How do I make the plugin run automatically when a photo is imported?

Question

I am trying to write a new plugin where the metadata will be automatically added to the photo when I import the photo in the Lightroom.
How do I make the plugin run automatically when a photo is imported?
Thanks for  your help!
Regards,
Prosenjit

Answer 1

psaha84 wrote:
What I want is, when I import a photo in Lightroom the plugin will run and assign the metadata.
As John said, there is no mechanism to receive notification of import. The likely recourse is continuous polling (unless you get very creative..).
You can try optimizing. e.g.: every second (or less), see if the count has changed, if it's gone up, something's been imported, if not then probably not (check anyway once in a while..).
psaha84 wrote:
How do I save the custom metadata with the image file?
Lightroom 5 has the limitation, plugin  cannot link the custom metadata fields to XMP file or save them with image file.
So, is there any alternative way to save the custom metadata?
Yeah: Lightroom won't save custom metadata in xmp, nor read it if it's there, so you are pretty much on your own - you can save in a file, but if you save as non-standard sidecar Lr won't attend to it like it will jpg or xmp sidecar. For that reason it's often better to save in a separate dedicated location. You can save in image file itself, e.g. using exiftool if raw file, but that would make me nervous, and of course you'd have to have the logic to read it somewhere too..
Good luck,
Rob