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IMatch Version 3.6.0.58/57 (April, 09. 2008)
New: IMatch now supports UTF-8 encoding in the IPTC editor not only for reading but also for writing. You can enable this feature via Options > Preferences > IPTC.
If you enable UTF-8 encoding for IPTC, IMatch will store textual data using the UTF-8 encoding always, which allows you to use non-ANSI/ASCII charactes in IPTC, without the need to rely on specific code pages. You can even store Japanese or other wide-char character sets in IPTC.
IMatch can import UTF-8 encoded IPTC data into XMP, and also use it in all features, from usage in variables to sorting or searching.
If you do not enable this option, IMatch will write standard ANSI/ASCII IPTC data, except the IPTC record already contains UTF-8-encoded data. In this case, IMatch will save the data in UTF-8 automatically.
A wide range of professional applications can work with IPTC data encoding using UTF-8, including Adobe products, ExifTools etc. Web sites working with IPTC data usually also support UTF-8 encoded data. Anyway, some older workflow systems or application versions may not be compatible, so you should test carefully and talk to your photo agency and clients to ensure they can handle it.
Storing data in UTF-8 also seems to "fix" the problem Google's Picasa seems to have with plain ASCII IPTC data. While they cannot read standard IPTC data in ASCII/ANSI encoding, they can read the UTF-8 encoded data.
New: Added two more options for XMP Options > Preferences > XMP which allow even finer control about IMatch imports IPTC and EXIF data into the XMP record.
These two new options are used in conjunction with the IPTC and EXIF import options. By default, when you let IMatch import IPTC/EXIF data and you also set the option to "Replace existing XMP metadata", IMatch will work as follows: When importing IPTC, IMatch will remove existing XMP properties for non-existing or empty IPTC/EXIF fields. This ensures that if there is no field "X" in the IPTC/EXIF record, there is also no "X" property in the XMP record. This is the default behavior and ensures proper synchronization between IPTC/EXIF and XMP.
By setting the option "Retain XMP data for empty/non-existing IPTC/EXIF fields", you tell IMatch to retain whatever is stored in the corresponding XMP property for an empty or missing IPTC/EXIF field. If you work with applications which update XMP, but not IPTC, this will allow you to keep exising XMP data written by these applications while still being able to run an automatic IPTC import.
New: Added a new method to the Database scripting class. The method "MD5Calculate" allows to you calculate a MD5 hash for a file. The returned MD5 checksum (a String) is compatible with all other MD5 applications. Using this method you can, for example, fill properties with checksums, to detect changes made to files or data corruption.
New: Updated and added support for new RAW formats from Olympus (E3) and models from other camera vendors.
New: Added support for Nikon D300/D3 lens data and f stops maker notes
New: The SBS window now uses the color managemenbt settings available in IMatch under Options > Preferences > Color Management.
Change: Switched back to the July 2007 Nikon Software Development Kit. The December 2007 version of the Nikon DLLs is just too buggy and causes too many crashes. Nikon is aware of these problems but I have no idea when they will release an update...
Until then, and in order to support all cameras up to the D2Xs with full access to soft edits made in Nikon applications like Capture NX, I decided to switch back to the old version of the SDK. This SDK does not support the D300 and D3 models, but at least it does not crash. Hopefully Nikon gets this fixed soon. When they ship a new, more stable version, I will include that version with the next IMatch service pack.
For D3/D300 users (like myself): Please go to Options > Preference > File Format Preferences in IMatch and make sure the support for Nikon software libraries is disabled. This will allow IMatch to process your files.
Change: IMatch no longer emits "empty" IPTC data into XMP. Although allowed and covered by the XMP specification, recent Adobe products may issue a warning message when loading image files containing XMP data with empty XMP properties, e.g. an empty photoshop:Urgency property.
Change: Integrated updates for various third party components used by IMatch.
Change: Result Set limits for the standard Search tools extended from 10,000 to a maximum of 32,000 matches per original, or 32,000 maximal hits for search functions without original images.
Change:Tools for the SBS window status bar now use a more sophisicated algorithm to avoid obscuring the "hot" area when there is no room below or on the right side of the SBS window for the tooltip.
Bug: Under rare conditions, the error handling for XMP errors reported by the Adobe toolkit could cause IMatch to crash. Fixed.
Bug: Property window not updating when the SBS window is displayed.
Bug: CategoryUpdated enum type not available in the Scripting Editor.
Bug: Fixed a rather rare and obscure problem with injecting IPTC data into TIFF files with "Mac" encoding and certain IFB boundary alignments.
Bug: Fixed a problem with the selection feature for properties.
If a search pattern with multiple sub-expressions and the "must include" operator + was used (e.g. +red +blue), and one or more of the search patterns appeared multiple times in a property text (e.g. red and some bluish red), the selection may have returned the image as a match even of the second pattern ("+ blue") was not part of the text.
Bug: Calling AddFolder from a script for an already existing folder caused the existing folder to become empty.
Bug: Updated Basic Engine. VarType returns now 9 again when an object doesn't have a default property.