digiKam feature - suggestion: Make Metadata editor features available without creating a catalog/database

[Remco Viëtor]

On jeudi 13 juin 2024 16:58:33 CEST Gregg Zupcsics wrote:
> To clarify, I suggest enabling use of as many Metadata Editor features as
> possible - including editing .xml files and fields AND editing metadata in
> image files, without and independently from creating & maintaining a
> catalog/database.
> 
Currently, digikam doesn't allow editing of sidecar files *at all*.
It can read and write some fields in sidecar files, but that's not the same 
thing. Fields that are not understood, will not be read (but are not modified 
or deleted on writing, either).

Also, there's no one-to-one correspondence between the metadata fields in 
digikam, and the xml tags used to store those fields in the sidecar files. 
Programs use different namespaces, with different syntax and slightly 
different semantics to store e.g. keywords. Digikam can read and write some 
fields from some of those namespaces, but not all.