I've started creating lot's of SVG's and have a growing list of SVG assets I use to create new designs.
With Raster files you can add tags to the files themselves as meta and there is lot's of software that can manage such galleries of images easily. This makes searching for CC0 & Copyrighted stock photos I've already downloaded a breeze. Search by color, or other keywords is easy.
But when it comes to SVG files there are less options. I know Inkscape can edit SVG meta tags. And yes it's XML in the back end. Try editing meta for 1000's of files already grouped into categories. From my experience with managing tags and meta for Raster images it seems there must be a better way.
Once files are organized it's a snap to search for a specific design element.
Searching online for solutions has revealed that some people just stick their files in folders and prefix the file names as a stop-gap solution. But this discovery somewhat when a design fits in two or more categories.
The real power of meta comes when you want to categorize a file in several ways. I.e. Red,Flower,Daisy,Animated
Searching I could search for Red and come up with everything red I've designed or mixed. Or search by drawing style, or just all flowers. I makes a collection infinitely more discoverable.
Has anyone else tried organizing vector files using meta?
I'm still trying to figure out a sensible workflow...
But when it comes to SVG files there are less options. I know Inkscape can edit SVG meta tags. And yes it's XML in the back end. Try editing meta for 1000's of files already grouped into categories. From my experience with managing tags and meta for Raster images it seems there must be a better way.
Can you expand on that? Inkscape has a decent dialog for entering metadata, how would you see improving the process?
I think what I need is a batch process for tagging. And a gallery for searching SVG.
Inkscape's dialogue is perfect for day to day small scale use. But I would not want to update the Meta to 1000 SVG's this way. It takes several clicks to get to this dialogue.
For Raster metatags and management I use Shotwell. Here I can select and update meta tags to multiple Raster images & video files at once. This works great to launch a Raster editor from a gallery as well. So it improves workflow when tagging and searching for images.
The real time-saver in Shotwell is the ability to select several files I would like to tag with similar tags. To tag I simply type comma separated tags with 1 or 100 files selected. Later I can add more specific tags to specific files. And It's possible to do this while I preview thumbnails of the files. So I don't need to open each one to tag it.
In Vector it seems we're stuck with folders which is quite messy when you want to search for Illustrations by meta tags.
I think what I really am looking for is an SVG gallery with Tagging functionality. This function may not be something Inkscape would stretch to. But it is something that is important to the SVG workflow.
I mostly illustrate and recombine SVG for screen use. And it's very useful to keep track of SVG assets and search them by color and style to avoid re-illustrating just because I can't find an element.
I've read that communities that use SVG for cutting out Vinyl have a similar challenge in keeping track of vectors.
Community Café How do you organize your SVG's
Inkscape.org
I've started creating lot's of SVG's and have a growing list of SVG assets I use to create new designs.
With Raster files you can add tags to the files themselves as meta and there is lot's of software that can manage such galleries of images easily. This makes searching for CC0 & Copyrighted stock photos I've already downloaded a breeze. Search by color, or other keywords is easy.
But when it comes to SVG files there are less options. I know Inkscape can edit SVG meta tags. And yes it's XML in the back end. Try editing meta for 1000's of files already grouped into categories. From my experience with managing tags and meta for Raster images it seems there must be a better way.
Once files are organized it's a snap to search for a specific design element.
Searching online for solutions has revealed that some people just stick their files in folders and prefix the file names as a stop-gap solution. But this discovery somewhat when a design fits in two or more categories.
The real power of meta comes when you want to categorize a file in several ways. I.e. Red,Flower,Daisy,Animated
Searching I could search for Red and come up with everything red I've designed or mixed. Or search by drawing style, or just all flowers. I makes a collection infinitely more discoverable.
Has anyone else tried organizing vector files using meta?
I'm still trying to figure out a sensible workflow...
Can you expand on that? Inkscape has a decent dialog for entering metadata, how would you see improving the process?
I think what I need is a batch process for tagging. And a gallery for searching SVG.
Inkscape's dialogue is perfect for day to day small scale use. But I would not want to update the Meta to 1000 SVG's this way. It takes several clicks to get to this dialogue.
For Raster metatags and management I use Shotwell. Here I can select and update meta tags to multiple Raster images & video files at once. This works great to launch a Raster editor from a gallery as well. So it improves workflow when tagging and searching for images.
The real time-saver in Shotwell is the ability to select several files I would like to tag with similar tags. To tag I simply type comma separated tags with 1 or 100 files selected. Later I can add more specific tags to specific files. And It's possible to do this while I preview thumbnails of the files. So I don't need to open each one to tag it.
In Vector it seems we're stuck with folders which is quite messy when you want to search for Illustrations by meta tags.
I think what I really am looking for is an SVG gallery with Tagging functionality. This function may not be something Inkscape would stretch to. But it is something that is important to the SVG workflow.
I mostly illustrate and recombine SVG for screen use. And it's very useful to keep track of SVG assets and search them by color and style to avoid re-illustrating just because I can't find an element.
I've read that communities that use SVG for cutting out Vinyl have a similar challenge in keeping track of vectors.
@Creativ I am working on that too.