Syncing keywords and grouping them between Adobe Bridge and RS

[Thomas Stefan]

Hi, I am working on a new ResourceSpace setup and currently looking at a way to add keywords to files offline (in Adobe Bridge), then uploading to ResourceSpace.

Creating my own set of keywords in Bridge and then seeing (and routing) them in RS isn't a problem. However, by default RS places all those keywords into one field. 

Bridge works with Keywords and Sub keywords, where the (main) keywords could act as a chapter header, example 

Places

-New York

-Paris

-San Francisco

Ideally I'd find a way to import this into RS so that the item (and the extended search form) displays the same structure. When working with many keywords (as checkboxes) it makes life a bit easier in RS if they are structured rather than displayed in a long list.

I can create different medata items in RS for different subjects (eg: Places) but routing them to RS seems impossible as there is only one 'keywords' field.

Any ideas on whether there's a way? 

[Thomas Stefan]

This may be a very specific question, but in general I'm also really keen to learn about best practices in syncing metadata between RS and offline, whether we use Adobe Bridge or another program.

[Frederick Yocum]

@Thomas

ResourceSpace can be configured using ExifTool to link XMP data (which is embedded in a file) to a specific metadata field in ResourceSpace.  ExifTool is, able out of the box, to address a huge variety of standard tags. It is trivial, once you know the ExifTool tag to import and export to on specific XMP tag. 

Bridge surfaces metadata from existing XMP standards like EXIF and IPTC. I don’t know of any easy way of creating your own XMP vocabulary in Bridge, or indeed creating your own XMP vocabulary period!

The metadata field you create in ResourceSpace can have a controlled list of options  by using checkboxes or dropdown lists. In the metadata field setting, you can link the field to an XMP embedded field in the file using the ExifTool field. In Bridge, if you are not intimidated  by XML, you can relatively easily create your own Metadata Panel, where you have a dropdown list of set options that writes to a standard XMP tag like photoshop:City. 

This solution is somewhat brittle because your users might choose to use a different Metadata panel and add a city not in your taxonomy. We have a had pretty good success in limiting country names to an set with approved format (Congo DRC not Democratic Republic of the Congo or Congo) using this technique.