P: Better keyword management

"If I find a new type of eagle, for example, the African Fish Eagle and use this as a new keyword, then it gets stuck in alphabetical order under the "A" part of the list and I have to move it to the location that I want it - under Birds, Eagles... - so my thinking is - 1) I am not doing the initial keywording correctly, or 2), I am missing something in LR that will allow me to "edit" and organize my keywords much more easily than trying to move them up and down within the existing right-side panel - a process that is currently very frustrating and time consuming."

1.) Right-click (or on a Mac: control-click) on the keyword you want to put the keyword under.
2.) Left/Normal click "Create Keyword Tag inside "Keyword"...".
3.) In the "Create Keyword Tag" dialogue that pops up, under the "Creation Options" section, make sure that "Put inside "Keyword"" is checked. This is probably done automatically if you do steps (1) & (2).

It's a very time-consuming task to move many keywords in "Other Keywords" to the same place in the hierarchy, doing them one at at time, scrolling slow then zooming, trying not to over shoot. Please make the ability to move more than one at a time, and fix this speed zooming issue.

I would like to add my voice to this request for something to edit/manage key words. At present, as I understand it, any "detailed editing" is best done by exporting the keyword list, making one's changes/edits and then reimporting it and even this approach has some serious limitations. This is like trying to drive a car sitting on the trunk facing backwards and looking into a set of mirrors, in my opinion.

Keywords and the keywording process are such an integral part of Lightroom that not having some decent formal processes within Lightroom to manage them is a severe lack of functionality, so, if there is one thing I would wish for in the next edition of Lightroom (Lightroom 4), is an easier way to edit, update, categorize, etc., my key words. At present, all I seem to be able to do is move them around within the keywording panel on the right side of the Library module and it becomes a real nuisance, for me at least, to maintain this list in any sort of reasonable "order". For example, in keywording birds, I have a top level category "Birds", then a next level category type of birds, e.g., owls, eagles, etc., and then within each of these sub-categories, I might have the actual name, e.g., Grey owl, Bald eagle, etc. If I find a new type of eagle, for example, the African Fish Eagle and use this as a new keyword, then it gets stuck in alphabetical order under the "A" part of the list and I have to move it to the location that I want it - under Birds, Eagles... - so my thinking is - 1) I am not doing the initial keywording correctly, or 2), I am missing something in LR that will allow me to "edit" and organize my keywords much more easily than trying to move them up and down within the existing right-side panel - a process that is currently very frustrating and time consuming.

Anyway, that is why I wish there was some additional functionality within LR to help me deal with the organization of my keywords in a much less time consuming and more time efficient way. I am thinking that some sort of "tabular" option that would allow editing, moving, fixing mispelling, modifying the hierearchy, etc. would probably do the trick. To me, the keywords and the ability to edit/manage them is just as important, if not more so, than being able to do raw cinversion and editing to the images themselves.

Especially if custom metadata does not make it to xmp come Lr4, I'd also like the ability to distinguish exportable from non-exportable keywords in the keyword form.

(If custom metadata makes it to xmp, I'll just quit using non-exporting keywords, however keywords have an advantage (over custom metadata) of not getting lost should one have to re-import)

The easiest way to directly edit keyword hierachies is to have two windows (or two panels). You scroll the destination panel to the correct place, and then drag from the source panel. (Just like most of us do when moving files between folders). The scroll-up/scroll-down while dragging doesn't work well in any Macintosh program I know, and is especially awful when you have 1000's of words in very small type.

I just realized when I saw Rob Cole's comment, that it is a good thing that LR uses an "or" filter to show keywords. You can show the keyword you are trying to drag, and the container you are trying to drag to at the same time. I hadn't thought of this before. But I like direct manipulation better when it works.

Yeah, its pretty unwieldy. What I do is filter the keywords first, to eliminate those not involved. That way its not so fast. I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement, I'm just sayin' try that as a workaround until then...

Drag & Droppping keywords in the keyword list is a chore, it's either very slow, or suddenly picks up speed as your reach the top or bottom of they panel viewport. It's also inconsistent; selecting multiple keywords to drag&drop them to another keyword "directory" sometimes work, or only move the first one. Even more puzzling, moving a keyword in the hierarchy suddenly opens other parts of the keyword hierarchy tree, for no reason. You end having to close all these subtrees over and over.

I've been working on the road for a while and have several catalogues set up. The main one on my desktop iMac has many of the hierarchies set up correctly, but I made the mistake on my laptop of not setting the hierarchies up correctly, so now I have

iMac
jockeys
fred
kevin
horses
Desert Orchid
Zenyetta

etc

and on the laptop

Desert Orchid
kevin
fred
jockeys
fred
horses
Desert Orchid
Zenyetta

...
and there are about 120 horses scattered across the "root" and the horse folder / category what ever and a few less of the mess of the jockey.

So far I've wiped all the references of 2 jockeys from my laptop keyword collection (UNGH) due to LR's fundamental awkwardness with its keywording.

I too, think another tab along the top is essential for keywording and metatagging images. It is a subset of the library, but fundamentally important for the vast majority of photographers who keyword their work.

I'd like to see keywording with it's own module to enable many more options and layout. The space available currently is way too small.

Also, please consider an option to prompt before new keyword creation.

And, an option to add the plural (or singular if already plural) as a synonym. And other plural handling support, e.g. if user types "daisies", find "daisy" too, if "plurals too" is enabled.