2020.2

Metadata
Metadata is a hierarchical structure describing a job. Simply put, Metadata is data about data
or, in other words, information tagged to data. Depending on the type of job, the Metadata
includes information about the job, the data file, items in the Connect database, a PlanetPress
Design document, 'User defined information' (sometimes created by regular tasks) and in some
cases page properties and page counts.
Some of the Action and Output tasks produce, alter, or use the Metadata. In addition to that,
PlanetPress Workflow provides a whole series of plugins to create and edit Metadata during a
Workflow process (see "Metadata tasks" on page551). The things that you have to know in
order to use the Metadata tasks effectively are set out in another topic: "Working with Metadata"
on page77.
You can also manipulate the Metadata in your process via scripts using the Metadata API. See
Metadata API Reference.
Note
Applications or plugins created in PlanetPress Suite 6 and using Metadata will need to
be updated for use in version 2020.2. No backward compatibility mode is available.
Warning
When a user-defined emulation (created in PlanetPress Design) is used with Metadata,
results and behavior are unknown and unsupported. For instance, refreshing the
Metadata file may cause the document to crash and/or corrupt. For this reason, it is
strongly advised to create backup copies of your documents beforehand.
Metadata structure
The hierarchical structure of the Metadata is composed of a number of basic levels for adding
information to a job. These levels are, from top to bottom:
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