrobat.htm
Regards,
Carl Rambert

Problems with Metadata Set and video clip size... I think....

Ok, I can't figure this one out... any help would be much appreciated.
Background:
I started server using the Video Production default customer profile. Then I created a few new metadata Sets including one called Finished Programs which is a media asset.
Problem:
When I upload a video clip and select the Finished Programs metadata set it always changes to the Media metadata set. Now this only happens when I have used MPEG Streamclip to take the video off of a DVD. If I upload a clip (mov) file that I used in Final Cut Pro it works fine.
My settings in MPEG StreamClip are Apple DV/DVCPRO-NTSC 720x480 Interlaced Scaling and Reinterlaced Chroma.
If I upload two clips at the same time and select Finished Programs metadata set, one that I used MPEG StreamClip and one that I digitized into FCP, it will place two clips in FCPserver, one with the Finished Programs and one with the Media Set.
Any ideas on how to fix this????

Could be. If it's not the metadata it must be something else. You would have to figure it out by trial and error. Maybe you should try giving it the highest priority and maybe turn off all automated scans and see if it works then. just to make sure that nothing intervenes with the process while it is going on and see if you can get it to run fully and see what the outcome is then.
I have files over 1 GB that get attached to the right medadataset. I have failures on thumbnail creation to, but FCSvr then starts the same job over and over till it succeeds.
I have never user MPEG Streamclip clips in FCSvr. Hopefully somebody else has and could share their experiences.

Get/Set metadata set by XMP Custom Panels in InDesign CS

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