[Digikam-devel] [Bug 140202] New: Allow fuzzy dates for photos and albums

[Braden MacDonald]

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http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=140202         
           Summary: Allow fuzzy dates for photos and albums
           Product: digikam
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: Gentoo Packages
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: wishlist
          Priority: NOR
         Component: general
        AssignedTo: digikam-devel kde org
        ReportedBy: mail bradenm com


Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.5.5)
Installed from:    Gentoo Packages

Often, users import photos from e-mail, sites like flickr, flatbed scanners, or from digital cameras that have the wrong date set. For photos like these, a user might know that the photo is from "January 2004", but be unsure of the exact date in January 2004 that the photo was taken on. However, Digikam requires not only a complete date but also always has a field for the exact time the photo was taken as well.

It should be possible for the user to specify the date of a photo only as accurately as he knows it. For example, the user should be able to say any of the following as the date/time of the photo:
2002
August 2006
15 May 1998, time unknown
14 January 2006, 03:17 pm

As it is, I believe, Digikam assumes that it knows the exact date and time for each photo, even if this information is completely incorrect. Users who only know the year of a photo are essentially forced to set a date such as January 1st at 12:00pm, rather than not specifying a date/time at all.

Further, albums have a similar problem. Users most often create albums containing photos that span multiple days. An album for a trip to Paris might include 5 days of photos. Yet, Digikam only allows specifying a single day as the date of the album. Digikam provides an easy way to make this date the mean date of the photos, but this is of limited practicality. Does the album date represent the date of the earliest photo in the album? The mean date? The latest date? The date when the photos were uploaded? Different users prefer each of these, but none of the approaches really make sense. The obvious, intuitive approach is to allow a range of dates for each album. For example, any of the following should be allowed as album dates:
2006
May-July 2004
13-19 July 2005
16 December 12:05 p.m. - 18 December 01:42 a.m.
29 September 1969

This would allow the user to specify dates to exactly the accuracy he knows the dates, and would make the search by date and browse by date features actually useful and practical for more users.