Author Topic: What are Hot Codes!  (Read 10860 times)

Offline ajmast

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What are Hot Codes!
« on: March 25, 2019, 12:07:49 PM »

From the announcement,
Code Replacement improvements:
• Hot Codes!


Offline cparen3

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Re: What are Hot Codes!
« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2019, 12:11:10 PM »
I saw this earlier and was wondering the same thing!

Offline Matthew

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Re: What are Hot Codes!
« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2019, 12:27:20 PM »
Yep, same. Would be interested to hear.

Offline dennis

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Re: What are Hot Codes!
« Reply #3 on: March 25, 2019, 02:11:22 PM »
Hot Codes are an incredibly powerful force that is invisible, sorta like the zero point energy field  ;)

Seriously, Hot Codes is indeed an "invisible" feature in Photo Mechanic 6.  Hopefully this document will explain it for those who dare to venture into this domain.

(UPDATED WITH CORRECTED DOCUMENTATION REGARDING HOT CODE DELIMITERS BEING '[' and ']')
(PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE SECOND LINK NOT FIRST ONE - I CAN'T SEEM TO REMOVED THE OLD LINK)

--dennis
« Last Edit: April 02, 2019, 11:23:35 AM by dennis »

Offline Matthew

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Re: What are Hot Codes!
« Reply #4 on: March 25, 2019, 02:16:36 PM »
Hot Codes are an incredibly powerful force that is invisible, sorta like the zero point energy field  ;)

Seriously, Hot Codes is indeed an "invisible" feature in Photo Mechanic 6.  Hopefully this document will explain it for those who dare to venture into this domain.

--dennis

Phew! Well, that certainly explains that. Thanks Dennis!

Offline dennis

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Re: What are Hot Codes!
« Reply #5 on: March 25, 2019, 03:24:46 PM »
Matthew,

This is not your "Average Joe" feature, but some of our customers have come up with brilliant workflows never originally conceived using just basic Code Replacements.

I'm curious what other solutions using Hot Codes are realized by our great pool of sophisticated users!

BTW - I came up with this idea at like 2 AM in the morning when I was finishing up a presentation for an NPPA workshop.  I was providing examples about the multi-photographer workflow and the idea just popped in my head like a lightning bolt.

Typically when creating complicated Code Replacement files (with multiple replacements), it is a good idea to use a spreadsheet rather than a text editor because the separating tab characters aren't obvious (and can introduce errors).  And I like to put a column header over each of the multiple replacements.  It is those column headers that are the "Hot Codes".  And then I realized this freed us from forcing a particular piece of metadata (e.g. serial number) and allowed for alternate metadata to be used to "generate" codes (hence "code generators").

On its face it is a simple concept but the ramifications of what is possible are somewhat unlimited.

For the metadata-hardy only!

--dennis

Offline ajmast

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Re: What are Hot Codes!
« Reply #6 on: March 25, 2019, 03:44:06 PM »
Thanks, Dennis.

I like the idea, maybe someday we can get a link to an actual spreadsheet (in the cloud perhaps), to make sorting and keeping the data easier.

Keep up the 2am dreaming, please.

Offline cparen3

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Re: What are Hot Codes!
« Reply #7 on: March 25, 2019, 03:56:34 PM »
Oh man I was so hoping that this would be something similar to this. This is going to cut down on so many CR files I've made for our staff and events.

I'm pretty sure I understand the documentation, but would it be possible to see a setup file (maybe of the scenario you have listed in the explanation) just to help confirm a few things. Trying to make sure I understand the layout and don't mix up //== for code generators, with //## for hot names, and such.
« Last Edit: March 25, 2019, 04:07:31 PM by cparen3 »

Offline dennis

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Re: What are Hot Codes!
« Reply #8 on: March 25, 2019, 04:20:28 PM »
Forgot to post a sample haha...

Hopefully I didn't mess this up somehow but it should illustrate my doc.

--dennis

Offline cparen3

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Re: What are Hot Codes!
« Reply #9 on: March 25, 2019, 04:40:10 PM »
Would it be possible to see that cleaned up without the explanation by any chance? Just trying to make sure I can understand how to format files and the layout.

Offline cparen3

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Re: What are Hot Codes!
« Reply #10 on: March 28, 2019, 12:36:28 PM »
I've tried playing around with this but I think I must have the formatting wrong in some way. Would it be possible to see a normally formatted file to see where I'm going wrong?

Offline dennis

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Re: What are Hot Codes!
« Reply #11 on: March 28, 2019, 01:14:59 PM »
I removed the unnecessary comments.

If you are still having problems please contact our tech support team.  Ask for Bob.

--dennis


Offline fabianlujan

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Re: What are Hot Codes!
« Reply #12 on: March 29, 2019, 05:17:27 AM »
... I was finishing up a presentation for an NPPA workshop.  I was providing examples about the multi-photographer workflow...

Dennis, if possible, share with us the multiple workflows you will display in the presentation.
Just curious.
Other ideas could help improve our workflows.
Thanks!

Offline ajmast

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Re: What are Hot Codes!
« Reply #13 on: March 29, 2019, 06:18:28 PM »
So I think I am missing something in the explanations for Hot Codes.

Using the file Dennis provided (though I changed the serial numbers to my own) I would expect ={snum}#2= and <last> to produce the same results but <last> does not evaluate at all. ={snum}#2= produce expected result.

Running on Win 10 BTW.

Any thoughts on what I am missing?


Offline cparen3

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Re: What are Hot Codes!
« Reply #14 on: April 01, 2019, 11:03:39 PM »
So I think I am missing something in the explanations for Hot Codes.

Using the file Dennis provided (though I changed the serial numbers to my own) I would expect ={snum}#2= and <last> to produce the same results but <last> does not evaluate at all. ={snum}#2= produce expected result.

Running on Win 10 BTW.

Any thoughts on what I am missing?

I've had the same problem. I'm not sure if I'm missing something either, but I reached out to support and haven't heard back yet. I changed up the same sheet and still got nothing. Even tried different variables and such, all to no avail. It always just leaves <full> or such in the IPTC.