[KPhotoAlbum] Tokens enhancement

[Kimball Robinson]

Tokens are so convenient that I wanted to expand how I can use them.  I plan 
on coding these changes myself, but I want some feedback and ideas.

Specifically, I want to be able to apply more than 26 tokens.  I know this 
sounds odd to some, and perhaps there isn't a lot of demand for it, but I 
don't want to explain why (in detail) in this message.

I chose Kphotoalbum because I need to categorize a lot of (non-time-stamped, 
disorganized) pictures.  I want to add categories at any time while I 
liesurely view them (not with a 'categories' popup window.)  Tokens work 
fantastically for that.  I'm praising kimdaba/kphotoalbum for making that 
possible in a way no other image manager has done.  Tokens are fast.  They're 
great.  Huzzah.

Because of all this, I don't want to change how people are already using 
tokens.  I want to preserve the simplicity of tokens for those who just want 
a simple token, but also make a way to do more (if you know how).

Here are a couple ideas I have had.

First, I think a token prefix or suffix would be easy to implement.  Toggling 
the use of the suffix should be easy.  It should require only one keystroke.  
At the same time, a user might need to have multiple suffixes (modifiers).

By suffix, I mean that a string is appended to all the tokens added.  If the 
current suffix is "_1", pressing "A" toggles the token "A_1". 

Any combination of the following ideas might work, and I don't intend to do 
all of them...

[1] You switch into suffix mode by pressing the semicolon ";" key.  The 
alternate suffix is something like "+" so that pressing "a" produces the 
token "A+" instead of the token "A".  Users could be limited to just one 
hardcoded suffix.

Another solution, compatible with the first is this:
[2] You add the suffix to the last token by pressing the comma or period key.  
This is analagous to shift key versus option [1] which is more like a caps 
lock key for adding suffixes.
[3] You could add a suffix to all tokens on the current image by pressing the 
comma key (or shift period, or something else).

Some people will want more than one suffix, for whatever reason (if 26 tokens 
isn't enough, why would 2*26 ?).  Here are some ideas to address that:

[4] You toggle the usage of suffixes with ";".  You can define the suffix that 
is toggled by pressing the single quote key "'" and entering a letter or 
number.   Thus " ' a " makes the suffix "_A", and pressing b while suffixes 
are ON would produce "B_A".
' a a --> A_a
' a b --> B_a
' z a --> A_z

[3] As an alternative, the suffixes could be restricted to numbers, which 
could be incremented and decremented with "<" and ">".  So if you press ">" 
three times, and hit "A", you get token "A3".  Again, using ";" turns 
suffixes on and off, while another key appends the suffix once.

[4] This alternative is like 3, except that square brackets are used, and add 
plusses and minuses to the last token.  So A]]] would produce the token 
"A+++", and A[[[ would produce the token "A---".  This poses some problems if 
you want both "A+" and "A", so it's not a great idea unless you want to make 
A tokens into a rating system.

[5] As an alternative, the current suffix is defined by pressing any 
capitalized character, A-Z.  This conflicts with someone else's proposed 
modification of how tokens could work without toggling, so I don't like this 
alternative.
a B a --> A_b, A

I'm hoping for some positive feedback.  I'm open to tweaks and alternatives, 
but I am fairly set on writing a patch--so it might as well be useful to many 
people.

-Kimball Robinson