HoudahGeo supports a couple of advanced settings to customized EXIF/XMP export.
- Preserve file modification dates
- Default metadata attribute values
- Additional metadata attribute values
- Preserved metadata attributes
These settings are intentionally hidden and meant only for advanced users.
If things go wrong, you will need to trash your HoudahGeo preferences file.
To update one of these settings use the defaults command
- Quit HoudahGeo.app
- Launch /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app
- Paste the suggested command into the Terminal window
- Hit Return
To access your HoudahGeo preferences file
- Quit HoudahGeo.app
- Hold down the option key as you select Library from the Go menu in Finder
- This will open the ~/Library folder
- Within the Library folder, locate and open the Preferences folder
- Within the Preferences folder, locate the com.houdah.HoudahGeo.plist file
If you wish to reset preferences
- Trash the ~/Library/Preferences/com.houdah.HoudahGeo.plist file
- If you are running Mac OS X 10.9 or later, you need to restart your Mac
1. Preserve file modification dates
This setting no longer applies in HoudahGeo 5. Check HoudahGeo > Preferences to set HoudahGeo to preserve file modification dates during EXIF / XMP export.
By default, HoudahGeo tries to preserve file modification dates while writing metadata. Even though you have written new data to your image files, their modification dates remain unchanged.
If you wish to see the modification date updated during EXIF/XMP export, you may disable this feature. To do so, set the eePreserveDates setting to NO using the following command:
defaults write com.houdah.HoudahGeo eePreserveDates -bool NO
To revert this setting to the default behavior, use:
defaults delete com.houdah.HoudahGeo eePreserveDates
2. Default metadata attribute values
HoudahGeo relies on ExifTool by Phil Harvey to write metadata to image files and XMP sidecars. The values to be written are set in HoudahGeo. The selection of attributes to update is made in the the list at the bottom of the EXIF/XMP export sheet.
You may specify default values for metadata attributes. These values will be used for attributes which HoudahGeo is not set to update.
The dictionary of attribute keys and values is held by the defaultAttributeValues setting. To update this setting, use a command modeled after the following example:
defaults write com.houdah.HoudahGeo defaultAttributeValues -dict "artist" "Formerly known as Prince" "city" "Hogsmeade"
CAVEAT: This is an advanced setting. Be sure to know what you are doing. Test on sample image files first. Please use only lowercase attribute keys.
To revert this setting to the default behavior, use:
defaults delete com.houdah.HoudahGeo defaultAttributeValues
3. Additional metadata attribute values
You may specify values for additional metadata attributes. These values are written in addition to those written by HoudahGeo. In case of conflict, these values overrule HoudahGeo.
The dictionary of attribute keys and values is held by the additionalAttributeValues setting. To update this setting, use a command modeled after the following example:
defaults write com.houdah.HoudahGeo additionalAttributeValues -dictionary "artist" "Formerly known as Prince" "city" "Hogsmeade"
CAVEAT: This is an advanced setting. Be sure to know what you are doing. Test on sample image files first. Please use only lowercase attribute keys.
HINT: Specify a value of “-” to force an attribute to be cleared.
To revert this setting to the default behavior, use:
defaults delete com.houdah.HoudahGeo additionalAttributeValues
4. Preserved metadata attributes
You may specify metadata attributes which HoudahGeo should leave untouched. This list overrules HoudahGeo as well as the above default and additional attributes
The array of attribute keys is held by the preservedAttributeKeys setting. To update this setting, use a command modeled after the following example:
defaults write com.houdah.HoudahGeo preservedAttributeKeys -array "artist" "iptc:codedcharacterset"
CAVEAT: This is an advanced setting. Be sure to know what you are doing. Test on sample image files first. Please use only lowercase attribute keys.
To revert this setting to the default behavior, use:
defaults delete com.houdah.HoudahGeo preservedAttributeKeys