The metadata repository

The metadata repository stores information about the fields that are available, and how and where these fields appear on the client facing pages and back office pages. You can also configure certain fields to be used for certain media types only (e.g. only for footage). The list shows fields that are IPTC / XMP compatible, the system fields, and a number of so called custom fields.

To be able to view or change the metadata repository, you must be logged in with the Super administrator account or any other administrator account with Site configuration permissions.

Selecting fields and changing the order of display

Click the toolbar button to open the dialog and simply drag and drop the fields. Change the order of display by dragging and dropping a field to a different position in the same box (e.g. IPTC, Custom or Hidden).

Configuring the fields

Go to Site configuration and click Metadata repository to load the fields list. At the top of the page you can filter the fields that are being displayed. You can also enter the name of a field (in the toolbar) to make it easier to find the field that you are looking for. Once you have located the field that you want to change, click its row in the list. This will open the properties dialog.

• Changing the label that appears on the client facing pages
  Enter a text in the Website label box. If you want to use different languages then enter these separated by commas in the correct order.
• Media type
  As a default, all the fields are available for all types of content (the setting is Any). To restrict a field to content of a specific type only, change the Media type dropdown. If you for example select Footage this means that the field will not show if the file is of any other type than footage.
• Selecting if the field is displayed on the client facing pages
  * 27.3 or later: use the toolbar buttons to change this property
  The Show on website dropdown allows you to hide the field from the client facing pages. Note that you can also hide fields that are indexed and searchable, e.g. if a field contains synonyms that you want to be searchable but not visible. You can also make a field show only if the user is logged in with an administrator account.
• Hide label if the field has no value
  To make a field and its label show only if it has a value, check this option.
• Search link
  If a field is used to store values that can be used to search, you can check this option. The field value will show as a link that can be clicked to start a new search.
  From 26 onwards, you can also link the credit field to the contributor’s profile or link the credit field to the “contributor browsing” function. The latter will use a special function to load the contributor’s photos (not by means of executing a search for the credit value).
• Display order
  * 27.3 or later: use the toolbar buttons to change this property
  This dropdown allows you to change the order in which fields appear on the client facing pages (i.e. the preview page and the order and download pages). A custom sort order must be enabled separately.
  – To enable this function for the Preview pages, go to Site configuration, General settings, and open the Preview pages section. Next, check the box Use the Metadata repository field display order.
  – To enable this function for the Cart pages, go to Site configuration, Cart page, and open the Cart page settings at the top to change the setting.
  – To enable this function for the Order / Download pages, go to Site configuration, Download page, and open the Download page settings at the top to change the setting.
• Field value display color (version 26.1 and later)
  You can choose a display color for each individual field. More information further down in this article.
• Text transformation (version 26.1 and later)
  You can choose a text transformation option, i.e. unchanged, uppercase, lowercase, capitalize and capitalize with the exception of words in all caps. More information further down in this article.

Uploader data source

The list shows a column for the http uploader data source. If data for a field is read from a file’s embedded data (i.e. Photoshop, IPTC, XMP) this column will show the source. When you upload a file using the HTTP uploader – or in any case through the holding area – embedded data is read from the file and then written to an XML file. This XML file is the so called “sidecar file”. The data that you can see in the fields on the uploader pages is the data that is read and saved to the aforementioned sidecar file. If you have configured fields to be showing on the uploader pages, then the person uploading the file still has a chance to edit that data before finally submitting the file to the processing queue. Editing the data will update the sidecar file. The data that’s stored in the sidecar file is the data that will be used during processing and as such the data that will be inserted into the content database.

Configuring custom field mappings

You can create custom field mappings for each of your supplier groups. Edit the properties of a group in Supplier management to do this.

Changing the field properties for the administrator and supplier dialogs

• Editor label
  The editor label is the name of the field that is displayed in the edit dialogs. You can specify a different label then the one that’s used on the client facing pages if you wish.
• Input style
  Normal fields should be configured to use the Input box option and text fields such as keywords, caption, category and subcategory should be configured as Text area.
• Property sheet
  This option allows you to change on which of the tab / property sheets the field will appear in the edit dialogs. This allows you to move the fields that you use most to the first tab for easy access. You can also change the order in which fields appear by changing the values in the dropdown box.
• Allowing fields to be changed
  Certain fields may have values that are imported from the metadata or have information that may not be changed once the file is in the database. To prevent changes in such fields, untick the Editable checkbox.
• Making fields required
  If you want information to be entered in a field always, then check the Required checkbox. The user will not be able to save a file’s properties without entering information in all the required fields.
• Hiding fields from the administrator’s edit dialogs
  If there are fields that you don’t use or don’t want to appear in the dialogs for other reasons, then uncheck the option Show in admin dialogs.
• Hiding fields from the supplier editing dialogs
  If there are fields that you don’t want to appear in the supplier editing dialogs (requires the supplier editing module), then uncheck the option Show in supplier editor dialogs.
• Hiding fields from the batch editing dialogs
  Untick the option Show in batch edit dialog, to prevent a field from appearing in the batch edit dialog. This option should be used to prevent certain fields from being changed with a batch update command. Use this for fields containing unique values such as the creation date- and time or object name. But also for other fields, for example if the original file name is copied to one of the custom fields (as part of the file ingestion procedures), then hide that field from the batch editing dialog.
• Show in upload dialog
  Use this option to hide fields from the data dialogs that appear when uploading files with the HTTP upload function.
• Contains comma separated values
  This option should be selected for fields that contain words separated by commas, such as the keywords field.

Configuring how photographer names / credits are displayed

To change how photographer names are displayed on different pages, please read the article Configuring how photographer names are displayed for more information.

Configuring a field for supplier matching / linking

Every file must be linked to a supplier. If you upload files with the HTTP uploader you must select a supplier from the list before you’ll be able to submit the file. If your photographers upload files then the system automatically links their files to the correct supplier.

But if you supply files in a different way, the system needs to know how to automatically link the files to the correct suppliers. At the bottom of the Properties tabsheet in the metadata dialog, you’ll see a setting Use this field for supplier matching that you need to enable. Note that you can configure only one field in the metadata repository for supplier matching.  Next you can choose whether you want to use the matching action for both inserts and updates or for inserts (i.e. new files) only. You can enter the id of a group (which you must have created in Supplier management first) in which you want suppliers to be created if an existing supplier can’t be found. It is best to use unique codes (as opposed to names) for supplier matching. However, you can use the credit field or other fields too.

You can find further information in the article Linking files to suppliers.

Linking a field to the controlled vocabulary

To link a field to the Controlled vocabulary (CV), click on the vocabulary tab and check the box  Link field to the Vocabulary. You now have the following options:

• Allow free text entry
  Select this option if you want to be able to both add text by simply typing into the input box and to enable the lookup function for words in the CV. If only words that are in the CV are allowed, then disable the free text option.
• Allow multiple values
• Close on click
• Add the full hierarchy for each term
• Include the top level name
• From root or from selected entry point

Field value colors and text transformations

You can select a display color for field values – and you can select a text transformation option. The selected color code will be added as in-line CSS in the HTML pages. Note that you can also display all or certain fields by applying your own CSS.

To transform a field’s value, you can select any of the options Uppercase, Lowercase, Capitalize and Capitalize except words in all caps. If you use the Capitalize option then each word will start with an uppercase letter followed by the rest of the word in lowercase. The option Capitalize except words in all caps does the same thing, but it doesn’t change words that are in uppercase.

The data properties field

Field custom18 is reserved for the file data properties. These properties are (among other things) used to create filters. For further information about how the codes are used to generate search filters, read the article about filters and gallery access control.
You can also use the properties field to create so called conditions in your syndication configuration.