IPTC keywords, ACDsee keywords, general questions

[twotothree]

Hello, I am new to ACDsee and try to find my way to best work with it and have some general questions:

1. I am used to drag a folder onto the Icon in my dock to quickly open it. This is very quick and I do not need to navigate through drives and folders. This works with Bridge, Lightroom, Graphic Converter etc., but not with ACDSee. What am I doing wrong, can this be changed?

2. trying to understand how ACDSee works, I replaced a photo that had ACDSee keywords with another file of the same name. ACDSee then treats the switched file as the former one, with the former keywords. It does not recognize that the file was changed. So ACDSee just stores the file's name and the location – is that so?

3. Is there a way to go both ways: add ACDSee keywords and additionally add the same keywords in the IPTC section so they can be read and sorted by other applications?
I am trying to do it this way, because I need to move my files sometimes to other folders or disks, but do not want to loose the possibility to sort them by keywords.

... probably really beginner questions, so thank you for help and for any other tips on how to best work with it.
*twotothree

[Emil]

1. I am used to drag a folder onto the Icon in my dock to quickly open it. This is very quick and I do not need to navigate through drives and folders. This works with Bridge, Lightroom, Graphic Converter etc., but not with ACDSee. What am I doing wrong, can this be changed?

This may be related to the handling of drag'dropped files/folders in explorer. If you drag'drop a file/folder with a name without any white space the explorer will not enclose it in double quotes. However, (for some reason unknown to me) newer versions of AC don't except paths without double quotes any more.

A workaround could be to create a cmd batch on the desktop like:

@echo off
start "" "C:\Program Files\ACD Systems\ACDSee Pro\13.0\ACDSeeProfessional2020.exe" "%~1"

Then drag'drop your files/folders on to this script.

Background: The double quotes following the "start" command enclose the title of the cmd window, that will pop up. %~1 will always expands to the path of the drag'dropped item w/o any double quotes. The added double quotes in the script will ensure that the command line parameter will always be enclosed with a single set of double quotes. Sounds more complicated then it realy is.

BTW. You could also use file/folder names with at least a single white space :-) One question per thread only please.

[twotothree]

Thank you Emil. It is the Mac Version and instead of Explorer it is the Finder – but yes, some kind of finder script could be an option, though I am not really familiar with this.
I tried changing the names of folders, but this is no way. It does work, when drag'dropping a single file though.
It seems that the ACDSee app behaves very different than other Mac apps?

"One question / thread ..." okay. I will then post the questions 2 an 3 anew.

[david@acd]

Hi twotothree,

Welcome to the forum. To answer your questions:

1. I am used to drag a folder onto the Icon in my dock to quickly open it. This is very quick and I do not need to navigate through drives and folders. This works with Bridge, Lightroom, Graphic Converter etc., but not with ACDSee. What am I doing wrong, can this be changed?

Currently, dragging folders to the dock icon is not supported (however dragging files is supported). I'll review this with the product team.

2. trying to understand how ACDSee works, I replaced a photo that had ACDSee keywords with another file of the same name. ACDSee then treats the switched file as the former one, with the former keywords. It does not recognize that the file was changed. So ACDSee just stores the file's name and the location – is that so?

The View > Refresh command (cmd+R) should update the thumbnails and metadata displayed in ACDSee if the file has been modified outside of ACDSee.
If for some reason, the Refresh doesn't work, selecting the file and running the Tools > Metadata > Rebuild Thumbnails and Metadata command should work (available in version 6).

3. Is there a way to go both ways: add ACDSee keywords and additionally add the same keywords in the IPTC section so they can be read and sorted by other applications?
I am trying to do it this way, because I need to move my files sometimes to other folders or disks, but do not want to loose the possibility to sort them by keywords.

One solution is to create a Batch Preset that will write the ACDSee Keywords value to the IPTC Keywords field:

1. Batch > Set Information...
2. Set the Destination to IPTC Keywords.
3. Drag the "ACDSee Metadata" token to the Value field, then click the token and choose Keywords.
4. Save this workflow as a batch Preset via the Save button.

Once saved, you can select files at any time and run this Batch Preset. Note two limitations: you need to manually run the command (i.e. you cannot automatically trigger the batch preset to run when you assign ACDSee Keywords), and an assigned keyword's parent keyword(s) will not be included.


Regards,
David

[Emil]

Thank you Emil. It is the Mac Version and instead of Explorer it is the Finder

Oops, missed that once more, sorry.