Set Dates with limited info (e.g. year only)?

Is it possible to set dates in MetaImage with incomplete or limited data?

e.g. I scanned some old film and I know it was winter of 2002 but I don’t remember which month or day, let alone the time.

It looks like in general XMP can take just YYYY or YYYY:mm or YYYY:mm:dd without HH:MM, but in the MetaImage UI it’s forcing a precise selection of M/D/YYY H:MM:SS. It looks like EXIF requires full precise date+time(?).

Is there a way I can key in just the YYYY=2002 without choosing an arbitrary M/D and Time? Or on images where I know YYYY:mm but no dd, or YYYY:mm:dd without time, etc?

Hello there,

Thank you for suggestion. Indeed the current version of MetaImage does not allow writing incomplete date. I added the idea in my TODO list.

Have a nice day,
Jérémy Vizzini

Was this ever accomplished? I am running into the same image with some old photos I have scanned that I only know the year or the year and month. It would be nice to be able to allow the other fields to be blank to get say 1940 as a year or Mar-1940 for a year and month.

Hello NeilF,

I’ve completed half of the work. You can set a partial date, but you can’t do so using the regular editor panel. I’m currently preparing a significant update that will introduce a better interface made with SwiftUI. At this time, to use a partial date, right-click on a tag and select « Edit Raw Value. » Then, enter any string value and save the changes. Even if the interface displays the date and time completely, setting midnight, the file will only contain the partial dates.

Please keep in mind that partial dates work well with XMP tags but not all date tags.

Best regards,
Jérémy Vizzini

Jeremy,

Thanks for looking into this. I’m starting the “swift” journey myself as I want to build an app to track my coffee roasting efforts. I’ll try what you said when I return from visiting my dad.

Again, thanks.
Neil

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