Photo tags and external applications

General discussion about the media server. Feature requests. Hints, tips and tricks.
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twentw
Posts:10
Joined:Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:17 pm
AV Hardware:PS3
Photo tags and external applications

Post by twentw » Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:53 pm

I'm using 4.4.4 to stream to a PS3. I've got two issues. First, I'm trying to understand how photo "Tags" works. All of my photos are tagged, and Twonky picks up those tags and they are listed under the "Tags" node. However, choosing a particular tag doesn't take me to the picture(s) with that tag, it takes me to another tag associated with a picture. Some of my pictures have 6 or 8 tags, so all I'm doing is selecting one tag after another, and usually there's not even a photo at the end of the string of tags. I don't think this is how it's supposed to work. Does anyone have any different experience? Also, I've imported all my photos into Photoshop Album 3.2 and have pointed Twonky to use that psa file. As far as I can tell, this does nothing.

I've also pointed Twonky toward my iTunes library. It looks like Twonky only picks up rating information from the iTunes library, and doesn't pick up any playlists. Again, is this how it's supposed to work?

howdens
Posts:3
Joined:Sat Mar 29, 2008 10:19 pm
AV Hardware:Server: Twonky Media v4.4.4 on QNAP TS209 v2.0.1
Client: Currently testing using Cyberlink SoftDMA, plan to use Zyxel DMA 1000

Re: Photo tags and external applications

Post by howdens » Sat Mar 29, 2008 10:58 pm

I am seeing the same issue.

It seems to be that the TAG node begins with an empty list of selected tags and then adds tags to the selection list as you click on them, to allow you to build up your list. The problem appears to be that the server then does an exact/exclusive match compare between the seletected tags and the tag associated with the photos - meaning these tags and only these tags - which effectively excludes photos that have other additional tags assiged which means that it doesn't display many photos if you use lots of tags. This behaviour is the opposite of Photoshop.

IMHO what it should do is behave like photoshop and do an "includes/contains" match between the selected tags and the tags associated with the photos - meaning all photos which include all the selected tags in their tag list - which would select all photos which include the currently selected tags, even if they also include other tags not curently selected - that way you effectively start with an empty select string which creates a selection that includes all of your photos and you gradually reduce the number of photos by selecting additional tags that have to be present in the tag list of the photos. (There may be some other way to create the same behaviour - I'm not an expert on the working of uPnP, but the above should work).

To go all the full way to replicating the Photoshop behaviour there is an addional option to replicate and that is to be able to specify "does not include" - meaning exclude photos which include this tag, these tags, but that would require two selected tag lists and include and an exclude - not sure if this is possible.

If we could at least get the exact/exclusive match changed to an include/contains match that would improve this greatly. It wouldn't be perfect as without the exclude option it may be difficult to narrow down to a very specific group of photos, but it would be a lot more useful and usable than the current version.

I'm new here - how do we make this request to the developers.

PCP69
Posts:6
Joined:Thu Sep 06, 2007 12:04 pm

Re: Photo tags and external applications

Post by PCP69 » Fri Apr 11, 2008 1:28 pm

Hi!

I have TwonkyMedia 4.4.4 installed on an old Notebook running Windows 2000 Server. I have Adobe Photoshop Album 3.2SE installed on 2 clients running XP. I moved the Catalog (.psa-file) on the server (apparently it is a simple Jet 4.0/Access file) and corrected the HKCU-settings of the clients. There are a few thousand pics on a share on the server. I have tagged a few of them for testing purposes. So far so good, everything works fine in Photoshop Album.

The full path to the .psa-File is defined in Twonky. I also defined a custom navigation tree using %KEYWORD% (Schlagwort in German) to be able to search for Tags. I had the db recreated unter 'maintenance'. I still can't see no Tags in Twonky.

Now the question is, how does Twonky access the .psa-File? Does it use its own driver, or does it need an ODBC (or whatever) connection defined during the Photoshop Album installation? As it happens, Photoshop Album 3.2 SE cannot be installed on Windows 2000, so I couldn't install it on the server.

Here is a log-extract:

23:24:58:736 LOG_SYSTEM:parm: [D:\db\PicsOnMediaServer.psa]
23:24:58:736 LOG_SYSTEM:parm: [D:\db\twonkymedia.db]
23:24:58:736 LOG_SYSTEM:call plugin: [C:\Programme\TwonkyMedia\plugins\adobe-import] ["D:\db\PicsOnMediaServer.psa" "D:\db\twonkymedia.db" -logfile "C:\Programme\TwonkyMedia\TwonkyMediaServer-log.txt"]
23:24:58:756 LOG_PLUGIN:adobe-import: no change on D:\db\PicsOnMediaServer.psa since last check

And:

23:35:35:701 LOG_SYSTEM:parm: [D:\db\PicsOnMediaServer.psa]
23:35:35:701 LOG_SYSTEM:parm: [D:\db\twonkymedia.db]
23:35:35:701 LOG_SYSTEM:call plugin: [C:\Programme\TwonkyMedia\plugins\adobe-import] ["D:\db\PicsOnMediaServer.psa" "D:\db\twonkymedia.db" -logfile "C:\Programme\TwonkyMedia\TwonkyMediaServer-log.txt"]
23:35:45:345 LOG_PLUGIN:adobe-import: D:\db\PicsOnMediaServer.psa imported

Still, no Tags show up in my Navigation Tree...

Thanks for a reply

P@

PCP69
Posts:6
Joined:Thu Sep 06, 2007 12:04 pm

Re: Photo tags and external applications

Post by PCP69 » Fri Apr 11, 2008 2:06 pm

OK, here's some more infos I've found out:

- the .psa file is an Access 2000 file, it doesn't seem to be protected in any way
- the adobe-plugin only needs KERNEL32.dll and ODBC32.dll (I have latest ODBC32.dll installed, as well as Access driver)

Still, no progress...

PCP69
Posts:6
Joined:Thu Sep 06, 2007 12:04 pm

Re: Photo tags and external applications

Post by PCP69 » Fri Apr 18, 2008 3:48 pm

OK, so here's the answer I got from support:
Hi,

we are sorry - but we also can only support XP and VISTA.
We use the MS-Access engine to access the db.
Thanks
The TwonkyMedia Team
Wow, thanks guys...

Anyway, I searched further. First I installed Adobe Photoshop Album SE 3.2 on my server (still Windows 2000, I had to use Orca to modify the installer) just to be on the safe side. Actually I'm quite sure you don't need that.

Then I monitored closely the twonkymedia.db directory after a restart of Twonky. You might want to delete 'adobe.import.run.check' before you restart, just to be sure the plugin will be called.

If you watch closely, there is a file called 'adobe.import.items' created, which again is supposed to be merged to the Twonky db. You can follow that in the log (shortened):

Code: Select all

14:22:50:108 LOG_SYSTEM:checking (once) for plugin C:\Programme\TwonkyMedia\plugins\adobe-import.plugin
14:22:50:108 LOG_SYSTEM:parm: [D:\db\PicsOnMediaServer.psa]
14:22:50:108 LOG_SYSTEM:parm: [D:\db\twonkymedia.db]
14:22:50:108 LOG_SYSTEM:call plugin: [C:\Programme\TwonkyMedia\plugins\adobe-import] ["D:\db\PicsOnMediaServer.psa" "D:\db\twonkymedia.db" -logfile "C:\Programme\TwonkyMedia\TwonkyMediaServer-log.txt"]
14:23:00:293 LOG_PLUGIN:adobe-import: D:\db\PicsOnMediaServer.psa imported
14:23:00:363 LOG_DB:adding file D:\db\twonkymedia.db\adobe.import.items!
14:23:09:176 LOG_DB:removing shadow files
14:23:12:591 LOG_DB:removing empty container
This file is deleted shortly after creation (probably what they call 'removing shadow files), but if your server is slow enough (mine is!), you can copy it into another directory.

That's what I did, so I can confirm that it actually contains the Adobe informations, like Tags, Picture size, and obviously other stuff. As far as I could check, Resolution is already indexed by TwonkyMedia. The size of this file is >500kb, and to me it seems that the plugin is actually working.

I tried %DESCRIPTION and %KEYWORD, but still, when I call the navigation node, the list is empty...

Any suggestions?

P@

mik
Posts:12
Joined:Sun Jun 17, 2007 12:29 pm

Re: Photo tags and external applications

Post by mik » Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:20 pm

Hi,

did you solve your problem?

mik

PCP69
Posts:6
Joined:Thu Sep 06, 2007 12:04 pm

Re: Photo tags and external applications

Post by PCP69 » Tue Jun 17, 2008 2:50 pm

@mik:
Hi

No, sadly not. I'm running 5.0 beta 1 now and still missing working photo tag support (at least in my case).

Sadly also missing real mkv and popcorn support...

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