Questions about date handling

[Jason Cox]

Hi all,

I've recently started using DigiKam for photo management. I'm liking it
overall, but I'm having some trouble with the way it handles dates.

Some of the photo software I use unfortunately overwrites many of the
date fields in files' metadata, but thankfully it preserves the
DateTimeOriginal field. DigiKam, however, doesn't seem to use this field
and instead uses the CreateDate (or perhaps one of the other fields) to
determine the photo's date. I'd prefer to use the DateTimeOriginal -- is
there any way to configure this? I've looked in the advanced metadata
settings, but the date field doesn't seem to be configurable.

I also have DigiKam setup to write metadata to the files so that things
like tag changes can be viewed in other programs. However, when DigiKam
writes the metadata, it seems to be overwriting *all* of a file's date
fields to match the date it has stored for the photo. Is there any way
to tell DigiKam to only write its date to certain metadata fields unless
explicitly told to do otherwise? I'd prefer that it never update the
DateTimeOriginal unless I'm updating that field directly in the metadata
editor.

These two behaviors together make for a particularly unfortunate
combination for me. DigiKam is using the wrong (from my perspective)
date field to determine my photos' dates, and then if I make any updates
to the photos (e.g., adding tags), it overwrites the one date field that
is correct. As things currently stand, I have to be very careful to
always correct the date fields based on DateTimeOriginal before making
any other changes to photos; if I forget this step, the original
date/time is lost from my photos.

I'm aware that the Adjust Time & Date tool can help me correct the date
fields. I'd really love to be able to tell DigiKam to use the
DateTimeOriginal field when parsing dates from photos and/or prevent the
DateTimeOriginal field from being overwritten.

Is there anyway to achieve these desired behaviors or otherwise get
DigiKam to handle dates in a way that works better for me?

Thanks,
Jason