History: Include items that were changed...

[Jingo]

Hi.. love the history feature as it helps in diagnosing who/when info might have been updated on a file.. but would really like to have the see the data that was changed.  Currently, the history box says that "metadata changed" - can we have an option to also include the data that was changed?  Perhaps putting it in the description box? 

I know this could generate a lot of data in the database.. but I think this would be useful and you must already be tracking the fact that the data changed in order to write it out.. or am I mistaken there?

Thx!

[Mario]

I know this could generate a lot of data in the database..

Exactly.
Changing one metadata tag may cause updates to 30 or more tags, depending on the metadata format, the tag changed and the metadata settings you use. Doing a "diff" is not that easy either, there are a number of gotchas here as well.

Currently IMatch only needs to add a few bytes to the history of the file, but recording all metadata changes will require a lot of extra data to be stored and managed. I pondered that while designing the history and voted against it.

But if many users would find such a feature useful, now we have your request and they can +1 it or comment on it. I'm not that sure that many users know about the history yet 

[Ger]

+1

I mentioned this quite some time ago as an option, but the cost (database handling, size) is not to be underestimated, especially with the many new metadata elements available.

[photoken]

-17

The volume of data and the complexity of manipulating that data for display argues strongly against this feature for an image management application.  Most (if not all) of the changes are very innocuous and don't really deserve having their detailed history preserved.

Detailed history logging is a feature that is critically important in other areas, such as health care, where the integrity and history of a patient's treatments, etc., is mandated by government regulation.  Of course, those software programs are running on powerful servers with terabytes of storage and using enterprise-class database systems.

[Jingo]

Thx for the reply Mario - guess this will probably not be something to add.. perhaps "history" implied something when I saw it.. oh well ..

[Mario]

You can add user-defined entries to the history. So if you want to note something like "updated keywords" or "changed GPS coordinates" you can do so yourself, directly in the history panel.

If you have some experience with scripting, you can access both the metadata and the history from IMatch scripts.