Bug 128533

Are you tested 0.8.x serie instead the old 0.7.x ?

Gilles Caulier

I'm using 0.9.0-svn and it still has nested tag features (you can select a tag, right-click, "new tag", and it shows the new tag hyerarchically under the one you clicked). 

Freeform/freestyle tagging was the next wishlist item I was going to add. It would be much nicer to have only a textbox where you can enter as many tags as you want (sepparated by spaces or commas), hit enter and then they are applied to the image. 

As it is today, having to create new tags everytime, then mark them for that image, is too troublesome and I usually only tag some very frequent tags.

Then, in the future, you could have that textbox for in-line tag entries with a dropdown box with suggestions for each tag while you type them.

I don't know how tags are implemented and if that's difficult or not to do. What do you say?

Feel free to add any ideas for faster tagging in a new or existing wish entry (dont know if there are already any reports). This may include any form of assigning tags with the keyboard, if it is free writing.

Your main question is why tags can be nested. IMO this is an important feature. The place in the hierarchy is a property of the tag itself. E.g. first level is the country, say Andalucia, child tag of this is the city, say Sevilla, child of this is a place in the city, say the cathedral.

I have not yet used flickr or any other of these web-based tagging platforms. It seems you have a different notion of what tags mean, but thats ok thats the idea behind this, you are free to tag as you like, and you are free not to use nested tags. If there is (apart from fast tag entry) any useful feature missing for your usage of tags which I dont understand from your initial post, you may want to explain it.

I strongy encourage you to try out del.icio.us and flickr to see how tagging works there. You might also want to look at the Video/Audio editing software "Vegas" by Sony that uses such a tagging system to organize its library of sound and video clips.

For digiKam i suggest to use a similiar approach: Place a text input field under every picture. Tags should be entered separated by spaces. If a tag does not exist yet, it will be automatically created.

In a tag view, the user should see all the tags. By clicking on a tag, the pictures tagged like this should be visible, with their tags as "links" below them. When such a link is clicked, all the pictures with the first selected tag and the second selected tag should be visible ... like this you can easily refine your view. It is a nested structure on demand.

Like it is now made, tagging is very similiar to nested folders. What i can actually do is to place a picture into several nested "tag folders". The creation of new tags is as complicated as it is to manage hierarchical folders ... you have to chose your hierarchy level, select a menu entry "new tag" etc ... this is quite clumsy.

Tagging is only useful when the user does not spend most time organizing hierarchies, as it is already the case with the hierarchical file system.

I would recommend to adapt this "popular" tagging approach of flickr, del.icio.us etc, not only because it is very practical, but also because it is becoming a standard of what users expect when they hear the word "tagging".

I agree, flickr's way of tagging is much more useful and practical than digikam's. Having a few fixed, toggleable tags is useful as well, though, for instance I use a tag to mark shots I want to work on, and one for those I've posted on flickr. But for general sort'n find, free-form tagging is much more convenient (you need auto-completion, so you don't mistakenly create a new tag because of a typo, like gardens/gadrens). Nested tags are too much of a chore to maintain.

Am Sonntag, 4. Juni 2006 20:24 schrieb Dragan Espenschied:
[bugs.kde.org quoted mail]

Maybe I just don't understand the benefit. As much as I have seen on flickr, 
you are really free in tagging but there's no "organisation" with it. It's 
fast to add a tag but it takes ages to find a picture, if you haven't 
well-organised your tags. And if you have, you'll be back to a hierarchy, and 
the only difference is,. that flickr doesn't support you in that.

> You might also want to look at the Video/Audio editing 
> software "Vegas" by Sony that uses such a tagging system to organize its
> library of sound and video clips.
>
> For digiKam i suggest to use a similiar approach: Place a text input field
> under every picture. 


I wouldn't like that. It makes the "picture" of an album view disturbed, there 
is more space needed, hence less pictures displayed on one "page", hence less 
overview...

> Tags should be entered separated by spaces. If a tag 
> does not exist yet, it will be automatically created.
>
> In a tag view, the user should see all the tags. By clicking on a tag, the
> pictures tagged like this should be visible, with their tags as "links"
> below them. When such a link is clicked, all the pictures with the first
> selected tag and the second selected tag should be visible ... like this
> you can easily refine your view. It is a nested structure on demand.


Sorry if I get you wrong, but I can easily achieve this with the right side 
bar. I just select a keyword (or more) and all pictures not having this one 
disappear from the view. I can choose whatever position in a hierarchie I 
like directly and don't have to first click top-level-keyword, then 
second-level-keyword etc.
>
> Like it is now made, tagging is very similiar to nested folders. 


Yes, and I like that! For me this is one of the great advantages of digiKam.

To explain: For my work I have to separate the pictures from a shooting for 
different uses. Like e.g.:
- Series
	- Magazines
		- Magazine a
			- Series 1
			- Series 2
		- Magazine b
			- Series 1
	- content for sale
		- agency a
			- Series 1
			- Series 2
		- agency b
			- Series 1
	- own website
		- public site
			- Series 1
			- Series 2
		- paysite
			- Series 1
			- Series 2

With the hierarchical keywords I can see every combination I want, very fast: 
all photos used in series, just the ones of Series 1 for Magazine a, all 
Series for Magazines a and b... whatever. 

If I wouldn't have the hierarchie I'd have to give sparate names to all series 
(searching for "Series 1" in this example would not be useful in my case). 
This would lead to hundreds of keywords, making it very complex.

Also it's easy to tag a picture: I simply drag it from the right sidebar to 
the selected pictures. If I wouldn't have the hierarchie, in this example I'd 
have to add 4 keywords to each picture (e.g. "Series", "Magazines", "Magazine 
a", "Series 1"). As it is now this is done automatically, and I really, 
really appreciate this feature.

> What i can 
> actually do is to place a picture into several nested "tag folders". The
> creation of new tags is as complicated as it is to manage hierarchical
> folders ... you have to chose your hierarchy level, select a menu entry
> "new tag" etc ... this is quite clumsy.


I don't see a problem here, I don't know, what is complicated, for me its very 
easy. But I'm an old guy, so maybe I just don't understand the modern forms 
of organisation? ;-)

However, I organize my tags in my brain first, before adding them as tags in 
digiKam. It's very rare that I have to add new keywords, and then its quite 
nice to see at first glance where I have to put it.
>
> Tagging is only useful when the user does not spend most time organizing
> hierarchies, as it is already the case with the hierarchical file system.


You don't have to use the hierarchy, if you don't like it. As much as I 
understand it, it's no must, it's just a possibility. 

If you don't like hierarchies (in other parts of my life I don't like them, 
too :-) ), just add only simple "top-level"-Keywords, no problem: right-click 
on the image, select "new keyword", type it - that's all.
>
> I would recommend to adapt this "popular" tagging approach of flickr,
> del.icio.us etc, not only because it is very practical, but also because it
> is becoming a standard of what users expect when they hear the word
> "tagging". 


We will see, if this will become a standard. I'm not in the astrology 
business, so I can't say... And "popular" definitively is not a synonym 
of "good". 

Please don't take this as a flame - if it sound's rude, it's unintended and 
just because I'm not an native english speaker. Just wanted to throw in my 
point of view of the benefits of a hierarchical keywords structure...

regards

Daniel

David, if you have Mac you can try Adobe Lightroom. They implemented
"free keyword" system and it looks good. I saw it only on screenshots

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/1photo-pages/library%20compare.shtml

But maybe someone could test free Beta

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/

Hello, 
I turned to Digikam in the first place only because they had the nested tagg ability. Many other programs do (ACDsee,...)but I was not happy with them. It is for me the most powerful way to organize my photos. I think Daniel explained perfectly the pros of this approach. It is also the most flexible as people who do not like nested structure can just not use them.
Best Regards
Eric

Perhaps there could be a way of implementing flickr-like tagging while keeping the option of using them hierarchicaly. I don't really see a conflict here. Perhaps the report should be changed just to "What about freeform/freestyle tagging?". It does not oppose hierarchical tags. The discussion moves the focus away from the wish itself. Let it be considered on its own.

Certianly some of the suggestions regarding faster tagging interfaces are very valid (truly a simple input box is the fastest way in a lot of cases; though some of the current interfaces are very useful in some situations)

But this "bug" title complains about the hierarchical "nesting" ability of the tags. The solution is simple: if you don't like it, don't use it! You can simply just keep one giant list of tags with no problem. 

I (and apparently some others) really like the nested tagging. Furthermore I really like being able to have spaces in my tags so they don't look idiotic and unintuitive like the joined-word tags seen on flickr and elsewhere. 

I agree there could be some better interfaces added for tagging, but what's there is pretty good... at least, overall, better than any other desktop application i've tried on any platform. And i've tried quite a few in the past. My previous favourite for tagging actually is an old windows program called ThumbsPlus... but that was so long ago the term "tags" had not been invented yet and we still just called them "keywords" back then. <-;

An example use case for me is in doing a lot of nature photography: I like to add some very specific tags for names of plants and animals. But sometimes in searching i want a more general grouping... so for a simple example i can look up just frogs by searching for that tag. Or i can look up both frogs and salamanders by selecting the parent tag ("amphibians"). If tags were flat and i wanted this capability i'd have to add a half dozen tags to every picture rather than just the most specific tag in a tree (or i'd have to do a much more complex search query to think of every possible amphibian that might show up). Nested tags are an awesome organizational tool! 

Hi Tim,

in my original "bug report" i complained about the nested tagging because at the moment it is the only tagging there is. Of course the damage is already done and people have keyworded or tagged their pictures with nested tags. It is understandable that you do not want to lose your elaborate organization that you made with the current system.

Still, nested tags are not needed, because tags "auto-nest", given a reasonable interface. If your frog just has one tag "kermit" that is nested in "frog" what again is nested in "amphibians", your frog has actually three tags. If all of them are displayed under the picture after you navigated in from the other way ("amphibians" -> "frogs" -> "kermit") is a matter of interface design. But nesting doesn't save from "clutter" per se and flat tags don't create it. -- Maybe digiKam calls for a good order because it is so difficult to assign and create a new tag that you really think thrice before doing it.

Also, spaces in tags are not bound to nested tags, tags could also be separated with commas or semicolons or whatever. (Yes, underscores are not looking good.)

Finally, the interface how it is now doesn't really allow me to "ignore" the nested tags, because it is so much optimized for nesting. Tags have huge icons next to them, which doesn't allow me to use as many tags as i would need to have the required "rhizomatic" order. There is just no screenspace! Also, the process of creating a new tag is as clumsy as creating a new folder on the desktop and making symlinks from one picture into several folders. (This is more or less what the nested tags are simulating in spirit.) This disallows the now so popular tagging techniques.

Best greetings,
drx

Hi Dragan

Right click in the tags-filter screen and select to "not automatically switch tags" (Sorry, I have only the German version).
Go and set a keyboard shortcut for assigning a new tag.
Now you can assign in a fast and quick way your new tags/keyword and they are NOT hierarchically.

Shure, there might be faster ways to enter tags in an unstructured way.

To me it's a better approach to be flexible and offer both. Adding tags in a hierarchical way as well as in a flat structure and don't exclude the one or other group of users.

My point of view and I prefer the hierarchical way.

Juergen Flosbach

Hi Dragan,

you wrote:
> Tags have huge icons next to them
With recent versions you can reduce the size of the icons considerably.
Have you tried this?

As far as I see things, nested tags will not be removed from digikam,
and therefore I would suggest to close this bug and continue
the discussion about tag creation in 
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=114465

There were no objections about closing this bug, so any discussion
about improving tagging should be done in
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=114465 
Don't hesitate to re-open this bug with a detailed explanation
if I should be missing something here.

Totally agree.

Gilles