P: Preset group names can't contain spaces when option is set to "Replace With An Underscore"

[John R Ellis]

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You can't create a preset group containing a space when the option Preferences > File Handling > When A File Name Has A Space is set to Replace With An Underscore. Originally reported by David Brookens:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/threads/masks-as-presets.44625/ 

To reproduce:

1. Set the option Preferences > File Handling > When A File Name Has A Space to Replace With An Underscore.

2. In Develop, create a preset, and in Group, select New Group.

3. Enter "X Y" for the group name, and observe that Create is greyed out:

4. Instead, enter "XY" and observe that Create is now enabled.

5. Set the option Preferences > File Handling > When A File Name Has A Space to Leave As-Is.

6. Repeat steps 2-3 and observe that Create is not greyed out.

Obviously, preferences about file naming shouldn't affect preset group names, since groups aren't materialized as file folders (they're stored in .xmp files).

Tested on LR 11.1 / Mac OS 11.6.2.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

I see the same behavior. Set status to acknowledged - add bug number.

Thanks for the detailed report!

[JohanElzenga]

If I remember correctly, the same thing happens (or happened, maybe this one got fixed) with folders. You cannot (could not) create a folder  (in the folder panel or in the destination tab of the import dialog) with a space in its name if that preference option is set.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Greetings,

Updates to the Adobe Photography Products were released on June 13. The update contains a fix for this issue.  Please download and the latest version of your application via the Adobe Creative Cloud Application or your respective device app store.

If you do not see the update (Mac and Win) you can refresh your Creative Cloud App with the keyboard shortcut [Ctrl/Cmd]+[Alt/Opt]+[ R ]. 

Note: App store availability can take several days for the update to appear and be available. 

Thank you for your patience.

[John R Ellis]

The new behavior in LR 11.4 sn't quite right -- now, when you create the group "X Y", it is automatically renamed to "X_Y", and if you try to rename it to "X Y", it gets turned into "X_Y".   This is inconsistent with how presets are handled -- you can always create a preset with a space in its name, regardless of the setting of Preferences > File Handling > When A File Name Has A Space.   

Obviously, preset names and group names aren't file names, and they are both stored inside the .xmp file, regardless of what it's file name is.  So restrictions on handling spaces in file names shouldn't have any impact on preset and group names.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

@John R Ellis
From Engineering:

"It is as designed. If the user selects 'replace whitespace with underscore' then the name will automatically get updated to reflect that. For leaving the space as is, we have another option under 'File Handling'. Or Is he telling that the name can't take any spaces even with the 'Leave as is' option? That part is not clear from his comments. If not, then the behaviour is as designed."

Can you clarify?
 

[John R Ellis]

"It is as designed."

The engineer is very confused. Is LR's senior product manager willing to say publicly this is by design?  

The options in Preferences > File Handling > File Name Generation are about the handling of file names of imported photos.  The help says:

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/file-import-formats-settings.html 

"File Name Generation: Specify which characters and spaces in the filenames of imported photos are illegal, and determine how they’re replaced."

This says nothing about preset group names. Preset and group names are not file names and they have nothing to do with imported photos. They are arbitrary strings that are stored inside each preset's .xmp file:

   <crs:Name>
    <rdf:Alt>
     <rdf:li xml:lang="x-default">Temp/Tint</rdf:li>
    </rdf:Alt>
   </crs:Name>
   <crs:Group>
    <rdf:Alt>
     <rdf:li xml:lang="x-default"/>
    </rdf:Alt>
   </crs:Group>

If the current behavior were by design, why is it that with these settings:

I'm allowed to make a preset with this name:

but I can't make a group name with those same characters:

even though both names are stored inside the .xmp file and don't cause the generation of a file name?

But I can edit the .xmp file of a preset and manually change the group name to use the mistakenly forbidden characters, which LR handles just fine:

   <crs:Group>
    <rdf:Alt>
     <rdf:li xml:lang="x-default">/ : \ * ? " &lt; &gt; | = + ; , ^ [ ]</rdf:li>
    </rdf:Alt>
   </crs:Group>

It's Obvious What Happened

The current behavior results from a lingering bug from LR 7.3, which introduced a major redesign of presets.   

Prior to 7.3, presets were represented as .lrtemplate files, and the subfolder organization of those .lrtemplate files was displayed in the Presets panel.  When you created a new preset, you were asked in which folder the preset should go:

It made some sense that the option Preferences > File Handling > File Name Generation applied to the folders for presets, since they were folders in the file system, with all the restrictions on names that entails.

But the 7.3 redesign moved to the new .xmp format, and the concept of preset folder was replaced by group.  The group of a preset is stored inside the preset's .xmp file. Most importantly, while the preset .xmp files could be stored in subfolders of the settings folder, the subfolder organization is completely ignored by LR (much to the chagrin of those with hundreds of presets).   And LR does not create subfolders.  

So there is zero reason for the 7.3 design to enforce limitations on the characters in group names.  And if you asked the product manager at the time who designed the preset mechanism, I'm 100% positive she would have said that, "Of course there's no reason to impose the folder-name limitations on group names".  In other words, the product manager did not "design" group names to have the limitations imposed by Preferences > File Handling > File Name Generation.

The programmer who implemented that part of the new 7.3 redesign changed the labels in the user interface from "Folder" to "Group", but she made a programming mistake and forgot to eliminate the old code that checked the characters in the folder names, which now had absolutely no relevance to groups.

So four years later:

- A different programmer is assigned this bug

- She looks at the existing code, which is probably unchanged since LR 1.

- She doesn't fully understand the design introduced in LR 7.3 or why the existing code is limiting characters in group names. But since the code has been there forever, it must be "as designed".

- She has a team incentive from senior management to reduce the number of bugs in LR.

- She declares it "as designed". 

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Reopened old bug

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

The team has reviewed again (in part, due to your tenacity) and decided the current behavior isn't desired. We've reopened the original bug and will work to shore this up. 

Again, thanks for all you do!

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Greetings, 

Updates for Adobe Photography products began rolling out Tuesday night, August 16th,  The updates contain a fix for this issue. 

If you do not see the update in your Creative Cloud Application, you can refresh it by hitting [Ctrl/Cmd]+[Alt/Opt]+[ R ].

Note: It may take up to 24 hours for your update to be available in your Creative Cloud app.

Thank you for your patience.