Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Lightroom metadata export to XML  (Read 13026 times)

BernardLanguillier

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 13983
    • http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardlanguillier/sets/
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« on: July 29, 2007, 06:57:05 pm »

Dear all,

I would like to use Lightroom meta-data to populate some Spry Ajax tables in web pages. The process would not have to be based on a live connection, I am thinking of a static process following on an export from Lightroom to XML.

Is there a way to export the Lightroom meta-data to an XML file/XML schema in order to enable this process?

This is really key for me and will pretty much decide whether I use Lightroom as a DAM or not.

Thank you in advance,

Regards,
Bernard

john beardsworth

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4755
    • My photography site
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2007, 09:38:29 am »

Use the back end database. Either use the open source SQLite Database Browser.exe, which can export csv files to another application, or develop something with the ODBC driver - eg write Access queries or VB that generates the XML. Another option is to generate the XML for Spry dynamically from the database - I've done something similar with mySQL. And lastly you can always try developing a Spry gallery that sits inside Lightroom.
Logged

BernardLanguillier

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 13983
    • http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardlanguillier/sets/
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2007, 10:10:20 am »

Quote
Use the back end database. Either use the open source SQLite Database Browser.exe, which can export csv files to another application, or develop something with the ODBC driver - eg write Access queries or VB that generates the XML. Another option is to generate the XML for Spry dynamically from the database - I've done something similar with mySQL. And lastly you can always try developing a Spry gallery that sits inside Lightroom.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=130614\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

John,

Thanks a lot for the pointers. I really a beginner in these matters and don't want to spend too much time.

- Are these 2 first methods you mention (SQLite -> .csv -> XML or ODBC -> XML) available on OSX?
- Which of the 2 ways you propose is the easiest?
- Are you aware of any tutorials explaining more in details how to proceed?

Thank you in advance,

Regards,
Bernard

john beardsworth

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4755
    • My photography site
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2007, 10:31:24 am »

Bernard

Yes to OSX - those ideas were all cross platform.

A lot depends on your starting point. They're all the sort of things that a developer can do, but if that's not you and you have time constraints then you may be best advised to steer clear. In each case you're dealing with 3 or 4 technologies (SQL, XMS, XSL) each of which has its own learning curve.

One idea might be to trail the idea past Matthew at http://theturninggate.com/ - he's done some great work on the LR web galleries and might be able to hook Spry and LR up relatively easily. See if you can get him interested.

Another point is that it's a mistake to treat web output to one relatively new (lab experiment) web gallery as a key to buying an application. You should make DAM decisions on wider criteria. If it's any help, iView/Expression Media can export XML which can be transformed with a stylesheet - not tried styling it into Spry format, but that should be achievable.

John
Logged

BernardLanguillier

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 13983
    • http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardlanguillier/sets/
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #4 on: July 30, 2007, 11:40:24 am »

Quote
Bernard

Yes to OSX - those ideas were all cross platform.

A lot depends on your starting point. They're all the sort of things that a developer can do, but if that's not you and you have time constraints then you may be best advised to steer clear. In each case you're dealing with 3 or 4 technologies (SQL, XMS, XSL) each of which has its own learning curve.

One idea might be to trail the idea past Matthew at http://theturninggate.com/ - he's done some great work on the LR web galleries and might be able to hook Spry and LR up relatively easily. See if you can get him interested.

Another point is that it's a mistake to treat web output to one relatively new (lab experiment) web gallery as a key to buying an application. You should make DAM decisions on wider criteria. If it's any help, iView/Expression Media can export XML which can be transformed with a stylesheet - not tried styling it into Spry format, but that should be achievable.

John
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=130627\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

John,

Thanks a lot for the detailed answers.

It is funny that you should mention Matthew. My intend is to use his slimbox template as a base, and I contacted him this weekend on a closely related topic through some of his blog postings. :-)

He didn't seem too interested, but I might not have been clear enough. My question at the time was more about the possibility to add ajax spry contents (not necessarily XML driven) to the overlay windows of slimbox. Since these windows are completely off domain for Matthew (he is "just" re-using the work of Christophe at Mootools), and fully created using javascript, he advised me to contact Christophe.

The slimbox LR gallery does actually already offer the possibility to display some LR metadata into the slide show (I haven't really tried yet), but I fear that there might not be enough control in terms of layout for my applications. It seems that all the formating would have to be included as <...> formated HTML tags within the title"" tag of the slimbox menu thumbnails... and would have to be copy/pasted by hand after each gallery instanciation... If I understood correctly, Matthew is indeed saying that he didn't find a way to automate such things.

Anyway, I'll contact him again to double check.

As far as the selection of Lightroom as a DAM goes, I have already purchased a license, but the cost of the license is really a minor consideration considering the possible time loss/gain with an application offering time saving capabilities for repetitive tasks.

This being said, I agree that this is of course not the only aspect to consider.

Cheers,
Bernard

BernardLanguillier

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 13983
    • http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardlanguillier/sets/
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #5 on: August 02, 2007, 12:17:01 am »

Would the following software be a one stop solution?

http://sqlabs.net/sqlitemanager.php

Regards,
Bernard

john beardsworth

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4755
    • My photography site
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #6 on: August 02, 2007, 02:18:33 am »

Quote
Would the following software be a one stop solution?

http://sqlabs.net/sqlitemanager.php

Regards,
Bernard
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=131127\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Not heard of that before. Looks like you'd still be into writing some SQL to generate the XML output, which you could do equally with any other tool and the ODBC driver. So I don't think it'll take you forward.

John
Logged

seanmcfoto

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 176
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #7 on: August 03, 2007, 08:08:31 pm »

Just one caveat on all this: Work on a copy of the database. Dan Tull says a lot of the problem databases on the 1.1 upgrade were due to using external tools on the database.
Logged
Sean McCormack
[url=http://lightroom.sea

john beardsworth

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4755
    • My photography site
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #8 on: August 04, 2007, 02:27:42 am »

You know, Sean, I don't believe this is correct. And even if it were so, it would indicate a poor choice of database.

John
Logged

seanmcfoto

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 176
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #9 on: August 05, 2007, 12:05:01 am »

Well, I can only repeat his findings John. He did say that some of the problem databases had other tools used on them, which prevented them from upgrading. While I can't see how a query on the file could cause corruption, that's not to say that it couldn't happen.

As to poor choice, we are a little stuck as far as multiuser, network support goes. Not something that specifically concerns me, but I do have one or two clients looking to go to such a system.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2007, 12:17:58 am by seanmcfoto »
Logged
Sean McCormack
[url=http://lightroom.sea

seanmcfoto

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 176
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #10 on: August 05, 2007, 12:21:17 am »

Just a thought on the XML output from Lightroom.

Using the HTML gallery, it's possible to get information parsed through the source.xml file that the gallery is built upon. The actual creation of this file is commented out in the galleryMaker.xml file, but might potentially be a source of the information you need?
Perhaps, maybe, etc.

er.. I'll shut my mouth.
Logged
Sean McCormack
[url=http://lightroom.sea

john beardsworth

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4755
    • My photography site
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #11 on: August 05, 2007, 03:57:30 am »

You ever tried doing a template without any size parameters and with that source output enabled?
Logged

seanmcfoto

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 176
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #12 on: August 05, 2007, 06:48:21 am »

No.
But as the size renditions are called from the XML, I'd imagine there would need to be a size or nothing useful would happen.
Although you could put nothing in nothing in the height="" and width="", which generates a small file..
« Last Edit: August 05, 2007, 09:29:38 am by seanmcfoto »
Logged
Sean McCormack
[url=http://lightroom.sea

john beardsworth

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4755
    • My photography site
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #13 on: August 05, 2007, 11:06:55 am »

Quote
No.
But as the size renditions are called from the XML, I'd imagine there would need to be a size or nothing useful would happen.
Although you could put nothing in nothing in the height="" and width="", which generates a small file..
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=131575\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Basically it just squirts out the xml nice and quick. I half expected it to fall over or spend its usual time outputting from raws.

John
Logged

seanmcfoto

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 176
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #14 on: August 05, 2007, 01:30:49 pm »

That's cool. I was thinking in terms of the images, when we were talking about the xml Doh. Of course if there's no size, no images would be produced, but anything else would be created as normal.
I can totally understand why you might expect it to fall over, having seen it do so loads of times when playing with my own galleries.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2007, 01:32:14 pm by seanmcfoto »
Logged
Sean McCormack
[url=http://lightroom.sea

john beardsworth

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4755
    • My photography site
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #15 on: August 05, 2007, 03:26:35 pm »

I really expected it to insist on churning through each raw file, even though it wasn't going to output any jpegs. After all, even when it built a full set of previews, ideal for output to web, it still insists on generating the site from the originals....

John
Logged

seanmcfoto

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 176
Lightroom metadata export to XML
« Reply #16 on: August 06, 2007, 12:12:37 am »

John,
I'd love to talk about how I hate this 'feature' of Web, but we've probably hijacked Bernard's thread enough!
Logged
Sean McCormack
[url=http://lightroom.sea
Pages: [1]   Go Up