[Digikam-users] Timeline view: creation vs modification date

[Marcel Wiesweg]

> Hello everybody,
>
> when working with the timeline view (in the current svn kde3 version), the
> tool selects those pictures which were last changed in the entered time
> interval. However, I would rather like to select those pictures which were
> taken in the selected time range (and maybe modified later). Is it possible
> to configure this somewhere?
>
> Best, Gandalf

In the KDE3 version we have only one "date" field in the database, usually 
creation date I think but I am currently not familiar if there are cases 
where this is the file system modification date.

In the upcoming KDE4 release, we will have three distinct date fields: File 
system modification date, metadata creation date and metadata digitization 
date. The timeline tool is then based on the creation date.
The metadata field for finding out this date are, in order, which field is 
found first:

Exif.Photo.DateTimeOriginal
Exif.Photo.DateTimeDigitized (*)
Exif.Image.DateTime
Xmp.exif.DateTimeOriginal
Xmp.exif.DateTimeDigitized (*)
Xmp.photoshop.DateCreated
Xmp.xmp.CreateDate
Xmp.tiff.DateTime
Xmp.xmp.ModifyDate
Xmp.xmp.MetadataDate
Iptc.Application2.DateCreated
Iptc.Application2.TimeCreated
Iptc.Application2.DigitizationDate (*)
Iptc.Application2.DigitizationTime (*)
File system creation date


(*) 
Gilles: 
I am wondering if e.g. Xmp.exif.DateTimeOriginal should not have priority over 
Exif.Photo.DateTimeDigitized if we are explicitly looking for the creation 
date, and not the digitization date. Perhaps we split out a method 
getCreationDateTime(), and then getImageDateTime() first calls 
getCreationDateTime() and secondly getDigitazationDateTime()?