* File name length

[Stevebye]

Is there a limit to the number of characters in a file name in v4. I want to include the full names and dates for image files. Eg. MC - Smith Cecil Thomas and Fairweather Jean Samantha (1995).

TIA

ID:4367

[PeterR]

If you search FHUG for something like 'filename length' you should find a posting like this:
http://www.fhug.org.uk/cgi-bin/index.cg ... 19&ext=txt
which explains that there is a limitation in Windows which means that filenames should be kept reasonably short, given the length of the folder pathname in FH v4.

[Jane]

Another option to include the information with in the jpg file using IPCT which you can add using many programs including windows picture manager.

[AdrianBruce]

I wanted to record various things about images like references, etc but didn't want to use the filename for reasons like length. It was Jane who pointed me in the direction of using IPTC data, which is data held internal to an image file and naturally visible and updatable only if you've got some software that will do it.

I'm now using XnView, which is freeware (not, so far as I know, open-source). This provides a nice browser based interface to my media, showing thumbnails and then a big image on selection, plus it will access and update this IPTC data. The IPTC data is structured - I'm using things like 'Credit - copyright' (obvious purpose); 'Credit - source' (records web-site or person I got it off); 'Origin - Original transmission reference' (to include things like record office reference); 'Caption - special instruction' (as a general purpose item that might include exact names, etc)

Not sure how many file formats will include these items - certainly JPGs do. So I download the image and immediately after, use XnView to add this data to the file.