Keywords & Sets

[kaymann]

What is the purpose of the Keyword Manager... I can create keywords but I cannot drag the keyword to a photo, I cannot drag a photo to a keyword. Keywords I create in the photo do not show up in the keyword manager. When I start a keyword in the photo there are no hints/autofills/partial fills. If I have a typo a new keyword is produced. I cannot drag keywords to the keyword sets (a plus appears indicating a keyword set can be made but nothing happens when the drop occures) unless I drop them into an existing set.

Keyword sets work sort of... Should I create one set that contains all the necessary keywords and go from there. It is like I have blinders on can't see the workflow.

Bibble users did ASP drop something in the translation? What is the most efficient work method?

[afx]

Ignore the keyword manager.
The concept is broken in my opinion.

cheers
afx

[kaymann]

Hoping that wasn't the case - maybe a plugin would work...

[afx]

A plugin might make things easier, but the whole catalog thing needs a rework anyway to make it usable....

cheers
afx

[MarkZ]

What is the purpose of the Keyword Manager...

Kaymann:

I've experimented with the keyword manager and find it of some use for keywords I expect to use frequently.

On the left side of the manager is where you enter keywords and what they call child keywords using the + and -+. Say you take lots of pictures of birds. You could enter Birds as the keyword and then Osprey as a child of Birds.

On the right side are the sets. You can create any number of sets. Say you create a set called Nature (just to give it a different name). Then drag "Osprey" into the set Nature.

After you close the manager "Nature" is available in the selection window of Keyword Sets (I think Default is what normally shows up). To use the keyword sets, select the images to which you want to add the keyword - it can be one or many images. Select Nature in the window and Osprey will be one of the choices under Keyword Sets. If you select Osprey at this point, "Birds; Osprey" will be added as a keyword to all the images selected. Note that you moved "Osprey" into the set called Nature, but because Osprey is a child of Birds both the parent; child are added as keywords.

I hope this helps; it's convoluted and hard to explain. As I said earlier, I've used this to set up sets that I expect to use frequently and it has saved me a lot of typing as I enter keyword in the catalog.

Mark

[kaymann]

OK - MarkZ you got me thinking, so here's what I have did and it does seem convoluted but I hate typing on the fly and creating one time key words...

I created the keyword hierarchy on in the keyword manager. I then had to create a new top level keyword set that matched the Keyword (Astrophotography, Weather, Nature, etc.) I then drug the lowest "keywords" into the top "set". More work than it should be but again I want constancy in my keywords or I consider them useless.

Thank you MarkZ for pointing me in the right direction. Thank you afx for clarifying the lack of manager in the keyword manager - the manager is so broken I thought it had to be an install problem

[MarkZ]

. . . More work than it should be but again I want consistency in my keywords or I consider them useless.

Kaymann:

Exactly - consistency is what led me to playing with keyword sets and keyword manager. I now have about five sets and I'm sure that will evolve as time passes.

The keyword system could use lots of improvement and as other threads/posts have indicated it is buggy. As I started to use the keyword manager I rethought the system I wanted to use, which resulted in a need for lots of editing. To do that I would select a keyword I wanted to change. When the thumbs came up I would use ctrl-A to select all. Then I would enter the new (or corrected) word in the keyword box in metadata, then delete the unwanted word. In general that worked well, but at some point I had a large number of files selected made the changes and went on to other words. Then I noticed the word I thought I had eliminated was still in the list of keywords. When selected a large number of files showed up. None contained the word. No matter what combinations of selection and deletion I tried, including the removal of versions, fixed this. One of the bugs.

I'd like to see the capability to sort the keywords in the manager; boolean searches; ability to select files not containing some words but containing other.

In spite of the deficiencies I still find the keywords a very useful and important feature.

Mark