Label Assignment Panel Requests

[Hert]

You know; that one feature (assigning with checkboxes) wasn't available in IDimager either. That was a V4 feature which was eliminated in V5. Only through a trick you could use that V4 feature in V5.

In PSU build .94 you can now use the drop down in the LAP (the magnifying glass left of the search field) and the popup won't close after selecting a label. That comes closest to using those checkboxes from IDimager V4.

Merry Christmas

Hert

[jstartin]

You know; that one feature (assigning with checkboxes) wasn't available in IDimager either. That was a V4 feature which was eliminated in V5. Only through a trick you could use that V4 feature in V5.

I stayed with V4, and didn't even know that that assignment method was eliminated in V5! Now I feel like a real dinosaur for trying to get it back .

In PSU build .94 you can now use the drop down in the LAP (the magnifying glass left of the search field) and the popup won't close after selecting a label. That comes closest to using those checkboxes from IDimager V4.

The significant improvements in the LAP, familiarity with it, and an open mind ( ) have convinced me that I don't actually need the things I thought I would need. I just took quite a few weeks to complete the mental conversion.

Merry Christmas

[chuckhebert40]

Happy New Year. You’re clearly a master magician, Hert – it’s not obvious that the Catalog Assignment check boxes in V5 are a trick. As far as I’m concerned they’re part of V5…..

I have repeated in PSU a load of catalog assignments I’ve already done in IDI v5 (in Folders view, and with the same initial catalog), and I’m pleased to say that I found the exercise generally a very positive one; the variety of methods for assigning labels works well (and, like Jim, I’ve been happy to adapt). However, one thing does cause me a lot of frustration. That is the effectively random sequence of Recently Used catalog labels – people’s names scattered among places, for example, and various elements of a multi-level hierarchy also all over the place, all made worse because every time I assign a few labels the sequence changes. Surely far better to show items grouped according to the hierarchical groupings (so people are together, ditto places in (say) France, etc).

This does prompt a thought about what amounts to redundancy and added clutter among the labels displayed. I set up my hierarchies so that when I select a label each higher level is also associated with the photo automatically. If I have a hierarchy such as Places/Europe/France/Paris, then I will generally allocate a photo to the lowest level, i.e. Paris. Given this, and the perfectly reasonable limit on the number of Recently Used labels, why is it necessary to show Europe and France in the list also? If I don’t recall the name of the town where a photo was taken then I might want to choose France, but this will not be the norm, and I can type France in the box at the top. Maybe others have a different view on this? Maybe there could be a choice in the Preferences, although I appreciate that this would add complexity.

Two other thoughts:
- If the label I want isn’t visible I can type it in, and choose an entry from the pull-down list which appears (assuming it’s not a new label). Having done this I suggest it would be better to clear the input field; currently, whatever you’ve typed remains there and has to be deleted manually.
- I would find it very useful to be able to amend a label’s properties without going to the Catalog view when working in the Folder view. When you type a new label the Catalog Label attributes box pops up. Could this also be called up for an existing label (e.g. via a right click)?

My comment on multi-level hierarchies also prompts a question to do with standards, in which I’m a novice. If I choose Paris, then written out to the XMP data on the file is Places/Europe/France/Paris AND Places/Europe/France AND Places/Europe. It’s not obvious to me why the latter two are needed, since they’re included in the first.

[Hert]

However, one thing does cause me a lot of frustration. That is the effectively random sequence of Recently Used catalog labels – people’s names scattered among places

The Recently Used section shows you exactly that: a list of the X number of most recently catalog labels. These can, of course, be anywhere in the hierarchy.

why is it necessary to show Europe and France in the list also?

The answer is simple: because you've set up to assign parent levels so those are assigned too and are then "recently used". That is why they also appear in the Recently Used list.

- If the label I want isn’t visible I can type it in, and choose an entry from the pull-down list which appears (assuming it’s not a new label). Having done this I suggest it would be better to clear the input field; currently, whatever you’ve typed remains there and has to be deleted manually.

Good point. This is changed for the next update.
In the future; please consider using http://bugs.idimager.com to log feature requests.

- I would find it very useful to be able to amend a label’s properties without going to the Catalog view when working in the Folder view. When you type a new label the Catalog Label attributes box pops up. Could this also be called up for an existing label (e.g. via a right click)?

Not sure if I understand this correctly, but you can already open a catalog label's properties with right clicking a box in the Label Assignment Panel.

If I choose Paris, then written out to the XMP data on the file is Places/Europe/France/Paris AND Places/Europe/France AND Places/Europe. It’s not obvious to me why the latter two are needed, since they’re included in the first.

That is because these are assignments. If you don't want those to be written out then mark those parent labels as not to be written as Keywords. You can do that in the details of a catalog label.

Hert

[chuckhebert40]

Thanks Hert.

why is it necessary to show Europe and France in the list also?

The answer is simple: because you've set up to assign parent levels so those are assigned too and are then "recently used".

I should have been clearer: I feel it would be useful to show in the Recently Used list only those catalog labels which have been used directly, not those assigned indirectly. With (say) four- or five-level hierarchies, many of the Recently Used slots are taken up with labels I am not going to choose, making it more difficult to find the ones I do want. (How are the "Suggested" and "Nearby Labels" populated?)

Right clicking in LAP to amend label properties - sorry; will get my eyes tested.

If I choose Paris, then written out to the XMP data on the file is Places/Europe/France/Paris AND Places/Europe/France AND Places/Europe. It’s not obvious to me why the latter two are needed, since they’re included in the first.

That is because these are assignments. If you don't want those to be written out then mark those parent labels as not to be written as Keywords. You can do that in the details of a catalog label.

If I mark France not to be written out as a keyword, that's fine if I choose Paris, However, if I choose France then that won't get written out. Again, it's the issue of whether a catalog label has been assigned directly or indirectly.

[tstoddard]

If I mark France not to be written out as a keyword, that's fine if I choose Paris, However, if I choose France then that won't get written out. Again, it's the issue of whether a catalog label has been assigned directly or indirectly.

Chuck,

It sounds to me that your issue has to do with cascading your assignments. If you only want Paris to be written out when you select Paris and France to be written out when you select France then all you need to do is set up your labels NOT to assign parents. When you right click on a label and go into details there is a setting that says "Also assign parents". Set that to "No" and you will achieve the desired results.

This does prompt a thought about what amounts to redundancy and added clutter among the labels displayed. I set up my hierarchies so that when I select a label each higher level is also associated with the photo automatically. If I have a hierarchy such as Places/Europe/France/Paris, then I will generally allocate a photo to the lowest level, i.e. Paris. Given this, and the perfectly reasonable limit on the number of Recently Used labels, why is it necessary to show Europe and France in the list also? If I don’t recall the name of the town where a photo was taken then I might want to choose France, but this will not be the norm, and I can type France in the box at the top. Maybe others have a different view on this? Maybe there could be a choice in the Preferences, although I appreciate that this would add complexity.

I, too, had my settings like yours at first but then realized, with help from Hert and others, that there was no need to assign parent labels. You may have a valid reason to do so but I would highly recommend that you reconsider whether it is really necessary. If you set your synchronization settings properly, the entire label hierarchy will get written out to xmp and you can also write Lightroom labels which is another way of including your hierarchy into your metadata without the clutter of assigning all of the parent labels. I struggled with how best to set up all of my labels and synchronization settings for a long time before settling on my current settings. There were many nuances I did not recognize until I was well into my cataloging process. There are a couple of threads from not too long ago that discuss these issues. You may want to review them. Here are links:

http://forum.idimager.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=22355
http://forum.idimager.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=22347 more specifically (http://forum.idimager.com/viewtopic.php ... 47#p100220)

Also, I had originally decided to write delimited keywords using the "/" character as a delimiter but then changed my mind about that. The only reason I can give for using the "/" character, or using delimited keywords at all, is if you want Windows Photo Gallery to recognize your label hierarchy. I thought I might want to do this originally but have now realized that it wasn't that important to me to have WPG do this. If you don't use WPG, I would be curious to know why else you would use delimited keywords.

[chuckhebert40]

Thanks Tom. Extremely helpful, especially the threads you refer me to. Like others, my main reason for wanting the complete hierarchy in my files is in case I need to re-create catalog info (and I have experienced problems in v5). I had chosen a '/' delimiter, again like others, for compatibility with WPG, but I realise that's not a good reason to indulge in bad practice. The key thing I hadn't realised is that PSU is writing out the keyword hierarchy anyway, since the Lightroom box is checked by default (I too don't use Lightroom, so had never given it a thought). When I posted my comments I'd actually been using IDI; the Lightroom switch is not checked there.

I see the Recently Used list in the LAR is now (PSU 1.6.0.99) displaying the keyword hierarchy with the delimiter on all the buttons. Time I got rid of them! One day I might get the settings right and spend some time organising my photos!

[PhotoBob]

Here's a simple question. How do I get a label into the Favorites section? I'm sure it's simple, but I can't figure it out. I label lots of photos that have similar characteristics. In version 5 I'd set Recents to display 16 labels and that help a lot, but the refreshing of Recents to six labels in Photo Supreme is frustrating. Thanks for the help. This is my first post. I've come here often and your collective wisdom has made navigating the program very easy.