[Digikam-users] Digikam IPTC

[michael hughes]

Thank you for your sensitive and intelligent reply and for your offer of
help. I don't mind a fight, in fact I sometimes enjoy it. The email that
started all this, in case you haven't actually seen it, here it is;

Hallo everybody,

I probably won't make myself very popular with this but here goes. I am a
professional photographer working in Berlin. I previously used macs up to
system 9 and windows xp. I am a freelancer so I have to look after myself by
and large when things go wrong. I decided to check out Linux using the CT
package after I had a head crash on my laptop and needed to install a
system. Naturally I am interested in finding an alternative to Photoshop and
Lightroom as highest priority and thought that with Ubuntu Linux had finally
got near enough to be useful to me. Generally speaking Digikam is very good
apart from the backwood aesthetics of penguins peering cheerily over
cameras, which I can frankly live without.

My main problem is the IPTC. I still have not found a way to coherently work
with this despite having spent six weeks on and off with the problem. It
begins with the preferences; you have to switch IPTC on. This is for me the
first major "policy statement". As a professional I could just about accept
that you could switch IPTC off but as a default this is just not serious. I
now find bits of information (the copyright details in prefs) in the IPTC
but am not quite sure how they got there. Captions have appeared from photos
which already had captions after being imported into Digikam. Using Tags I
have still not found an intuitive way of adding information. Maybe I just
have a blind spot - if so then tell me what I am doing wrong. Until then I
have to reiterate that Lightzone still is the more mature product


regards,


Michael Hughes

I really don't think this is "trolling", nor do I find it rude. I am
english, living in Germany with a german wife and a kid that goes to an
american school. I speak three languages and travel extensively all over the
world. To refer to cultural insensitivity is a laugh. Oh and by the way I am
having therapy and the guy is very good.


Michael

On 19/02/2008, Dotan Cohen <dotancohen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 19/02/2008, michael hughes <leftbrainorama at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > Markus,
> >
> > you started well and then ended up being as dismissive as the others. I
> am
> > not even sure what a troll is. All I have said is that I have not worked
> out
> > how to write into digikams IPTC apart from the preferences bit. I don't
> need
> > more than the IPTC which LightZone offers - but it is there where I need
> it.
> >
> > I find it incredible to notice how sensitive you all are. You think I am
> > wasting your time, you think I am an ignorant troublemaker trying to
> make a
> > point. To quote Kurt Crömer "eee? guck im Spiegel, det ist eee"
>
> Michael,
> I know how you feel that you wrote to the list with constructive
> criticism and everyone started yelling at you. You are experiencing
> the same culture clash that most people experience in the first few
> times they write to an open source application's mailing list. Let me
> explain some things, and know that I am both on your side (as a new
> Linux user who has gone through the culture clash as well) and on the
> Digikam team's side (as I know what they expect).
>
> Open source developers seem to love criticism, but of a very specific
> type. Very specific comments such as "feature XXX does not work in an
> intuitive way, a better way would be AAA" or "feature YYY performs in
> the reverse fashion as the industry standard, which is BBB" are very
> welcome and will make you many friends quickly. Saying blanket
> statements such as "your product is immature compared to
> MegaDollarsSolution" is akin to saying "your product sucks". Of course
> you could not know that, in fact, it may seem to you that the Digikam
> developers are being rather sensitive. After reading these lists for
> about a year now, trust me, they are not being overly sensitive. They
> are being impatient, and that's fine. They expect that if you are
> going to say that their product is immature, that you will give very
> specific examples.
>
> Now here is another fork. You are probably saying that you _did_ give
> examples in your comments regarding IPTC. The thing is, in your first
> email, that all you did was mention the problems and then mention that
> Digikam is comparatively immature. Please, be a little thick skinned
> (this goes for the Digikam devs as well) and give a very specific
> example of the workflow that you, as a professional, would expect to
> add IPTC info. I'm sure that the devs would appreciate it, and if need
> be, I'll help file the bug that will request the feature. Filing bugs
> is the accepted way of initiating change in Digikam or any other FOSS
> project. Note that if you think the devs on the mailing list are
> sensitive, then you'll need to tread extra lightly in Bugzilla. I
> suggest that in bugzilla one not mention competing projects, rather,
> just mention the features you need and expected implementation.
>
> In any case, I don't represent anything other than myself, but as a
> fellow user I welcome you to Digikam and Linux in general. After some
> time the culture will become more obvious and you will see why it is
> the way it is. And then you'll write a similar letter to another
> frustrated new user. Feel free to contact me off list if you have any
> questions but don't want to risk the wrath of the elders here, in
> regards to Digikam, KDE, or Linux in general.
>
> Dotan Cohen
>
> http://what-is-what.com
> http://gibberish.co.il
> א-ב-ג-ד-ה-ו-ז-ח-ט-י-ך-כ-ל-ם-מ-ן-נ-ס-ע-ף-פ-ץ-צ-ק-ר-ש-ת
>
> A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
>



-- 
visit my web site at www.hughes-photography.eu
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