[KimDaBa] Newbie Q: Auto-assign Location/Persons on import?

[Michael Sternberg]

On Thursday 30 September 2004 01:25, Jean-Michel FAYARD wrote:
>[the folder browser] displays only folders which contain at least one
>picture in the current scope.
>I've thought to implement recursive folders [...]
>as a "Member group" of folder, but for a reason I didn't
>remember, I've felt it would add more bloat that usefulness for the
>user. If you convince me I was wrong, this may change in the future.

Well, let me try:  Showing the folders hierarchically would mirror the way the 
user put the images in.  More importantly, though, it would allow broad 
querying -- e.g., in my case, I'd like to select all "Paderborn" images, or 
all "Germany" images, *without* having to construct a Boolean expression from 
all the sub-folders in the Query window.  

Further, displaying all folders hierarchically, perhaps even non-image 
ones ("0 Images" would appear in the browser), and aggregating their 
contents would mirror the way music players work, e.g. xmms or the
Archos portables:  If you click on a directory, ALL music files below
will be enqued and played. 

Therefore, I reckon that pretty-near-native hierarchical folder
handling would be a significant usability improvement.

>> --  The "Folder" selector in "Advanced Search" is a picklist -- could one
>> enter a pattern (regex) there?  Multiple mouse clicks do construct a
>> Boolean expression with folder names linked by "&" (AND), resulting in a
>> NULL intersect upon "Search".  Therefore, I think "|" (OR)  would be 
>> better here.
>
>Mmh, that's why I thought member groups would not be needed.
>But this remind me of a certain discussion I just had with Jesper ;-)
>He thinks that it would confuse the users when multiple clics means
>- setting multiple persons in the image settings dialog
>- searching one from multiple persons in the image search dialog
>and he says that it is a feature for power users anyway (here I don't
>agree, but nevermind)

Thanks for the patch - I figured that AND vs. OR is just a matter
of the single characters.  

As for whether AND or OR is more appropriate, I believe it depends:  for
folder-type attributes, only OR makes sense within that folder hierarchy.  
Same for "Time".  However, for attributes which can occur multiple times for 
one photo both OR and AND will be useful - "Persons" being the prime 
expample.

Good luck with your moves, Jean-Michel and Jesper!
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