BRIDGE KEYWORD LIST

Keep in mind that if the goal is to reduce the length of the keyword list, using hierarchical keywords will not achieve that goal.

To create the hierarchy, you need to add headings for each level. If your list of states is 50 items long now, and you arrange them into a hierarchy by region such as Pacific, Mountain, Central, and Eastern, now your list is 54 items long. If you created a hierarchy by letter, then your keyword list would become 69 items long (50 states + headings for the 19 letters that they start with).

A hierarchy can reduce scrolling time only when you spend most of a session within one part (or just a few parts) of the hierarchy, so that you can keep the other levels collapsed most of the time. If you constantly need to tag photos from many different parts of the hierarchy, you have to keep multiple or all levels open, or you constantly flip levels closed and open; in that case the list and your scrolling time doesn't get shorter and in fact can get worse.

Hierarchical keywording may help your situation, but before you go down that road, make sure that it will actually help.

I do what Lumigraphics suggested: hierarchical keywording by country:state:city.

Instead of having to manually scroll to find distant keywords, would it work to use the search field at the bottom of the Keywords panel?

If you are near the top of the keyword list, and then you type Washington into the search field, it should scroll directly to Washington and highlight it for you.

That should be a much faster solution than any column arrangement. Especially because you do not have to type the entire word. It will select your keyword as soon as it finds a unique match. For example, there are four states starting with the letter "W" but only one state that starts with the letters "Wa", so as soon as you type "wa", the Keywords list automatically scrolls to and highlights Washington, and you don't have to type any more letters.

This method is almost instant whether your keyword list is 50 items long or 500 items long.

I don't think hierarchical keywords will necessarily solve this problem, because the list is shorter only when the categories are collapsed, but you add a lot of mouse clicks to get at the keywords buried in the hierarchy, and then if you want the list to be shorter again you have to add a lot of mouse clicks to collapse the hierarchy. It's not much more fun than scrolling all day long.

This is simply a limitation of keywords. Its not possible to have multiple columns but you could consider using hierarchical keywords with states to reduce the visible list.