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The photo-metadata.properties file

BluPlusPlus displays metadata in the form of field names/field values pairs (see here for a screenshot). There are standard field names for both EXIF and IPTC information, as well as camera-specific EXIF fields with their own field names. By default, these standard and camera-specific field names are displayed in the metadata window.

Users can change the text displayed for the metadata field names. There are several reasons to do so:

  • Users may prefer to use their own wording (e.g. “Photographer” instead of “Writer/Editor” or “Shutter Speed” rather than “Shutter Speed Value”)
  • Users may use a given IPTC field for storing information other than originally designed (e.g. a series of photos taken during a trip to Rome in 2003 could all be labelled that way using an IPTC field whose default field name would not adequately describe the theme “Trip to Rome 2003”)
  • Users may wish to display field names in a language other than English (e.g. “Pais” instead of “Country/Primary Location”)

The ‘photo-metadata.properties’ file is used to make these kinds of changes.

Structure of a photo-metadata.properties/photo-metadata_xx.properties file

Each line in a photo-metadata.properties/photo-metadata_xx.properties file is of this form:

original default field name=new field name to be displayed
(Note: in the photo-metadata.properties file distributed with BluPlusPlus, sample entries are given, but the entries all begin with ‘#’ in order to have them “commented out”. DO NOT BEGIN AN ACTUAL ENTRY WITH ‘#’).

photo-metadata.properties file vs. photo-metatdata_xx.properties file

The photo-metadata_xx.properties files are language specific. The language file used depends on the language chosen on the BluPlusPlus-General tab (see here for a list of languages currently supported by BluPlusPlus). For example photo-metadata_en.properties is for English.

The photo-metadata.properties file is the “base” file. The entries in this file will be used if either:

  • A given field name does not appear in the language-specific photo-metadata_xx.properties file
  • There is no language-specific photo-metadata_xx.properties file for the chosen language

Location of photo-metadata.properties file and photo-metatdata_xx.properties files

Photo-metadata.properties file and photo-metatdata_xx.properties files are located in the BluPlusPlus-->texts folder, along with the ‘language pack’ files used to localize BPP for languages other than English.