executive:
<< was one post not enough?

In my original post, I mentioned that I have already looked at all 4 extensions found with TAG:EXIF and named "EXIF View".

Your response:
<< Did you look in the plugin library? Lots of good stuff in there.
<< EXIF View

seems to indicate that you do not read the questions, you just post.

The question was moved from an EXIF_Extension question to a general question regarding how to show a general REPORT along side the image.

I have already searched for and evaluated:
Search: exif, Version: 2.9, Tag: EXIF ->
[2017-10-13] EXIF View-2.9.a -- Converts EXIF values to human readable localized values. Corresponds to EXIF...
[2017-07-09] ImageMagick GPS-1.6 -- Uses ImageMagick (PHP extension) to read exif GPS data.
[2017-03-04] Exiftool GPS-0.7a -- Uses command line exiftool to read exif GPS data
[2017-01-23] Exiftool Keywords-2.8.a -- Uses command line exiftool to read exif keywords.

EXIF_View has been exhaustively covered.

If you know of a method to display an EXISTING, flat ASCII report, verbatim next to the picture, please elaborate. 

Thank you,

    Brian

E,

If you have a specific plugin, do elaborate.

If all you are re-re-repeating is that A_NEW_MODULE_COULD_BE_WRITTEN, that adds nothing to the discussion.

At least this time you didn't re-re-re-recommend "EXIF View". Thank you.

If you don't know the answer, not posting a non-answer might be best.

TYVM,

    B

Eliz82,

Thank you for the specific extension information and code example directly addressing the question.

I did some reading on the links you provided and see a few references to Perl, but it looks like the extensions are written in PHP (previously the PERL_Hypertext_Processor). Would you happen to know if extensions can be written in Perl?


Being able to see the relevant EXIF data next to the picture gives feedback to help fine tune the shooting process.

Picture captions often show little more than ISO, Aperture and ExposureTime.  ExifTool -all on a D800E .NEF shows 233 items, most of which are incomprehensible.  Often the EXIF button overlays the image with a separate page.

It seems to be such a generally useful feature to have a text blurb displayed immediately adjacent to an image. Not a thin strip above or below like a title or a caption but roughly a 4"x3"  rectangle, buttressing the image.

It could list the people in the picture or tell the story behind the image or show the concise, formatted report of only the salient EXIF data.

I will do more research and hopefully some development on the pointers you mentioned.

Thank you for your help,

    Brian

====================
Gory Details:
get.exif.pl
USAGE: get.exif.pl [-dhaAbFgklmpsv] file [file ...] [dir [dir ...]]
  [-L "List_element_separator"] [DB_ip_addr] [-o output_dir] <enter>
  -d -> DEBUG. Print mountains of useless trivia to STDERR.
  -h -> HELP! Print the usage information and exit.
  -a -> ALL INTELLIGIBLE info skipping boring drivel and dups
  -A -> ALL. Dump ABSOLUTELY everything to the extract file, even junk + dups
  -b -> Best. Ignore data of lesser interest even if in the db. Only the BEST!
  -F -> FLASH. Get specific FLASH (excrutiating) detail EXIF tags
  -g -> Genre tags like IntellectualGenre, SubjectCode, Scene
  -k -> Keywords. Show Keywords as comma delim string or array if -L
  -l -> List. Show list values as arrays w/';' separators, not flat strings
  -L -> List with following array element separator (-l default=semicolon, ';')
  -m -> Master. Look for a NEF MASTER file for exif
  -o -> Output dir. Requires existing dir arg in which to write rpt
  -p -> PWD. Place .exf file in PWD, not necessarily in dir($NEF)
  -s -> STDOUT. Send all output to STDOUT rather than to a .EXF file.
  -v -> Verbose. Spew mountains of useless trivia. Beware!

I think possible to execute external software from PHP like "shell_exec('perl script.pl ...)" . But some hosts admins disable those PHP functions because security concerns https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-uni … functions/

So:
1) if you don't have access to execute external from PHP you could use previous method:
install cron, or make a cron script from cpanel, and execute that perl script at a specific interval. that perl script should output a exif TXT file for every image in the Piwigo/Upload directory, something like "filename.jpg.txt" . That TXT file output can be showed in a manner similar with my previous example.

2) if your php installation can execute external programs and you can install exiftool on your webserver:
Then I see no point to use perl, because you can show only specific values directly from exiftool, and format them whatever you like with PHP. Example: [Github] Piwigo-exiftool_keywords file main.inc.php
So you can execute an external program from PHP, get the response back to PHP. If you have JSON output (like Exiftool have), it's basically an array (after decode).
Then you can show that Exif values in Piwigo like you normally do (you don't need to write special code for this like I showed you in the previous post).

Some personal plugin example:

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Personal Plugin
Version: 1.0
Description: Personal Plugin
Plugin URI: http://piwigo.org
Author:
Author URI:
*/
add_event_handler('format_exif_data', 'ir_format_exif_data');

function ir_format_exif_data($exif, $filepath) {
  if (!function_exists('shell_exec')) { //check if function is not available
    die('shell_exec is disabled. check php.ini');
  }
  $output = shell_exec('exiftool -json "'.$filepath.'"'); //execute external and get the response to variable
  $exiftool_metadata = json_decode($output, true); //convert json to array
  $exif['EXIFTOOL'] = $exiftool_metadata[0]; //add exiftool_exif to php_exif
  //print('<pre>'.print_r($exif,true).'</pre>'); //debug, help for exif configuration
  return $exif;
}
?>

then go to Local Files Editor plugin and you can config exif display like this:

$conf['show_exif_fields'] = array(
  'Make',
  'Model',
  'DateTimeOriginal',
  'COMPUTED;ApertureFNumber',
  'EXIFTOOL;ApproximateFocusDistance',
  'EXIFTOOL;ColorTemperature',
  'EXIFTOOL;ExposureCompensation',
  'FileName',
  'EXIFTOOL;Flash',
  'EXIFTOOL;LensID',
  'EXIFTOOL;FOV',
  'EXIFTOOL;LightValue',
  );

$lang['exif_field_ApproximateFocusDistance'] = 'Focus Distance'; //demo how to change a field name
$lang['exif_field_ColorTemperature'] = 'Color Temp.'; //demo how to change a field name

$conf['show_iptc'] = true;

this is an example