When do you produce duplicates. And with "null value" you do that how?
IMatch only de-duplicates keywords, AFAIK. But metadata templates are complex, and there are options you can set (e.g. merge) which impact the outcome. I would need more details.
Usually setting repeatable tags is not something a user does often. When do you need this?
Quote from: Mario on March 07, 2024, 12:55:22 PMWhen do you produce duplicates. And with "null value" you do that how?
IMatch only de-duplicates keywords, AFAIK. But metadata templates are complex, and there are options you can set (e.g. merge) which impact the outcome. I would need more details.
Usually setting repeatable tags is not something a user does often. When do you need this?
I use repeatable tags for a few things - they are great for anything you want to retain as a list. There are the specific variable functions which are useful at times. The best value for me is how they work with a tag-based data driven category - each entry in the list shows up in the category properly but if I use a regular tag for a list, the category result is not as useful. For example a tag with two entries "A;B"
- Repeatable tag: in the category there is an A and a B and they show up with other files that have that value
- Regular tag: in the category there is an "A;B" which is listed differently from files with just "A" or "B"
A couple of examples of my use, in addition to keywords and Person in Image (which iMatch populates) are tags I use for:
- People details (pulling data from the People database and storing it in the metadata)
- Sources for More Information (a PLUS Custom tag)
I also intend to use a repeatable tag for capturing animal species and breeds.
I could use keywords for these but I like to keep my thesaurus a managable size and relatively fixed. Adding everything as a keyword would slow down entry as I use the "key ahead" feature a lot and finding the information in the keyword field could be like the "needle in a haystack". I have found having this information in specific tags is more intuitive and much quicker to see at a glance the values for a particular photo for a given tag (and I find it easier in any processing by using hasvalue/default type functions).
Bottom-line - I think repeatable tags are fabulous and I love how iMatch is able to use them including the thesaurus!
I have done pretty extensive testing - including the merge outcome in a MDT - so I think the conclusions are valid.
Now - why would I have duplicates and nulls? The most common scenario is when it is part of a repeated structure - but that is a bit of a different topic and I will post specifically on that - but I believe it is inter-related.
- Duplicates can occur when People Details are not unique (and both people are in the same photo) - short name is the obvious situation.
- Nulls can occur when someone is missing the details (and just the list separator is entered).
I posted this because I was driving myself a little crazy when sometimes a tag held duplicates/nulls and sometimes it didn't. Hence all the testing and my conclusion that panels and templates treat these tags a little differently. Not that it is wrong since it seems entirely consistent - it fits into the Good-to-Know category so the outcome matches the expectations when I update metadata.
As a side note, from all the testing, I identified which repeatable tag functions work (and which don't) for regular tags that look like a list (eg. one; two; three). Would that be of interest to post?
Michael