Temporary labels for images

You can customize the display in the Links panel to show folder names. Not just the name of the folder an image is in but the name of the folder that folder is in, and so on. If all your photos from 2007 are in one folder you can configure the panel to show Folder 0, then sort by that column by clicking on the column heading.

You can use Bridge to view metadata and help organize images by year.

Here some screenshots with a different variant of my script, code not posted here, where I added a text frame to every graphic's graphic frame that is not in overset text or that has no text frame yet.

After running that other script. Text frame inside every graphic frame added:

After changing some properties of the new object style that is applied to the text frames and typing in one frame:

Because the contents of the text frames is tied directly with the graphic frames that are holding the images, another script could easily read out the contents and would be able to rename the graphics accordingly.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Ah! So you have to fill in the year in that label without a script?

To add the labels ( text frames ) on top of every visible graphic, run this ExtendScript code on your document:

// Define the name of the object style and the name of the layer of the "labels": 
var labelObjectStyleName = "LabelStyle";
var labelLayerName = "LabelLayer";

var doc = app.documents[0];
var labelObjectStyle = doc.objectStyles.itemByName( labelObjectStyleName );
var labelLayer = doc.layers.itemByName( labelLayerName );

// Add the object style if it does not exist:
if( !labelObjectStyle.isValid )
{
	labelObjectStyle = doc.objectStyles.add({ name : labelObjectStyleName });
};

// Add labelLayer if it does not exist:
if( !labelLayer.isValid )
{
	labelLayer = doc.layers.add( { name : labelLayerName } );
	labelLayer.move( LocationOptions.BEFORE , doc.layers[0] );
};

// Get and loop all graphics in the document:.
// Add a text frame on top of every graphic.

var allGraphics = doc.allGraphics;
var allGraphicsLength = allGraphics.length;

for( var n=0; n<allGraphicsLength; n++ )
{
	// In case graphic is in overset text: do nothing:
	// If not get its geometric bounds:
	try{
	var gB = allGraphics[n].parent.geometricBounds;
	}catch(e){ continue };
	
	// Duplicate the graphic frame of the graphic to get the spread 
	// where the graphic is positioned:
	var tempItem = allGraphics[n].parent.duplicate();
	
	var spread = tempItem.parent;
	spread.textFrames.add
	(
		{
			geometricBounds: gB ,
			itemLayer : labelLayer ,
			appliedObjectStyle : labelObjectStyle
		}
	);
	
	// Remove the dup item:
	tempItem.remove();
	
};

After running the script define the new object style.

If you are using auto height and auto width together with an inset you automatically get centered label text frames with a minimum size after you typed in the year the image was taken.

Before running the script:

After running the script, text frames are added to every graphic on a new layer, a new object style is added and applied to every text frame:

Let's define the object style: fill color set to yellow, transparency set to the fill, paragraph style added, text is now centered in the text frame and auto height and auto width are enabled together with a inset value for the text frame:

In the moment you type to a text frame auto height and auto width kick in and center the frame to the graphic:

Definition of the object style's auto height and auto width:

A slightly different approach would be to add the text frame inside the frame holding the graphic so that yet another script could easily do the renaming of the graphic's file name based on the contents you are writing to the text frame. Later when done the object style of the text frames could be changed to non-printing for example. The following screenshot is showing this with Operprint Preview enabled:

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Hi RGPatt,

so you want to arrange all the images in order of the modification date of the placed image files?

I'd do this with InDesign's ExtendScript (JavaScript). You could loop the document's links collection where all placed and linked items are stored. Test if a file for a given link is there, test if the file is an image and finally store its modification date to an array; together with the graphic frame that holds the image in the layout. When done sort the array by the stored date value and move the graphic frame accordingly.

However, what's unclear to me and would be very important:

How is your layout?

Can you show some screenshots?

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

I like your idea #1. BTW, are all your 680 photos the same size?