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Notes and comments regarding the possibility of keeping metadata in a LyX file.

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1. Original thread

The basic question:

Would it be good to have some of kind of properties or meta data stored in the lyx file? This would be data such as:

Open Office 1.1.5 for instance showed the following for a MS Word document:

Some objections:

Alternative solutions:

Use a convention where comments are placed in the preamble that contain the information
Use a convention where comments are placed in the document that contain the information

Comments:

PDFs allow fields with metadata. Today when creating a PDF from LyX, the creator might be referred to as 'TeX' rather than the name of the author.
Any metadata should be possible to use when exporting a document, say a PDF, so that the PDF can reflect the name of the author etc.
Metadata repository and search possibilities like Nepomuk are coming on the Linux Desktop. Charles de Miramon think it will be important that LyX files can be easily indexed in these new systems. Therefore, we should add metadata fields. For privacy obsessed people maybe we can add an option to include dummy values for metadata.
Andre' feels it's important that private information such as names, and access or modification dates are not dumped silently into the file without the user having allowed explicitly allowed it. (He says it should be a "conscious" decision)
Lyx already have tools->preferences->identity. Currently, you may enter a name and an email address there - or use a pseudonym or leave them blank. Change tracking uses this field - PDF metadata could also use this page. It is then up to the user to fill out the settings with whatever they like.
The username might be a bad idea, as this is sometimes not the real person.
It's possible to use the LaTex package rcs.sty by adding
\usepackage{rcs}
to the preamble. Then the document could start with something like:
```
\RCS $Revision: 1.3 $
\RCS $Date: 2003/09/23 07:24:45 $
\RCS $RCSfile: MyFilename.lyx,v $
\RCS $State: Exp $
```

Then you may add somewhere \RCSDate{}, \RCSRCSfile{} or \RCSRevision{} to get the values printed there.

PS: Of course you have to install the package rcs.sty if not already present on your system.