File Metadata

[imcz]

Our web platform, Wild Apricot, applies the upload date to all uploaded files. This makes the Zoom Index date search facility useless for historical documents (e.g. back issues of our newsletter).

In the Zoom 8.0 manual on p. 11, it says,
>>
Adding meta data to remote files:
You can now override incorrect meta data on remotely hosted sites (which you may not be able to
change, or you do not wish to host .desc files on) by allowing Zoom to look for their corresponding
.desc files in a local folder when spidering a remote website. See "Scan options" for more information.
<<
However, under Scan options on pp. 29 & 30, I don't find anything about this feature, nor do I see anything relevant in the Scan options panel of Zoom Search 8.0 (Build 1004)
Is this feature still planned? already obsolete?

An even better workaround would be if Zoom Search Indexer would support the metadata date field, in addition to Meta description, Meta keywords and Meta author. At least pictures and PDFs should be more accurately dateable this way.

[imcz]

Meanwhile I have found some info on using .desc files in section 2.18.7 of the handbook (pp. 99-100), which gives an example of how to override the title. How can I override the date of e.g. PDFs? The link to "Specifying a last-modified date for your web pages" (p. 136) appears to deal only with HTML pages.

[Ray]

However, under Scan options on pp. 29 & 30, I don't find anything about this feature, nor do I see anything relevant in the Scan options panel of Zoom Search 8.0 (Build 1004)
Is this feature still planned? already obsolete?

The feature has been moved to the "Spider options" panel, labelled as, "Use offline folder for .desc files". We'll need to update the reference on page 11.

An even better workaround would be if Zoom Search Indexer would support the metadata date field, in addition to Meta description, Meta keywords and Meta author. At least pictures and PDFs should be more accurately dateable this way.

Zoom does support the last-modified meta tag. Please see chapter 7.8 in the Users Guide for more information.

Meanwhile I have found some info on using .desc files in section 2.18.7 of the handbook (pp. 99-100), which gives an example of how to override the title. How can I override the date of e.g. PDFs? The link to "Specifying a last-modified date for your web pages" (p. 136) appears to deal only with HTML pages.

This is not restricted to HTML pages. You can place the last-modified meta tag (in the format as described) in a .desc file for any PDF file.

[imcz]

Thanks for the response, but the page I referred to, p. 136, is indeed the section 7.8 that you referred me to. I would rather not create desc files for all of the PDFs on our website. When I mentioned metadata, I meant the metadata embedded in the PDF format itself. I realize that you are using a plugin to index PDFs and may not have any influence over the plugin's capabilities. I just want to clarify what I am asking for.

[Ray]

When I mentioned metadata, I meant the metadata embedded in the PDF format itself. I realize that you are using a plugin to index PDFs and may not have any influence over the plugin's capabilities. I just want to clarify what I am asking for.

We have revisited this, and you're right, the indexer was not picking up the Creation Date nor the Modified Date that is stored within the PDF (which can be found under "Document Properties" in Acrobat Reader). We've changed this for the next release (V8.0 build 1009).

It will now use the Modified Date if available, and failing that, it will use the Creation Date.