managing keywords

If I have an event that I've copied from one drive to another and I then add a bunch of keywords & favorites to one of those events, is there a way to simply copy over the keywords & favorites from one drive to the other? I know I can merge the events, but I want to keep both events on their separate drives and not move & merge the events. thx

The currentversion.fcpevent file carries the metadata for the event, which includes there keywords and favorites.

OK so I just tried that and this is what happened. I copied over the currentversion.fcpevent file from one drive to the other (it asked if I should replace one with the other and I said yes). I then opened the event on the drive I had copied the meta data to. Fine - all the info was there. I then tried to open both events from the different drives via Event Manager X and was told the event has "the same identifier as the one I copied over and the second document can't be opened. Move one of these documents out of the Final Cut Events folder. To avoid this problem, copy events from within Final Cut Pro." I get this and see why it's a problem to do what I did (this is all a test so I'm not worried about losing anything). My problem is that I don't want to copy the entire event within FCPX. I already have 99% of the material I need. All I want are the keywords & favorites. Is there a way to move that metadata over without screwing things up? I want to do it within FCPX, but it seems to be all or nothing.

Inside FCPX, drag the keyword collection onto another Event.

That doesn't work for me. Nothing moves over.

Same here - won't go. But what a great idea!

Wow, I remember doing this in 10.0.0. I don't ever do it myself. I just tried it again and it doesn't copy anymore. I may have to fill out the feedback page again.

I guess I'm going to have to rethink my workflow unless they address this in the next update. I've already sent it to feedback. I only use projects when I'm ready to export my work. Otherwise, I do everything within events. If I have an edit session where I only change the metadata and I have the same event on a separate drive, there really needs to be a way for me to just share that information.

These Events are the same. So is there any reason why you need to have both these Events opened together on the same system? If you hide one of the Events, or you disconnect one of the drives after you have copied the Keywords, you won't have this problem. Or maybe I'm not understanding correctly what you wish to do.

What I want to do is share events I'm working on between machines. With 7, I could simply save project files which contained all the sub clips and other logging data. With X, all that logging info - keywords, favorites, etc. - are contained in the events. Since I work almost exclusively with events (and seldom even use projects), I need to find a way to share the data between my two computers. If I work on a certain job and have the event on two computers and all I've changed is one of the events, then I need a way to get those small changes to the other computer. I guess I could simply copy over the metadata file each time and it shouldn't really matter that I can only have one open at a time. It just felt like I was doing something wrong. I've been hearing you should be managing all your data within FCP, so this seems counter to that.

Copying the CurrentVersion.fcpevent (or .fcpproject) file is exactly the same thing as copying the FCP legacy project file. Right?

I guess that's true. And I don't really need both files open at the same time. Probably better never to have them open at the same time. I'm sorry to be so dense about this, but I liked it better when I was told to do every thing within fcpx. How about one simple command - copy over metadata only? Then you don't have to use the finder.

When you copy an Event (or parts of an Event) from within the Finder your copied Event has the same "unique" identifier as the original one, which leads to a conflict in the FCP10 database management when both Events appear at the same time on the same system. When you copy an Event within FCP10 the copied Event gets a different unique identifier than the original one. That's why people advise to do all your managing within FCP10.

But when you copy an Event from within the Finder and you use the original Event and the copied Event on different systems there is no problem. We are running a test setup for six collaborating FCP10 workstations connected to a shared media server without using SAN and we transfer Events (with only symlinks to the media server) and Projects seamlessly from within the Finder over the network between all stations without any database conflicts. So Tom's suggestion is perfect in your workflow and you are not doing anything wrong.

I do agree that a "Copy Only Metadata" command would be a useful feature. Now where's that feature request list...

Thanks. That's what I need to hear. It's certainly a viable solution until the dream "copy only metatdata" feature comes out.

Now that I think of it, this would indeed be a nice feature to have. Feature request has been posted.