Just simple number of characters display in Description / Caption / Headline

[sportpictures]

I work for a news agency that restricts character counts in the Description / Caption / Headline field in IPTC.
It would be super useful if you could as part of the setting for FTP indicate the maximum characters for each field, and then have an indication of how close to the maximum you are whilst typing in the stationary pad, only if a maximum has been added in the FTP settings.

It could be something as simple as a coloured square that highlights the last letter which will be sent, so you could continue typing with extra detail but know that it will not appear on the agency.

[Kirk Baker]

I work for a news agency that restricts character counts in the Description / Caption / Headline field in IPTC.
It would be super useful if you could as part of the setting for FTP indicate the maximum characters for each field, and then have an indication of how close to the maximum you are whilst typing in the stationary pad, only if a maximum has been added in the FTP settings.

It could be something as simple as a coloured square that highlights the last letter which will be sent, so you could continue typing with extra detail but know that it will not appear on the agency.

Interesting.  Do you know why they have these limits?  Are they really short limits?  Are their limits in characters or are they in 'bytes' (the reason I'm asking is that not all characters can be represented in a single byte) ?

-Kirk

[sportpictures]

The limit is in characters -
70 characters for the Title (headline in PM)
250 Characters for the Caption (description/caption in PM)

As for why - I get the feeling they want concise and precise captioning - by limiting they don't have so much to proof-read and the photog can get back to doing what they should be doing - taking pictures and not writing about them.