Exif writing error?

With regard to EXIF properties...

Not all EXIF properties will be written back to the original files for all file types when they are set via Bridge.

And, yes, we realize that better scripting support the the XMP data model is important to our scripting customers.

Thanks for your feedback.

-David

With regard to the Lang Alt types, there is a work around for editing some of the commonly used properties, such as the Caption.

There are aliases to a number of the lang alt type Dublin Core properties in the Photoshop namespace. These aliases are registered by the XMP Toolkit used by Bridge 1.0. Setting an array property through the alias sets the first member of the array.

Below is an example of setting these properties through their Photoshop namespace aliases.

-David

if( (app.name == "bridge") ) {

var testName = "QuickTestWritePhotoshopAliasProperties";

var doQuickTest = function( thumbnailsToTest ) {
for( var t = 0; t < thumbnailsToTest.length; ++t ) {
var testThumb = thumbnailsToTest;

var md = testThumb.synchronousMetadata;

md.namespace = "http://ns.adobe.com/photoshop/1.0/";
md.Author = "Author is an alias of dc:creator"; // ordered array
md.Caption = "Caption is an alias of dc:description"; // lang alt
md.Copyright = "Copyright is an alias of xmpRights:Copyright"; // lang alt
md.Marked = "True"; // alias to xmpRights:Marked
md.Title = "Title is an alias of dc:title"; // lang alt
md.WebStatement = "WebStatement is an alias of xmpRights:WebStatement"; //simple prop

}
}

var quickTestMenuItem = MenuElement.create( "command", testName, "-at end of Tools", testName );

quickTestMenuItem.onSelect = function() {
var selectedThumbs = app.document.selections;
doQuickTest(selectedThumbs);
}
}

Thanks for the information! I guess I need to read the spec more carefully.

In this same script, I get around a similar limitation for adding keywords to XMP by generating a custom XML template, and then using applyMetadataTemplate to merge it in. Could this approach work for the EXIF data as well?

Is there any hope that a future version of Bridge will support deeper Javascript access to array-type properties?

Thanks,
___Samuel___

The eternally spinning indicator is due to a bug in Bridge. It's not yor fault.

However, there are some things you should be aware of. According to the XMP Specification, the EXIF UserComment is a Lang Alt array type property and not Text. This means that src_meta.UserComment will return an Array and not a String if you use it on files that have an EXIF UserComment already--such as one set by the camera. In that case your script will fail on uc.replace() because replace() is a String method and not an Array method. Also, since Bridge scripting does not support setting array-type properties in XMP, when your script sets the UserComment, the value is being set as a simple Text property and not Lang Alt array, which is not to spec. I reccomend finding another property where you can stick the _stars value.

-David Franzen
Adobe Bridge Quality Engineer
Adobe Systems Inc.