Clear Metadata write-back

[twe]

Is it possible to Clear metadata Write-back ? 
Example: If I assign a star rating and then undo the rating, there is still a Pending metadata Write-back on this image (bug ?).  When betatesting I often end up with lots of "Pen icons", and would prefer a way to just clear these icons on all selected images, especially when there is nothing to do (like add a label and later remove the label, there is no need to touch the file). When I have 100 files with pending Write-back ...and there is no point in writing "nothing", it would be better to be able to Clear the write-back than to wait for 10 minutes for all pending files to be written to.  I think most of these unwritten metadata issues will be fixed in later versions, but during betatesting it would be nice to manually clear unwritten metadata.

It would also be very useful if it was possible to see the Write-back stack for a given file ?

[Mario]

especially when there is nothing to do (like add a label and later remove the label, there is no need to touch the file).

Setting a metadata tag, and then later at some point setting it "back" has no meaning. IMatch does not keep copies of the original metadata record so it can "know" that you did not make a "real" change. Besides, changing a metadata tag may also cause changes in several other tags, like timestamps, digests, linked tags, tags which are propagated by a version rule, etc. Very complicated to try to keep track of this. If you modify metadata of a file, IMatch marks it as having pending updates. At write time, IMatch and ExifTool will sort out which data has to be written or propagated, and where.

I'm with you with the Undo, though. Undoing metadata changes should also reset the pending flag, if it was not set before. I'll check that.

It would also be very useful if it was possible to see the Write-back stack for a given file ?

Reload the metadata from the file: <Ctrl>+<Shift>+<F5>. This will reload the metadata from the file and reset the pending state (when you have not set IMatch to protect unwritten metadata under Edit > Preferences > Metadata 2). Give it a try.

[Mario]

Undo now also resets the pending state (if the file was not already pending when you made the change).

[twe]

Undo now also resets the pending state (if the file was not already pending when you made the change).

Great !
My main reason for wanting to clear metadata write-back is related to my bugreport with topic 598. Experimenting with collection attributes have set pending write-back on lots of images, and when i execute the write-back it messes up the exif data. The tip about reloading the metadata from the file <Ctrl>+<Shift>+<F5> is great ! It fixes the lost exif data in the Camera Dashboard.  Thanks.