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joopsnijder
Participant
April 1, 2011
Open for Voting

P: Better keyword management

  • April 1, 2011
  • 149 replies
  • 5996 views

How about some better support for keyword management. It's very basic now. I would like to do the following tasks:- Delete multiple keywords at once. Not all plugins do handle hierarchy keywords well and add all the keywords to the root level. It's a tedious task to delete them one by one.- Search for duplicates.- Merge keywords. With lots of tricks, it can be done, but it's so inefficient.- Import keywords from within any level in the keyword hierarchy. Now you can only import keywords to the root level.- And for now last but most important: Real external editing of the keyword list. Moving keywords around and doing real heavy reorganization is difficult in LR. I would like to have an editing option like exporting and when reimported all changes are reflected in LR.

    149 replies

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    K
    KarlReed.OZ
    Participating Frequently
    January 16, 2012
    In the year 2012, any serious keyword system should support searches using boolean expressions! Please add this!
    areohbee
    areohbee
    Legend
    January 15, 2012
    Smart collections will catch parental keywords. Lib filter only shows child keyword (unless parent needed to resolve ambiguity - just like in the 'Keywording' box).

    And yes, 'Contains All' helps when looking for multi-word metadata items, but its not a panacea.

    e.g. 'contains all' 'black hair' will match 'hairy black ape' too.
    A
    Anonymous
    January 15, 2012
    Hmmm. I've had no problem with using commas separating multiple word keywords. I use 'contains all' when using collections to avoid keywords that are just 'golden'

    "It will only show you "Golden Gate Bridge" in the 'Keywording' box, but if you export it, then the parent keywords will be included, provided they are also enabled for export"

    That's useful to know, Thanks 🙂 - but I wasn't talking about exporting them, but rather for use within Lightroom itself. I use keywording to make use of the excellent smart collections in LR which allow me to search across a collection of over 150,000 pics

    So to clarify my suggestion is to have user defined keyword hierarchy within LR itself. Unless I'm continuing to miss something. I'll have another play in a minute 🙂
    areohbee
    areohbee
    Legend
    January 15, 2012
    Lightroom already does this. It will only show you "Golden Gate Bridge" in the 'Keywording' box, but if you export it, then the parent keywords will be included, provided they are also enabled for export. You can see the whole hierarchy in the 'Keyword List'.

    Just be aware, if you try to search for Golden Gate Bridge, you'll get everything with Golden, Gate, or Bridge in it (Lightroom treats spaces as search separator, instead of part of the search term). To find 'Golden Gate Bridge', you'll need a plugin like AnyFilter or SpaceUrchin.

    Rob
    A
    Anonymous
    January 15, 2012
    I'd like user defined keyword hierarchy, so that if I added Golden Gate Bridge to an image, LR would also automatically add, San Francisco, California, USA
    R
    rontonno9207535
    Participating Frequently
    January 12, 2012
    before i worked with lightroom i used ivew mediapro. what i am really missing from it is the ability to merge keywords on import. you could even give priority to the keywords included in the picture or the ones from the catalog, see picture below.
    it would be even better if one could choose the particular fields to be imported. similar to the keyword template dialog.
    it would be great to get this functionality in LR4.



    sorry my english, i am german speaking.
    areohbee
    areohbee
    Legend
    January 7, 2012
    Another idea, similar to one of Mathew Wirth's:

    Keyword Libraries: I'd love to be able to keep my keywords separated from keywords included with files imported by other photographers, and separate from keywords imported from "controlled vocabulary"...
    D
    dreikin
    Participant
    January 6, 2012
    Dang Muphry.
    D
    dreikin
    Participant
    January 6, 2012
    There's are some line breaks missing because I failed to read the entire list of allowed tags.
    D
    dreikin
    Participant
    January 6, 2012
    Some other things I think it would be nice to see for keyword management:

    • Ability to color keywords. This doesn't have to be exportable or otherwise saved to anything but the lightroom database (though that would be nice). The main purpose is to make it easier to scan for certain keyword types/groups when keywording.

    • Private and public keyword sections. Unlike the export options already present, this would (under the current, as of LR 3.6, representation) be two different panels. One panel would default to public/exportable keywords, while the other would default to private/non-exportable keywords. This should include the ability to move keywords/hierarchies between the two, and have their export status automatically (or optionally) changed as appropriate.

    • Some way to notify the user that a keyword other than the top-level is currently the target for keyword creation. This is most useful if the target is currently hidden due to being collapsed inside a hierarchy. One way to do this would be to put a link to the target keyword in the panel itself, in dimmer text, right next to the plus sign.

    • The ability to create custom keyword panels. Private and public categories were already mentioned above, but this would also allow, for example, separating client & photographer keywords, controlled vocabularies & other keywords, etc. Additionally, this could provide finer keyword export selection (instead of the current all or nothing approach) for different audiences. This is most useful in a separate Keyword module, as I suspect it would make it too easy to clutter up the Library module.

    • Keyword version control. Mostly useful in a multi-user context. A limited version of this could also be used as a history across application openings/closings to allow undoing the past n number of mistakes.

    • Keyword definitions. This would be provided via an additional input box in the keyword creation/editing dialogue box(es). While not exported (although, again, that would be appreciated), this allows the user to write a reminder of the purpose/meaning of some of their more ambiguous keywords ("does horizontal here refer to format or content?"). The definition could be read in a pop-up on mouse-over.
      (After writing this, I found the same idea mentioned here.)

    • Easier synonym viewing/control. I can think of two useful ways to do this:

      • One option is to show synonyms in the pop-up mentioned in "Keyword definitions". To include both, the pop-up could be formatted as:
        Definition: definition text
        Synonyms: synonym-A, synonym-B

      • Another option would be to display the synonyms as sub-tags with a different text color/lightness, sorted to the top (in case there are proper sub-tags also present). With this method, one could right click on a synonym, choose the appropriate option from the pop-up menu, and have a keyword editing dialogue box appear for the proper keyword, with the synonym already selected.



      • Keyword cut & paste. Instead of having to drag keywords and keyword hierarchies, also allow cutting them and then pasting them at the top-level or into/onto another keyword. To avoid inadvertent keyword loss, the keywords should not actually be affected (i.e., not removed from their current location) until pasted.
        There should also be an easy way to indicate and cancel the move. Possibly by highlighting or changing the color of the keywords to be moved, and using the escape key to cancel.

      • In lieu of being able to do exact keyword searches, provide user-accessible and searchable GUIDs for keywords, either automatically or at user request.

      • Provide a means to automatically create tags out of certain metadata, such as camera make and model.



      These are not strictly keyword management issues, but close enough that I thought they deserved a mention:

      • Allow searching for the exact keyword in collections and other areas. I do not know if this has its own topic.

      • Allow tagging regions in an image with a/several keyword(s). This has its own topic here.



      I am not sure if this is already possible (I haven't heard of anything, and according to some random piece of information I saw on controlledvocabulary.com, I suspect it isn't), but if it isn't, I would like it to be:
      • Provide the ability to write plugins to work with keyword servers. This would work best in combination with the custom keyword panels mentioned above. To wit, it would be similar to the Publish collections plugins that each create a sub-panel. The major use of this would be to provide an efficient way to include and update controlled vocabularies by source. For an example use, one could imagine a publicly accessible keyword server for biological classification.
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