Add key bindings for rating files

[BlenderTimer]

I'd love to use this when culling thousands of photos since it's so fast! It just needs keyboard shortcuts for setting the rating of the image/file. Generally it's the 0 key for no rating and then keys 1-5 for the corresponding star rating.
I believe this should be pretty easy to implement.

Full standard key bindings:

0 -> no action or remove file rating (i.e. 0 stars)
1 -> set file rating to 1 star
2 -> set file rating to 2 stars
3 -> set file rating to 3 stars
4 -> set file rating to 4 stars
5 -> set file rating to 5 stars

[riyasy]

Since FlyPhotos doesnt have a browser view as of now, what do you say you are going to do with the rated files?

[BlenderTimer]

FlyPhotos doesn't need it's own browser. The rating is standard file metadata which can be read by almost all software (at least on Windows you can find the rating for any file by opening Properties>Details).
A use case would basically be: I can go through all the photos with FlyPhotos and give a rating to the them > then I simply sort the photos by their rating in Windows File Explorer > then I delete any photos which have a rating of 0 (or move them to a temporary "to be deleted" folder if I want to hold on to them for a small time period). Many photo editors also have a built in browser which can sort by rating.

[riyasy]

Ok.. if it was about common file meta data, I shall check the possibility. Thanks.

[riyasy]

The rating seems actually written into the file exif/metadata itself and windows doesn't support it for all formats (it supports for general formats like jpeg, png etc). So the setting cannot be universal across formats. Also this seems to change the modification date/time stamp.

[BlenderTimer]

Hmmm that's odd. My other images which I rated (using Digital Photo Professional 4) don't have updated modification dates.
But yeah, I did just notice that there are two "Rating" metadata. One is EXIF (which works for most images and videos) and the other is what File Explorer uses (seems to be available on most images except PNG, videos, and music).
I think either (or both) should work for this case. Basically I just really like going through photos with FlyPhotos because it is SO much faster than any other software I've used (including paid software). I can sort the photos by rating in another software, it's just viewing the full-res image that takes so long for most applications (and that's where the rating is normally done with photo culling).

[riyasy]

Basically I just really like going through photos with FlyPhotos because it is SO much faster than any other software I've used (including paid software).

Happy to hear this always.

I was not trying from code. I put the rating from file properties dialog and it seemed to change the modified date for the file. I was not able to rate any camera RAW file (i tested cr2, nef and arw) using file properties dialog and could do it for PNG file.
If there is no universal mechanism which could be implemented in Fly, i fear people may accidentally delete/move files for which this rating did not work.
But in the explorer if we select the Rating column to be displayed, the stars seems to be displayed for all file types.

[BlenderTimer]

Ok. I'm also not able to set any rating to RAW files via File Explorer. Not sure if that means Windows/file rating can't be set for RAW files or the properties window is just glitching.
I did double check all the photo applications I have and they use the EXIF* rating metadata. I checked DPP4 (Canon's RAW software), DxO PureRaw (very popular AI denoiser for photos), RawTherapee (popular free photo editor), and Affinity and they all use this EXIF* tag. This rating tag can also be set directly from most cameras (including a 7 year old DSLR I have).
*Actually, after doing a bit more digging, even though the "Rating" value shows up in EXIF data, it appears to be built-in XMP data. It looks like it's stored along with the copyright/artist which is set on the camera as well. So it is a widely recognized tag that should work for any photos (and probably videos) which originate from a digital camera (and I believe XMP data should work for virtually any file).

Even if the rating key bindings were to be more niche to photo culling (although photo culling is a very populated "niche"), I think this software will likely gain a lot of traction in photography circles so this feature would be a really nice addition. I actually learned about FlyPhotos from another photographer, so apparently it's already starting to make its rounds in the photography community. LOL

[riyasy]

How is your current work flow? Do you set ratings from any of the tools you mentioned above and then use the same information from Windows explorer to do sorting or filtering?

Also are these operations performed on RAW files or Jpegs?
Are you using Windows 10 or 11?

[BlenderTimer]

My current flow is using DPP4. It can rate either the RAW CR3 files or the JPGs (or both since DPP4 can group RAW+JPG) depending on what the photo was captured as. Previously I tried a more generic photo viewer which had key bindings for rating but then I found that DPP4 was slightly faster (albeit still really slow).
After rating the images I usually just sort them directly in DPP4 since it has a built-in browser. I can't sort them directly in File Explorer since I realized the rating is in the XMP data which File Explorer doesn't seem to use. However, I did check and DxO PureRAW and RawTherapee both can filter based on rating. Lightroom (which is what most photographers use) can filter/sort by ratings as well.
So for me, since I don't use Lightroom, I'd likely do the rating in FlyPhotos and then simply browse the photos in DxO PureRAW since that's generally the first step of my editing process.

I'm currently using Windows 10.

[riyasy]

By XMP data, do you mean the side car file (a file with same file name, but .xmp ext) or the xmp tag inside the file itself?

One possibility in Fly would be directly rate inside the JPEG/PNG/TIFF. For RAW files, may be add an xmp side car file.. (This will be complex). But there are also other numerous other formats for which I need to check and decide.

[BlenderTimer]

The cameras themselves and most professional software uses the embedded XMP data (not a separate file) for the JPG and the RAW file (both handle embedded XMP data). This is how I prefer it because having an extra file for my images is really annoying.
You could, I guess, make an option in settings to chose whether to make a separate XMP file or use the embedded XMP data, but as far as I'm aware, most software uses the embedded XMP data.