Cannot take out nested hierarchy keywords

[mastix]

I can not figure out how to take out a nested keyword inside a parent keyword. I just don't any hierarchy in my keywords in Lightroom. Too complicated, includes keywords I don't want etc. So I am going through all my list of keywords and although I can delete and create the keyword again this erases that keyword from the images that had that keyword in the metadada so not a good solution.

But I cannot find a way to put those nested keywords just as plain regular keywords . I can drag them inside another keyword, but that's not what I want. I want them to be dragged out and that the parent keyword that contained it is not a parent keyword anymore.

I have read that this should be possible just with a drag and drop, but it is not working on the latest version of Lightroom. Chat support told me to uninstall Lightroom and install again but its weird because LR is working properly on all fronts. So does that drag out exist and then my Lightroom is somehow corrupt and I should install again, or is it impossible to drag out a child keyword and the only option is to delete it?

[dj_paige]

You drag and drop to a non-nested location. You need to drag to the "top half" of a parent keyword and the keyword will be placed above that parent keyword. As you are starting to drag, you get an icon with a red circle and a slash through it. Then when you reach the point where you can move the keyword up in the hierarchy (normally as I said in the top half of the parent keyword), the red circle with the slash disappears, the regular pointer icon appears, and you release the mouse button. Do this drag SLOWLY.

I just tried it in Windows 11, Lightroom Classic 11.2, works properly.

[mastix]

Thank you for your help. No success here. Nothing happens. Unable to drag and drop. I tried to not use the graphic card in the LR preferences in case that was the problem. But didn't work. I can right click and get the option. I can select a word. If I maintain the mouse left click button pushed and drag the keyword up the keyword does not move . I also don't get the red icon with the red circle. I have tried very slowly or quicker. That icon does not appear, and keywords cannot be moved outside where they are.

So who knows what is won with my Lightroom. It might be something of windows or maybe a installed plugin that is messing up this function. 

I will try now to uninstall Lightroom and hope for the best. Slowly discarding things and see if it is a windows 10 thing or Lightroom

[dj_paige]

Uninstalling/re-installing is usually a waste of time, that's not very likely to fix the problem, kind of like eating more bananas because your ankle hurts.

Better chance of fixing the problem is to reset preferences. https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-do-i-reset-lightrooms-preferences/

I do agree that this can be a tricky mouse movement for some people, and it takes a while to get used to it and make it work. But if you're not getting the red-circle-with-slash icon, reset preferences is where I would start.

[mastix]

Thank you . I finally found a thread where my problem is explained very clearly. It seems this bug has been in LR forever. It happens when you have lots of keywords. That is my case (many thousands)

https://feedback-readonly.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-classic-chokes-on-... 

So it seems that creating hierarchies makes that list smaller (you have to have minimum open at a time) and that the bug does not happen. Now it is a little complicated as I cannot move things around so I will have to see how I can accomplish it.

I wish there were no hierarchies at all because it slows me down a lot keywording and revising everything to see that the parent keyword is appropriate to that image (sometimes I want it there sometimes not)

I really wish only the keywords that I type in get there and nothing else. Maybe a future option to disable hierarchies altogether in the LR preferences. That would be ideal.

[richardplondon · Accepted solution]

Disabling hierarchies would only be helpful if Lightroom Classic keywording was first re-written to cope gracefully with a very large and "flat" keywords listing. At present it does not.

There are consequences inherent to any "flat" listing over a certain size. Hierarchies are the pragmatic and effective solution - on the same principle as, how we would probably not want to store all our many thousands of image files within just one disk folder - even if the operating system would have tolerated that technically.

[mastix]

Yes. I wish it would be easy. I have no idea of programming. But that "flat" listing would fit perfect for my workflow.

I finally tried the solution for the bug that worked. Create alphabet letters A, B , C,....and put the keywords inside. So that keyword list is not so huge anymore and now the drag and drop that wasn't working before works again.

There are some exceptions. Some keywords can not be dragged inside that parent folder. I first thought it was another bug but I found out that the same keyword( with different number of images it was applied to)was inside that letter parent keyword. You can only put one same keyword in a parent keyword.

That is also really confusing. It should be possible to have one keyword in the catalog and not repeats of the same word assigned to different images. 

So right now I am going hierarchy because there is no solution if I want to be able to disable nested keywords. That head bites tail approach is cumbersome but as it works I can now focus into another things. And hope that somewhere in the future that flat keywords approach is possible.

Thanks for your post.

[richardplondon]

To be honest, I am not surprised - also glad! - that you cannot nest two identically named keywords within the same parent keyword. Nesting does permit the same name of keyword to be repeated in another place - just as, how the same filename can repeat in a different folder but not in the same folder. But then you do have to disambiguate which you mean. For example, "Paris" (France) or "Paris" (Texas), or was it "Paris Texas" (movie) that you had in mind. This is all part of a good nesting scheme and significantly adds to the embedded "meaning" and therefore utility of your keywording IMO. For example, you can make a Smart Collection that selects on keywords, but restrict the scope of this search to only the movie-related rather than the place-related keywords, by including that parent keyword as a requirement in this search's definition.

I expect you are aware, but in case you are not, purely organisational parent keywords can be excluded from appearing in your exports.

[mastix]

Yes. Of Course it is a good thing that not the same keyword can be nested. 

For me sometimes one of the same keyword was picked up when I was introducing keywords and sometimes the same keyword but in another nested parent keyword was the one that ended attached to the image. A total mess. So finally I was searching the images with the one that was nested, assigning these images to the same keyword that was not nested and deleting the nested keyword after. 

I did this with all the repeated keywords (1 hour work) and now I don't have anymore duplicates anymore. No more hierarchies either apart of the one I explaining you next.

But when there was a long list of thousand of keywords I could not use the drag and drop feature so I had to create one artificial parent keyword as suggested on other posts with the initial letter. So all my keywords have now the alphabet letters so that bug in Lightroom does not show anymore and I can drag and drop again. And yes I have those parent keywords set to not export.

Thanks for your help.