Add-on Image attachment metadata (EXIF, XMP etc.) tagging and search

[Dragooon]

Hello, basically my first post here. I'm making a new add-on for XF with the purpose of storing and displaying an image's metadata (EXIF, XMP etc.) and also allow searching via certain EXIF and XMP data tags. Here are my planned features:

1. Store important meta data (fstop, exposure, shutter speed, ISO etc) information from a file's EXIF and XMP information store
2. Allow viewing the stored meta data on an attachment's display
3. Allow searching for image via their meta data including resolution and format (this can be for all formats I guess)
4. Anything else that one might want?

It's still a WIP, I can show something in a couple of weeks probably (Laptop suddenly crashed and it's ETA for repair is about a week, storing of metadata part is working fine. Need to code the UI for displaying and searching). It'll definitely be a paid addon, although I'm not sure of the price. Any feedback is appreciated, thanks .

 

[agison]

Should be a Gallery addon feature, not for attachment.

 

[Dragooon]

Should be a Gallery addon feature, not for attachment.

Fair enough, but extending into attachments can be easier for a lot of photography oriented forums plus it's faster to develop. Just getting a taste, been doing image manipulation and display for years (generally how I start out with a platform), definitely not going to stop here.

 

[agison]

Not easier for developer and bad perfomance when searching. Xenforo also doesn't support attachment search. Too much things to implement.

Gallery image content type should be much better for Searching and Feature Expanding (like people tag, keyword tag,...)

 

[Dragooon]

Not easier for developer and bad perfomance when searching. Xenforo also doesn't support attachment search. Too much things to implement.

You do realise I am coding this right? A gallery is a much bigger platform to make and metadata is just a small part of the big schema.

 

[Digital Doctor]

A great feature would be being able to find attached attached images via search.
Currently images don't show up in the search. (I think).
For a site that is image oriented ... it might be useful to find attached images via search.

As discussed here ... uploaders don't give images good names.
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/wmtech-attachment-manager-paid.43228/

Forinstance ... what is this ?
http://xenforo.com/community/attachments/screenshot-png.26257/

I am not sure how good the "SEO" for xenforo images are.
And images can't be easily renamed ? Nor do I think that image attachments have "metadata" for what they are. (Could be wrong).

For a site that is important ... how is google going to know how to index your images ? Especially if it is called screenshot-png ?

 

[agison]

You do realise I am coding this right? A gallery is a much bigger platform to make and metadata is just a small part of the big schema.

No. Someone else is making it. And I know.
I also need these features. A full feature modern gallery with closed integrated features for threads, posts and users.

 

[Dragooon]

No. Someone else is making it. And I know.
I also need these features. A full feature modern gallery with closed integrated features for threads, posts and users.

I don't know about someone else, currently I'm starting off with a simple metadata implementation for attachments and ability to view images together at one place. The plan isn't to make a grand add-on, but a simple (and perhaps, cheap) one.

 

[HWS]

If, then metadata should be stripped out automatically from all attachments.

 

[Dragooon]

If, then metadata should be stripped out automatically from all attachments.

I am not sure what you mean?

 

[Digital Doctor]

Make a gallery of just attachments ...

Like this

As discussed here
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/gallery-add-on-that-pulls-images-from-main-forum.34545/

 

[Dragooon]

Make a gallery of just attachments ...

Like this


As discussed here
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/gallery-add-on-that-pulls-images-from-main-forum.34545/

Ah okay, will definitely consider the idea. Shouldn't be too tough plus can give the searching a bit more context.

 

[agison]

I wonder how we can pull/update attachments in 25m posts?

 

[Dragooon]

I wonder how we can pull/update attachments in 25m posts?

There won't definitely be updating, and I won't be pulling all attachments at once. The searching concept is similar to how XF handles post searches, by limiting the query's approach and caching the base number of results (hence pagination on all the requests) through anoptimised query

 

[agison]

There won't definitely be updating, and I won't be pulling all attachments at once. The searching concept is similar to how XF handles post searches, by limiting the query's approach and caching the base number of results (hence pagination on all the requests) through anoptimised query

In case of searching only, it's possible.

 

[Dragooon]

In case of searching only, it's possible.

Viewing is a similar case, even faster. Limit the scope to 30 or so attachments and paginate everything.

 

[agison]

Viewing is a similar case, even faster. Limit the scope to 30 or so attachments and paginate everything.

If we don't pull all attachment images in all posts, how can we know how much page we have? via Search Index?

 

[Dragooon]

If we don't pull all attachment images in all posts, how can we know how much page we have? via Search Index?

Okay, that becomes slightly more complicated (as I said, I haven't worked everything out). XF stores attachment count of each post in MySQL, querying for it's total against visible posts is one way to figure out how many actual attachments are there. But querying for visible posts itself can be slightly slow (maybe not by much, XF seems to do that in a couple of areas including What's New?). Or if it actually is slow I can simply restrict things to latest attachments.

EDIT: Forgot to mention other types of contents that maybe there, these problems are not really present while searching since filtering is done anyway

 

[Dragooon]

Oh, things become much simpler (and faster) by restricting things down to post content type and combining a bunch of queries into one, if I assume this then there isn't a problem. It's that supporting for additional content type that some another addon may add becomes a tedious task.

EDIT: I can always create default handler for post and add support for additional handlers for add-ons that may declare new types of attachment content. This way it'll work optimally without taxing the server too much. So basically implement a "latest" attachments type default search view first limiting to a configurable number of attachments, and adding a search which works similar to how XenForo searches post (similar caching and optimization techniques) should work fine.