Getting Started with Fotofly

It’s been about two months since I posted Fotofly on Codeplex and I’ve had plenty of feedback and it’s been download over 100 times! What I haven’t written is a simple introduction on how to use the library. So that’s the aim of this blog. Step 1 – Download the Library First you need to download the DLL (or download the source code and build it yourself): http://fotofly.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx Follow this link to download the DLL and save it somewhere you can reference it from your Visual Studio project. Step 2 – Add a Project Reference Next, open your project, right click on references and select “Add Reference”: Add a Reference

Select the browse option and point it at the DLL you download in Step 1. Step 3 – Writing a Simple App Now you can start using Fotofly. Here’s a simple C# console app example that reads “test.jpg” and writes all the Tags to the console:

namespace Fotofly.Example
{
    using System;
    using Fotofly;     public class Program
    {
        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            JpgPhoto photo = new JpgPhoto("test.jpg");             foreach (Tag tag in photo.Metadata.Tags)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(tag.FullName);
            }
        }
    }
}

JpgPhoto.Metadata is the core to Fotofly and if you look at this in a debugger you’ll see all the metadata that’s read: Fotofly Metadata in Debugger #1

In addition to the standard metadata, there’s a second group called FotoflyMetadata. This is used by Fotofly to store metadata that can’t be safely stored elsewhere in the file. The method of storage follows the XMP standard and is readable by any XMP aware application, nor should they delete\modify it. Fotofly Metadata in Debugger #2

That’s it for now, please keep the feedback coming.