[KPhotoAlbum] Picture selection workflow, etc.

[josephj at main.nc.us]

I like your scheme.  I'm going t try it. Then, I'll post feedback.

The only problem I see is adding the no-tag key to each category.  From
now on, no problem, but it will take a bit of fooling around to get them
set correctly for the 24K pictures already there.  I don't think I need
any help with this, I just have to do it carefully.

Thanks.

Joe

> Hi All!
>
> Much of the issues have been addressed already but I just want to
> share my solutions for reference.
>
> On 28 December 2011 09:10, Joe <josephj at main.nc.us> wrote:
>> [...]
>> 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.
>
> I found the Untagged-Tag solution always a little redundant since
> every category has the "None"-Tag that can select all pictures that do
> not have a tag of that category. To find all the pictures I have not
> assigned a place I select the pictures with "None" place and start
> tagging way. Only caveat is that I have for every category a tag that
> says "i have seen this picture and do not want to add a tag for this
> category" so that its not in the "None" filter anymore.
>
> This method has the added advantage of being able to tag places and
> keywords/events quickly and tag people later on when there is time.
>
>> [...]
>>
>> 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.
>
> I do it the other way round: I have create a custom catergory that
> contains only one tag: Done. When a bunch of pictures is finally
> tagged completely, usually after tagging the people, I attach this
> Done tag. This allows me to select the Done pictures and the ones that
> have "None" tags from this custom category.
>
>> 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.
>
> There is a quick and easy way to get from the picture in a search to
> the exact same picture in the unfiltered list of all pictures: hit
> Ctrl-J with the picture selected. This should enable you to return to
> the tagging quite quick if you have lost the point. The corresponding
> meny point is labeled "Jump to Context" in the "View" menu, I admit
> thats not very intuitive.
>
> Also I tend to have a folder for each "event" that contains the
> related pictures of one day or event so this folders contain usually
> 50 to 500 pictures. When tagging I usually filter for this folder
> first so I can not loose my place in my 25K pictures.
>
>> 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 use tokes for "throw-away" selections that are not really worth a
> tag. Those tokes are called A to Z and are toggled by selecting
> pictures and pressing the corresponding key a to z. This can be used
> to either quickly pre-tag pictures and then filtering by those tokens
> and tagging them globally (Ctrl-2) or to cross-select different
> searches.
>
>> I can see that enhancements like this might take a considerable amount
>> of
>> coding.  Pictures probably don't even have their own borders now.  But
>> adding a visual search feature like this could potentially make tagging
>> and
>> maintaining large collections of pictures much easier and more powerful
>> by
>> making it much easier to "see what you're doing."
>
> Again, tokens to the rescue.
>
>> [...]
>>
>> What do you think?
>
> I guess you have to use tokens instead of tags for certain operations,
> tokens are really easy to use and easier to attach and detach than
> tags.
>
> Cheers, Andi
>
> PS: For reference I have added screenshots of my setup at flickr to
> illustrate the my setup: http://flickr.com/gp/astifter/f4p088/
>