[digiKam-users] Reread metadata from files: Can this extend to XMP sidecars?

[Remco Viëtor]

On mercredi 2 février 2022 04:57:16 CET Will Rose wrote:
> Ah ok that was my problem. Thanks! I had:
> 
> - Read from sidecar files (Unchecked)
> - Write to sidecar file (Checked)
> ---- Write to XMP sidecar for read-only item only
> - Sidecar filenames are compatible with commercial programs (Checked)
I don't understand why you need that last one. From your posts, I get the 
impression that your sidecars are created and used by Digikam. By default, 
digikam uses <filename>.<ext>.xmp for its sidecars, the compatibility option 
changest that to <filename>.xmp.
> The solution was to make the "Read from sidecar files" option checked on the
> system that was trying to read from the XMP sidecars into the database.
> 
> It was a little messier than I had hoped though, but not really DigiKam's
> fault. If you have your iPhone set to record "live photos", what gets saved
> is 1 image in HEIF format, and 1 video in MOV format. However, they use the
> same filename (i.e., IMG_1803.HEIF, IMG_1803.MOV). Unfortunately that means
> that if I add a tag to the HEIF file, which gets written to XMP sidecar, I
> have to make sure I don't add a tag to the matching MOV. If I do, it
> overwrites the XMP sidecar with the video's metadata.
So if you do NOT check the option for compatible sidecar names, you won't have 
such problems, as you'll get two different sidecars: IMG_1803.HEIF.xmp and 
IMG_1803.MOV.xmp ...

(having identical base names for images is very common when shooting raw: you 
have the raw file *and* the generated jpg, png and/or tiff, which only differ 
in their extension; some programs store the development steps in the sidecar, 
and you certainly don't want those applied again to the exported files...)

Remco.