[Shotwell] Shotwell 0.11: Call for testing - TAGS!

[Adam Dingle]

On 08/29/2011 03:17 PM, pt wrote:
> On 28 August 2011 18:37, pt<pt at traversin.org>  wrote:
>> Same problem here.
>>
>> This is my solution. You will need:
>>
>> 1. a collection of already tagged photos (tags in the photo metadata
>> or in xmp files)
>> 2. f-spot (with an actual database, otherwise you'll have to import
>> most of your photos to have the tags appear in f-spot)
>> 3. depending on the size of your collection, patience.
>>
>> F-spot does permit drag-n-drop of multiple tags at once, so you can
>> move your tags under a parent tag quite easily. (I already had my tags
>> tree done in f-spot.)
>>
>> Make a backup of the f-spot database, just in case.
>>
>> Remove all photos from f-spot database, the tags tree will stay in place.
>> Import a single (bogus) photo, and tag it with *all* the tags (expand
>> the tags tree and shift-select all of them).
>>
>> Delete the shotwell database (or just move ~/.shotwell to another
>> place), thus making all the tags disappear from the interface, then do
>> the 'import from f-spot'.
>>
>> At that point you should have a single photo and a correct
>> hierarchical tag tree.
>>
>> After that delete the bogus photo and re-import all your collection.
>> The tags will hopefully be already in place and you'll have a fresh
>> nice hierarchical tags tree.
> OK guys, I'm really sorry but I didn't try that with an extensive
> collection of photos.
>
> It seems that Shotwell will put your tags into an existing tree *only*
> if you have the full branch tagged.
>
> e.g. if you have in the tree 'people/family/mom' and you add a photo
> tagged just 'mom' shotwell will *add* a root-level tag 'mom', instead
> of using the already-existing one.

I agree that in this case it would be better if Shotwell matched the 
existing hierarchical tag 'people/family/mom'.  I've ticketed this here:

http://redmine.yorba.org/issues/4051

>
> There is a big mess with duplicate tags: it seems that they are
> allowed on different branches, but not in the same branch.

I don't understand.  Shotwell does allow duplicate tag names in 
different branches, e.g. 'friends/rusty' and 'pets/rusty'.  It of course 
doesn't allow two duplicate tag names in the same branch, e.g. two 
different tags both called 'friends/rusty'.  But how is this a mess?

>
> Please please change that. On my opinion it should *not* be allowed to
> have duplicate tags (including tags that differ only for the case of
> the letters).

As I mentioned above, duplicate tag names in different branches are 
allowed.  If you don't like that, you don't have to create any 
duplicates like this.  :)

>
> Looking forward for a better implementation of the hierarchical tags.
> As it is now it is just not usable (i.e. I am willing to group my tags
> in 'location', 'subject' and 'keywords', but I'm not going to tag
> *any* single photo with the top-tree tags.)

Aside from the ticket 4051 I listed above (matching existing 
hierarchical names on import), what other change would you like, 
specifically?

>
> Please consider the option of having 'helper' or 'dummy' tags that
> don't get automatically added to the photos, with the only purpose of
> organising the tags tree. And believe me, with several tens of
> thousands photos as I have, the tags tree will become quite large.

I'm not sure I understand.  Today, if you create a tag 'friends/dave', 
then when you export a photo with this tag the exported photo will have 
both tags 'friends' and 'dave'.  Are you saying that you'd like to be 
able to mark 'friends' as a dummy tag which isn't written into any 
exported photo?

adam