details pane with extra metadata

[science2002]

In the main pane explorer (under views: details) I have added the column "keywords" that it is very useful with PDFs, since many of them already contain useful terms in their metadata about their contents.

Question: Is it possible to modify the "details pane" as well and add some extra info like "keywords", so that they can be also modified within xplorer2, in similar way it can now be modified "Comment", or "Name", or "Creation date", etc.?

Thanks for any feedback

[otlaolap]

It is possible to customize the details pane in many ways. Search the forum for "X2Details" to see what is known about this. Much of the available explanation can be found in the thread http://forum.zabkat.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=9440.

[Kilmatead]

As a preface to that thread (which is kind of like jumping in the middle), it might be best to start with the original blog related to customising the details pane - it, and its associated thread, contain all a growing boy needs to seek the wild blue yonder.

[science2002]

Thanks @Kilmatead and @otlaolap.
I saw the blog reference and I tried to follow it. I was able to track the id from the "keywords" metadata. I built the following code that I added to x2details.htm.

<div class="pane_free">
<A id="s_19" href="@">Keywords</a>: <span>val</span>
</div>
Yet, the link is not editable. I tried to see the Id of windows (XP in my case) for "keywords" but I had less success. In Windows file properties the field "keywords" is editable for pdfs. Do you have any tip to make editable this term in xplorer2 details pane? Thanks again.

[Kilmatead]

Ah - if I recall correctly, the actual "clickability" of an element in the details pane is hard-coded in x2 itself, not directly user configurable (prefixing '<A' itself is insufficient), as the destination for the functionality must be "known". In this case, it is not.

Nikos will have a more specific answer, as I believe this amounts to more of a feature request...

[nikos]

as keywords column is not editable by xplorer2 directly, there's no way it may be so from the details panel. Pretty much all other properties you add in are read-only

[science2002]

Thank you very much to both for the feedback.
I think that with the diffusion of xmp standards adopted by Adobe et. al. for images and other doc files, tagging with the keywords metadata field has become a very efficient way of dealing with file management. Adobe Bridge for instance (a complement app of other flagship Adobe applications) does a wonderful job of this type. I hope x2 will emulate some of its file management features. Thank you.

[science2002]

Are there any updates to this feature in the latest (3.5.x) x2?
I tried to add the above code by creating a x2details.htm file. The keywords have been (or seem) inserted. Yet they do not appear in the properties menu of the pdf viewer by xchange that I installed to see pdf thumbnails. They appear just under( contextual win explorer) file properties.

Update: utilizing e_40 instead or in addition to s_19 let you see also proper PDF-IPTC keywords. Unfortunately the item is not editable.
Specs used: WinXPSP3; x2Ult. 3.5.x

[nikos]

on my win10, both keywords [S] and tags have the same content

Code: Select all

<A id="s_19" href="@">Keywords</a>: <span>val</span>
<b id="e_{F29F85E0-4FF9-1068-AB91-08002B27B3D9}:5">Tags</b>: <span>val</span>

another way to change these properties is inline using the XLS mode

[science2002]

@nikos, thanks for the feedback.

using WinXP at least in the default details pane I cannot see any field called "keywords". By inserting it in the file x2details.htm as dedscribed above, x2 removes from the details pane any other field. If I insert your id="e_{F29F85E0-4FF9-1068-AB91-08002B27B3D9}:5">, I can see the name of the field "Keywords" (this one is the proper PDF keywords) and its contents, but they are not editable.
I also used the plugin XPDFSearch from TotalCommander: sometimes with inplace edit it allows to insert new PDF keywords (inplace edit with slow double click does not work easy in my case: often it launches the pdf, other times does anything), but they are not recorded even after refreshing the pane.

[nikos]

none of these e_xxx you add in details pane would be editable. However the inplace edit should be the same as changing the keywords (tags) through the file property (sheet) page. Can you change PDF tags using the property page? Sorry I don't have XP with pdf support installed to test this

ps if you find inplace edit with the mouse tricky, you can press F2 to start rename then press TAB a few times till you reach the column you are after

[science2002]

press F2 to start rename then press TAB.

@nikos, great tip! Many thanks.
As far as PDFs are concerned - as you know - the keywords of file properties can be edited, but they are stored in the NTFS stream, not in the file. And Win7 and above do not support them. The keywords that I would like to use with PDF files are those "proper" to img/Pdf metadata type (they are stored in the file). There is a mess there too, thanks to different standards. But so far the IPTC standard (now partly updated with XMP standard) is largely accepted.

I do not know if the following is possibile but a killing future for pdf handling is the one shown in Adobe Bridge. The program keeps an outline of your keywords and by selection the file and flagging one or more keywords in the outline the file receives the keywords selected. Moreover by selecting one or more keywords in the outline you are able to filter just those files in the active pane/directory that contain them.
Here a pic of the Bridge Keywords outline:
.
I do not know if this will be possible in x2, but if so it will be really great. The drawback of Bridge in fact is that is a monster application as almost all Adobe apps.