Releases

This release is a particularly big one (like the last) and has some major changes in it. Firstly, I’m now using matplotlib for the analysis timeline, so it looks much, much better and allows for things like colour coding. Whilst it does bring with it a small performance drop, I’ll be using it for more analysis graphics in the future so I think it’s worth while. I’ve also made a lot of improvements to the data set analysis and match analysis functions.

This will probably be the last incremental release for a while – I’ll be publishing a road map shortly which shows what’s next on the agenda, but I feel it’s in a state now where Metadata Interrogator fulfils all of my original needs.

Change Log:

• Migrated the timeline to MatPlotLib – this slightly slows down the loading time, but I think it’s well worth it and will be used for more analysis graphics in the future.
• The timeline has been drastically improved, with a much better layout and ability to handle high numbers of files.
• Colour coding for different file types has been implemented on the timeline .
• The data set analysis function has been improved, and now lists file types in the set.
• The file comparison function has been improved to more accurately show differences.
• Minor performance improvements across the board, especially in analysis times.

Get it here: https://github.com/globalcrimadmin/metadata/releases/download/v0.6/Metadata.Interrogator.v06.exe

This release of Metadata Interrogator is a bit of a turning point – it’s a lot more stable now and I feel that most of the bugs have been ironed out. I’ve also started on the ‘Data set analysis’ feature – this analyses all the files currently in the data table and looks for things of interest. At the moment it’s very basic, but I’ll be expanding it soon.

As always, if you have any requests for features in this exif and metadata analyser, I’d be very interested to hear them and then complain about how difficult it would be to implement them.

Change Log:

• Basic Data Set Analysis; currently extremely basic, but it’s being worked on.
• The only good bug is a dead bug, and I’ve squashed a lot of bugs.
• New fancy icons.
• MI should throw up more errors if you try to do something…erroneous.
• Some very minor performance improvements.

Get it here: https://github.com/globalcrimadmin/metadata/releases/download/v0.5/Metadata.Interrogator.v05.exe

v0.4.1 – Walker

This release of Metadata Interrogator is mostly bug fixes and performance related – take note of the decision to remove the ‘default’ date that appears on some files (mostly Microsoft Office ones). This was skewing a lot of timelines and added nothing to the analysis – if there’s demand for it, I’ll add in an option to keep them.

Change Log:

• Fixed files with no date information crashing timeline.
• Removed files from timeline with Microsoft ‘default’ date (1980-01-01 00:00:00)
• Added error messages for failed files.
• Cleaned up code for slight performance increase.

Get it here: https://github.com/globalcrimadmin/metadata/releases/download/v0.4.1/Metadata.Interrogator.v041.exe

This release includes basic timeline functionality – it’s useful in a number of scenarios, but mostly to highlight if there were lengthy gaps between two files being created. This version also includes much better match analysis – hopefully it’s of more use now, as it analyses more exif fields and gives you a better comparison. I’ll keep improving both of these functions in the coming weeks.

Change Log:

• Basic Timeline Analysis!
• Much improved Match Analysis.
• User feedback when processing files (so you know it hasn’t frozen!).
• GUI bug fixes.

Get it here: https://github.com/globalcrimadmin/metadata/releases/download/v0.4/Metadata.Interrogator.v04.exe

Ho, Ho, Ho,
Now I have a machi…Happy Christmas ! The best Christmas present of all has come:

Version 0.3 (named McClane – obviously) is released with two new, major features!

First and foremost, I’ve added in the Hachoir metadata libraries – these drag out even more metadata on a wider variety of files. Pretty much every major file type is now supported, with metadata on EXE’s, Videos and Audio files as well as all the previous ones. There may be some duplication in fields, which I’ll whittle down in future releases.

The second feature is basic comparison functionality to see what the differences are between two files. I hope to improve on this substantially in future releases, but it’s a start.

I’ve also cleaned up the UI substantially now that we know we’re sticking to the Pandastable version (see Trimming Down the Metadata Interrogator) and now that I’m happier with how it’s going I’ve laid the groundwork for easier expansion.

Change Log:

• Added Hachoir parsing!
• Rudimentary file comparison
• Added Settings panel to help adjust the layout better.
• Squashed a lot of bugs.
• GUI resizing works properly now.
• A few more (hopefully descriptive) error messages instead of it just quietly not working.
• Complete separation of GUI and analysis in the code.

Get it here: https://github.com/globalcrimadmin/metadata/releases/download/McClane/Metadata.Interrogator.v03.exe