Variables are a flexible tool for displaying custom metadata in features like File Windows, Viewer, Slide Show, Renamer, Batch Processor and elsewhere. The digital asset management software IMatch gives users access to over 10,000 metadata fields, from all relevant formats, including XMP, IPTC, EXIF, GPS, ID3, PDF and more.

Accessing Metadata Fields via Tag Names

IMatch uses a consistent naming schema for metadata variables, based on the native ExifTool syntax. For example, to access the frequently used XMP title and description tags via variables, you use:

{File.MD.XMP::dc\title\Title}
{File.MD.XMP::dc\description\Description\0}

Of course you don’t need to remember or type these rather long variable names. You can just pick them in the Tag Selector dialog. See the IMatch help system for details.

IMatch Standard Tags & Shortcodes

IMatch defines a set of standard tags, which include the most frequently used metadata tags from XMP metadata and other formats. The Tag Selector dialog presents these tags in a separate tab, which makes them extra easy to work with.

A second (and often overlooked) benefit of standard tags is that IMatch defines a shortcode for each of these tags which can be used in variables. The above example using shortcodes would look like this:

{File.MD.title}
{File.MD.description}

A lot cleaner and easier to remember. And when you work with complex sets of multiple variables, shortcodes can improve readability a lot.

Search the IMatch help system index for shortcode to find the corresponding topic which lists all 80 available shortcodes.