The metadata pickup tools (XML pickup, JDF pickup, XMP pickup) allow associating metadata from various sources as a metadata dataset with a job's internal job ticket. The tools support several distinct mechanisms to locate the metadata source and its corresponding asset, as described in the following subsections.
Metadata source: the file (or sometimes the portion of a file) that contains the metadata to be picked up.
Asset: the file or job folder that is being described by the metadata and that will be moved along in the flow after its internal job ticket has picked up the metadata.
Pickup mode: a particular mechanism/algorithm to locate the metadata source and its corresponding asset.
The metadata source (which is always a single file) and the corresponding asset (which may be a file or a job folder) are both placed in one of the pickup tool's input folders (the same folder or a different one) at the top level (that is, immediately under the input folder). Both have the same name but a different filename extension. The supported filename extensions are defined through flow element properties for the pickup tool.
The pickup tool waits until both the asset and the metadata source have arrived and then performs the following steps:
Create a new metadata dataset with a copy of the metadata source as its backing file.
Associate this dataset with the asset's internal job ticket under the dataset name specified through a flow element property for the pickup tool (replacing any existing association with the same name).
Remove the metadata source.
Move the asset to the output folder.
Property |
Description |
|---|---|
Metadata filename pattern |
One or more file types or filename extensions that are recognized as metadata files |
Orphan timeout (minutes) |
The time delay after which an incoming metadata source or an incoming asset is considered orphaned because it can't be matched to a counterpart Orphaned jobs are moved to the problem jobs folder |
The asset (which is always a job folder) is placed in one of the pickup tool's input folders and the metadata source (which is always a single file) resides inside the job folder. The pickup tool provides flow element properties for locating the metadata source within the job folder (nesting level and filename pattern).
The pickup tool waits until the job folder has fully arrived and then performs the following steps:
Locate the metadata source; if none is found the next two steps are skipped.
Create a new metadata dataset with a copy of the metadata source as its backing file.
Associate this dataset with the asset's internal job ticket under the dataset name specified through a flow element property for the pickup tool (replacing any existing association with the same name).
Move the job folder asset to the output folder.
Note that the metadata source is not removed in this case.
Property |
Description |
|---|---|
Metadata file filters |
File filter that determines which of the files in the job folder represents the metadata; files are scanned starting at the topmost nesting level (at each level the scan order is arbitrary); the file filter is evaluated in the context of each file and the first file that matches is used as metadata source |
Search depth |
The number of nesting levels in which to look for the metadata; "1" means the topmost level only |
The metadata source (which is always a single file) is placed in one of the pickup tool's input folders and it contains a reference to the asset (which may be a file or a job folder) in some other location accessible through the file system. Thus the asset itself is never directly placed in a flow input folder.
The pickup tool provides flow element properties for locating the asset reference inside the metadata source (a location path) and for determining whether the original copy of the asset should be removed or not.
When the pickup tool detects an incoming file, it expects it to be a metadata source and it performs the following steps:
Locate the asset reference in the metadata source, locate the asset, and ensure that it is readable. If any of these steps fail, report an error and quit.
Create a new metadata dataset with a copy of the metadata source as its backing file.
Associate this dataset with the asset's internal job ticket (which in fact is the metadata source's job ticket) under the dataset name specified through a flow element property for the pickup tool (replacing any existing association with the same name).
Copy or move (depending on the property settings) the asset from its original location to the output folder.
Remove the metadata source.
Property |
Description |
|---|---|
Asset path |
A script expression that evaluates to the file or folder path referring to the asset to be copied (*) |
Delete asset |
Determines whether the original copy of the asset is deleted after it has been copied into the flow; this can be an explicit value or a script expression (*) |
(*) Usually script expressions are evaluated in the context of an incoming job before the tool acts on the job. As an exception to this rule, here the script expressions are evaluated AFTER the incoming metadata has been picked up (but before the asset has been located) so that the script expression can access the metadata to calculate its return value.
The asset (which is always a single file) is placed in one of the pickup tool's input folders and the metadata source is embedded in the asset file according to some format (which depends on the pickup tool).
When the pickup tool detects an incoming file, it expects is to be an asset and it performs the following steps:
Extract the metadata source from the asset and store it into a standalone file; if the asset does not contain embedded metadata of the appropriate type, the next two steps are skipped.
Create a new metadata dataset with this standalone file as its backing file.
Associate this dataset with the asset's internal job ticket under the dataset name specified through a flow element property for the pickup tool (replacing any existing association with the same name).
Move the asset file to the output folder.
Property |
Description |
|---|---|
Synchronize EXIF/IPTC fields |
If set to "Yes", for supported file formats the values of binary EXIF and IPTC tags are merged with the embedded XMP packet before it is picked up (the packet embedded in the asset remains unchanged) If set to "No", the embedded XMP packet is picked up without change - if present |
The pickup tool with a fourth pickup mode: "Metadata is asset" is used to implement for JDF, XML and XMP pickup.
When a job (example: JDF) file is sent to a pickup tool using this feature, the resulting file is the JDF file with its own content as JDF metadataset. So tools have only three properties: Name, Dataset name and Pickupmode. There is no need for additional properties when this pickup mode is selected.