P: Respect Hierarchical Folders of Presets

Hear it from John - Organization is superficial.....

Far from ridiculous - filtering helps you find presets. Replicating the folder hierarchy in the UI seems superficially attractive, but it just substitutes one problem for another.

The idea that hierarchical organization is superseded by a filter or search is ridiculous. That said, adding a search to a hierarchy would be fantastic.

The idea that hierarchical organization is superseded by a filter or search is ridiculous. That said, adding a search to a hierarchy would be fantastic.

Search would also be a good addition, but it's mostly helpful if you know exactly what you're looking for. Being able to browse through different presets to explore what is there would be infinitely more useful to me. I personally don't feel that many presets are named consistently (or logically) enough for search to be useful all the time...

Hierarchical file structure may be an advance in computing. It doesn't mean it's a good way to find the presets you need, no more than any UI needs to reflect the underlying file structure. Users with large quantities of presets tend to have similar ones in many different folder trees, usually because they have bought and accumulated packs and bundles. The presets are usually named with variations, so one bundle might use B&W, another might use Mono, another BW, and your own presets have names that reflect their purpose in some way (after all, you don't name presets randomly). Mirroring the folder structure in the panel just substitutes one problem for another, while filtering provides a fast way to find presets for the purpose one has in mind. A most-recently used preset list is another way to speed up that process.

As for not being forced to use a feature, so what. It's still development time used and not available for features one does value.

If you dig back thru the many comments on this you will find that Adobe's official response is that it is done. In fact it is not of course, what is done is the Quick Develop Presets NOT the Develop Presets. I would also ask that the implementation for the Quick Develop is not correct either, it does not follow the standard for Tree-based keyboard searches. I suspect they are writing their own code instead of using standard windows objects.

WOW, I so disagree with the first part. As someone who has been involved in computers since 1959 I can tell you that the hierarchical file structure was one of the great advancements. That does not preclude a search capability, it could be done like windows and I assume Apple. Just place the cursor anywhere on the tree and start typing, do not even need a search box but I would include both. The most maddening part to me is that Adobe pundits agree with us and yet it isn't done. In addition, you can find the code to do this in almost any programming language for free on-line. I just checked and the Quick Develop Presets do honour Tree searching but only for 2 or 3 keystrokes. I suspect we will not see anything on this at least until the new Lightroom. I see signs for a major new product totally different from what we have now.

John, even if this much requested feature was finally implemented, nobody would force you to use nested folders. You can keep your flat preset hierarchy. So this is really a complete non-issue.

I do like the idea with the filter / search box though. 

John that's why forums like this are a great thing, everybody has another idea, yours is another for the toolbox, but many people here are wanting to have a folder hierarchy for presets if the parent folder is named correctly, you would not spend so long looking as you describe I think, who knows the two ideas together could be a great combo