Metadata in Designer

[Alexi]

It would help professional workflows to have full access to the metadata for documents created and managed in Designer. This data should include information like the number and types of vector and bitmap objects in the document. It would also help to be able to add comments to metadata fields for attribution, and other notes to designers who might collaborate on a document. Thank you.

[GarryP]

Your argument might gain more support if you tell us how this would help rather than just saying that it would.
You might also want to say where you think the metadata should be held in the document, and where it would be available to use (internal to the software and externally), and how it could be used in which other processes/workflows.

[Alexi]

Hello and thank you for your request for more information.

When collaborating with other artists, or standardizing workflow, recipes, and methods for professional and personal styles, adding detailed metadata or being able to see details about the objects in document is essential.

Other uses will be to add copyright information, artist attributions, and keywords which aid finding and organizing shared resources.

Here's an article from Adobe regarding the use of metadata in Illustrator:

https://helpx.adobe.com/be_en/illustrator/using/file-information-metadata.html

Here is an article on adding metadata to the SVG format:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/SVG/Element/metadata

I hope this answers your questions.

[GarryP]

Thanks for giving a bit more information but I’m not really interested in what other software does.
I’m more interested in what could be done to improve the Affinity software rather than simply copying how something else works.

For instance, rather than telling us how Illustrator does things, why not tell us what your ideal workflow would involve regarding this?
Try thinking about how you would want to go about this sort of thing if you could design it to work in the best way for you.

• Where would the metadata come from?
• How would the metadata be extracted/copied?
• How would the metadata be added to the document?
• What, in the document, would it be added to?
• Where would the metadata be available to the user?
• How would the user see the metadata?
• How might the metadata be manipulated?
• How might the metadata be organised?
• How might the metadata be consolidated, reported or shared?
• Etc. Etc.

If you just want to do things like Illustrator does then using Illustrator is probably the way to go.
On the other hand, if you want to do things the way that is best for you then why not ask for what you really need?

As a (weak) analogy, if you want to get across a lake and someone already has a canoe you can ask to borrow their canoe but, alternatively, you could ask someone else to build you a speedboat.

Note: I have no affiliation with Serif and cannot influence what they do any more than any other user; I’m just trying to give you a chance to request what you really need rather than just ask for what someone else has made available.

[Wosven]

26 minutes ago, GarryP said:

I’m not really interested in what other software does.

But you should, people working on them could have spend years improving their apps, it's not always needed to reinvent the wheel... Usually, those apps' dev are smart enough of get enough intel to improve their apps.

We spend a lot of time in those forum to give our intel, but a lot of bugs persist, bad decisions keep on (2 simple examples plaging us: default last use path instead of current file path, PDF export not remembering last settings, especially reverting to "all spread"...).

 

About some of your questions, since AP already have a metadata panel, it seems logical to keep this sort of panel, perhaps improving it.

Also reading the link provided and choose the best or favorite ones that seems possible to add, etc.

[GarryP]

I didn’t say that I was totally disinterested in what other software does, just that I wasn’t really interested in what they do, especially when related to the Affinity applications.

Other software could have been built upon for years but that doesn’t mean that the end result is the best result as all the additions along the way could have resulted in a complex ‘mishmash’ of functionality which kept existing users happy while trying to ‘shoehorn’ extra functionality in there.

If there is an opportunity to introduce new functionality into the software, wouldn’t it be better to have a discussion, or even just think, about how that functionality could be achieved using today’s technologies and ways of doing things rather than simply replicating something that has mutated from some original functionality which was initially created maybe decades ago?

Just because something is done one way in other software which has been maintained for years doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best way to do it – it’s just the way that some people are used to using it.

Serif themselves decided to ‘ditch’ many decades of work on the Plus range of software to start ‘fresh’ with Affinity and look again at how current practices can be applied to doing things, rather than simply gloss over the old stuff in a new coat of paint.

If we really want the Affinity software to evolve in a good way then we should be looking to see if there are better ways of doing things rather than “Adobe does it this way so we should too because it keeps some people from moaning about having to learn something new.”

As a case in point, you say that “AP already have a metadata panel, it seems logical to keep this sort of panel, perhaps improving it.”
Why?
Why not think about the questions I asked earlier?
Why is a ‘Metadata Panel’ the “logical” thing to have?
Why would we need/want to have all of the metadata in the same place?
Why wouldn’t it be better to have the metadata where it is needed/used?
Etc. Etc.

For example, the OP asks for “comments… for attribution, and other notes”.
Why would it be useful for all of this data to be available in just one panel?
Would it not be more useful to be able to get this information on a layer-by-layer basis? i.e. See the notes/attribution related to this specific image or this particular page?
A ‘Metadata Panel’ might actually be the best way, but we won’t really know if there is a better way unless we at least think about it.

If someone wants to do things as Illustrator does them then they should probably be using Illustrator, but if we want the Affinity range to shine above other software because it does things better than other software then we need to be thinking about how things can be done better rather than just copying what other software does, for whatever reason.

Other software may actually do some things the best way – I’m not saying that they don’t – but we may never find out if there is a better way if we don’t ask the questions.

[krollian]

Hello!

I think metadata nowadays is very important. So, for me it could be useful have a panel for metadadata to include keywords in a file.

This way you can have photos, images, logos, illustrations, layouts and so on with its metadata included. It looks that only Affinity Photo has this tool.

I hope that in the 1.11 versions of Designer, Photo and Publisher would be able to have some kind of standard panel to include metadata in the documents that this applications create and you can include the metadata in the other exported formats too.

Thanks for reading.

🙂

[fde101]

The truly unfortunate thing here is that while Publisher (Fields panel) and Photo (Metadata panel) both provide different limited versions of this already, they have only partial overlap in terms of the fields that are accessible, and neither application currently supports custom fields.

I agree that this should be standardized, support for custom fields added, and the feature provided across the product line.

[Oliver twist]

On 1/25/2022 at 1:55 PM, GarryP said:

As a case in point, you say that “AP already have a metadata panel, it seems logical to keep this sort of panel, perhaps improving it.”
Why?

Because, for example, Designer set the "Title" metadata of the document based on the name of the document. I should be able do edit this metadata. If Designer don't let me edit this tag then it shouldn't set it. 

[iuli]

+1 for Metadata in Designer for Desktop, so then we can hope that sometimes in the very distant future will come to iPad as well.