[KPhotoAlbum] Picture selection workflow, etc.

[Joe]

On 12/29/2011 07:23 AM, Joe wrote:
> On 12/29/2011 12:03 AM, Miika Turkia wrote:
>> On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 12:49 AM, Joe<josephj at main.nc.us> wrote:
>>> Great! Continue Later is exactly what I want for the first issue.
>>>
>>> Maybe someday there'll be a KPA manual to look these things up in.
>>> That's the weakest link in an otherwise outstanding project.
>>>
>>> Joe
>>>
>>> More responses inline.
>>>
>>> On 12/28/2011 05:40 AM, Miika Turkia wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 10:10 AM, Joe<josephj at main.nc.us> wrote:
>>>>> The following is what I'm doing and why it doesn't work very well. 
>>>>> I'm
>>>>> open
>>>>> to suggestions on how to do it better! And I have a few ideas.
>>>>> I'm not saying this is the way KPA is supposed to work or that 
>>>>> there's
>>>>> not
>>>>> already a better way. Just that, if there is one, I don't know 
>>>>> what it
>>>>> is.
>>>> Here is some tips that will hopefully be enough for you (at least for
>>>> the first issue).
>>>>
>>>>> I am selecting some pictures to print from a large collection (24k
>>>>> pictures, a small percentage of which are tagged. Hopefully, I'll 
>>>>> get it
>>>>> done someday!)
>>>>>
>>>>> I create a new keyword "0_select" (so it shows up first on the sorted
>>>>> keyword list in search) and I add that tag to each picture I 
>>>>> select (more
>>>>> than one at a time where possible).
>>>>>
>>>>> This works, but raises a number of issues.
>>>>>
>>>>> 1) If the picture was untagged, (my keyword for that is "untagged"),
>>>>> adding
>>>>> the 0_select tag causes the "untagged" keyword to be automatically
>>>>> removed.
>>>>> (I suppose I could just turn that feature off and do it manually.) 
>>>>> When
>>>>> I'm done with this selection, I have two choices. a) Leave the 
>>>>> keyword
>>>>> there forever and don't reuse it until I have fully tagged all the
>>>>> pictures
>>>>> with that tag or b) remove the tag from the pictures and consequently
>>>>> lose
>>>>> the ability to find them as untagged in the future.
>>>>>
>>>>> This problem is an artifact of the larger issue that selecting 
>>>>> pictures
>>>>> is
>>>>> conceptually disjoint from tagging them and using the same 
>>>>> facility for
>>>>> both
>>>>> (I forget what this "programming" sin is officially called - 
>>>>> something
>>>>> about
>>>>> dependencies within variables or improper normalization) is flawed
>>>>> design.
>>>>>
>>>>> Suggestion: *If* this is the way it's done, then one improvement 
>>>>> (really
>>>>> a
>>>>> workaround for a conceptual shortcoming) to kpa would be to allow the
>>>>> user
>>>>> to select the "untagged" keyword and have it stick. Currently, it
>>>>> deletes
>>>>> itself. (Also, I sometimes add some tags to a set of pictures, but 
>>>>> know
>>>>> I
>>>>> need to go back and add more, so I'd like to use "untagged" 
>>>>> semantically
>>>>> as
>>>>> "not finished tagging".) So, I'd like to be able to add some tags and
>>>>> still
>>>>> have the "untagged" keyword stick. I guess the best of both worlds 
>>>>> would
>>>>> be
>>>>> to have every new picture I add automatically marked as 
>>>>> "untagged", but
>>>>> for
>>>>> KPA to leave that field alone from then on and leave it up to me to
>>>>> delete
>>>>> it manually.
>>>> - new pictures are automatically marked as untagged
>>>> - when tagging images you have two confirmation buttons, Done and
>>>> Continue Later. The first one automatically removes the untagged tag
>>>> and latter leaves the untagged there (but does not add it if there is
>>>> no untagged tag)
>>>>
>>>> Sounds like you are describing the behaviour of the Continue Later
>>>> button in your suggestion.
>>>>
>>>>> 2) When I'm selecting-by-tag a lot of pictures (using a tag as 
>>>>> above), a
>>>>> lot
>>>>> of things can happen to make me lose my place in the large 
>>>>> collection of
>>>>> pictures - anything from hitting left click or down arrow by accident
>>>>> instead of ctrl left click/ctrl down arrow and clearing all the
>>>>> previously
>>>>> (mouse click) selected pictures; having to quit and resume later; 
>>>>> hitting
>>>>> ctrl home or end or letting keyboard repeat go wild by holding down a
>>>>> positioning key too long ....
>>>>>
>>>>> When something like this happens, I lose track of where I am and 
>>>>> what's
>>>>> selected-by-tagand what's not. I can use search to show me all the
>>>>> selected-by-tagpictures. That works, but disrupts my context because
>>>>> once I
>>>>> find the last picture that was selected-by-tag, it's not very easy 
>>>>> to get
>>>>> back to it once the search is undone. I have to look for it by 
>>>>> date or
>>>>> its
>>>>> cryptic file name. This works, but it's less than elegant. It also
>>>>> doesn't
>>>>> let me see what's not selected-by-tag, but should be.
>>>>>
>>>>> Suggestion: Add a new type of search/filter that finds things 
>>>>> exactly the
>>>>> way the current search does, but instead of eliminating everything 
>>>>> else
>>>>> and
>>>>> just showing the new selection, add an attribute to each picture like
>>>>> changing the color of its border to a custom color or maybe even 
>>>>> adding a
>>>>> badge to it like kde does with icons. If that was done, my context 
>>>>> would
>>>>> not be disturbed. I'd still be looking at the same selection of 
>>>>> pictures
>>>>> I
>>>>> was looking at before the search (without even moving anything on my
>>>>> screen!)and I could instantly tell which ones were selected-by-tagand
>>>>> which
>>>>> weren't. This would be even more awesome if it could "display" the
>>>>> results
>>>>> of more than one search at a time. That would be "easy" by just using
>>>>> different colors for each selected-by-tag search/filterand 
>>>>> figuring out
>>>>> what
>>>>> to do when these selections overlap or allowing more than one 
>>>>> badge per
>>>>> picture.
>>>> I think search is the only functionality that discards the information
>>>> of previous selections. So you can add more filtering criteria after
>>>> search or filtering by clicking the categories. And going back removes
>>>> the latest filtering criteria. E.g. start with search of images shot
>>>> in home town and that includes John. Then check the thumbnails..and
>>>> see that you need only images that were shot in birthday (event)...hit
>>>> back. Select e.g. category event and keyword birthday from there. Now
>>>> the filtering includes home town, John, birthday.
>>>>
>>>> There is also an option to include categories in the thumbnail view (I
>>>> haven't tried it). Not exactly what you describe in colors but at
>>>> least it might be useful to you.
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, dynamic selection based on some search criteria within the
>>>> current set of images is something that would be useful to me also.
>>> Not entirely sure what you mean by "dynamic selection based on some 
>>> search
>>> criteria within the current set of images".
>> Marking images by a keyword or some other search criteria (within the
>> selection). Just like control clicking the ones you want, except the
>> selection would be done by search results automatically. Somewhat
>> different use-case than what you describe but almost same as the first
>> phase of your explanation.
> That would be really neat. Now if I had a picture recognition program 
> that could "see" all the pictures that had deer in them and tag them ....
>>> What I want is to see attributes of a selection of pictures that 
>>> don't all
>>> have exactly the same attributes.
>>>
>>> Thumbnails won't help very much because it shows attributes one at a 
>>> time so
>>> I'd have to look at the thumbnail of every picture.
>>> Also, thumbnails are mostly unusable for me in KPA 4.1.1 because 
>>> there's no
>>> delay displaying them on mouse over so they jump all over the place 
>>> when I
>>> move the mouse. I requested a fix for this and someone did it almost 
>>> right
>>> away, but since I haven't yet figured out how to build KPA from git, 
>>> etc., I
>>> don't have access to it. (See my post on the new release thread.)
>> I sure understand if you are not willing to compile KPA yourself but
>> just in case:
>> https://mail.kdab.com/pipermail/kphotoalbum/2011-July/004747.html
> I'm willing (and probably able). There's just so many hours in a day!
>
> I'll take a look and see if I can manage it. Thanks.
>
>> miika
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> KPhotoAlbum mailing list
> KPhotoAlbum at mail.kdab.com
> https://mail.kdab.com/mailman/listinfo/kphotoalbum
>
The instructions in your previous post look simple enough. On this 
notebook, I'm effectively the only user so I can do it just as you outline.

On our other notebook, there are two users which need access to KPA. I 
could just install it twice as above, but it would be nicer to do it 
system wide.
What would I have to do differently for that?

I know git is the latest, greatest, but I haven't used any source code 
control since *very* long ago on a couple of IBM mainframes, so I don't 
know my way around it at all.

I do have my own very small project which might benefit from it if I got 
the hang of it. I've also read posts of people using it as a document 
control system and I might have a use for that as well.

Joe