Lightroom Classic: Better keyword management

Regarding "Delete multiple keywords at once":

You can do that in LR already. In the Keyword List pane, select multiple keywords with Shift-Click or Ctrl-Click. Then click the "-" button (Delete Selected Keyword Tag) to the left of "Keyword List".

Note that if you right-click the multiple selected keywords and select Delete, you'll only delete the keyword that you right-clicked. This is inconsistent with the way that most programs work and is a design misfeature.

I agree in general that LR's handling of keywords is weak and could be improved.

As someone who has a stake in keywording (stock photographer) and has written a Keyword Catalog containing some 28,000 keywords, I think I can add some weight to Joop's ideas.

I would also like to see following:

Separate hierarchies from applied keywords (Bride does this) so that you do not have to scroll endlessly to find your hierarchies.

Show the number of synonyms attached to a keyword (currently, you have to double-click a keyword to see whether it includes synonyms).

Enable spell check in the Edit Keyword Tag dialog and also make it more prominent in the Keywording and Keyword List panels (I'd be surprised if everyone knows that, in Mac OS, you can check spelling).

Good point Shangara. And I also want to add the ability to type in keywords case insensitive. Every typo results in a new keyword.

Before Bridge added hierarchies, I had someone write a simple Java app to read and create hierarchies. It sells only occasionally now that both Bridge and Lightroom can read and create hierarchies. However, it does have more options. See attached. I think these could be added to both Lightroom and Bridge.

For my work, I would find option NOT to arrange alphabeticalyl enormously helpful (will start a new thread, I think).

I, too, would really like to see the option to put keywords in the order I want them (by relevance and priority for stock photo agents), not alphabetically as LR now forces.

Additionally I would like to see the following improvements to the string matching for searching.

1. The "Filter Keywords" entry should follow keyword separator preferences instead of only using "space" as a delimiter.

2. Add some basic string matching meta-characters like, beginning of word, end of word.

3. Add some basic boolean operations. AND, OR, NOT for example.

I have requested all of this many moons ago with a but/feature request form.

Also, please consider an option to prompt before new keyword creation.

And, an option to add the plural (or singular if already plural) as a synonym. And other plural handling support, e.g. if user types "daisies", find "daisy" too, if "plurals too" is enabled.

I'd like to see keywording with it's own module to enable many more options and layout. The space available currently is way too small.

I've been working on the road for a while and have several catalogues set up. The main one on my desktop iMac has many of the hierarchies set up correctly, but I made the mistake on my laptop of not setting the hierarchies up correctly, so now I have

iMac
jockeys
fred
kevin
horses
Desert Orchid
Zenyetta

etc

and on the laptop

Desert Orchid
kevin
fred
jockeys
fred
horses
Desert Orchid
Zenyetta

...
and there are about 120 horses scattered across the "root" and the horse folder / category what ever and a few less of the mess of the jockey.

So far I've wiped all the references of 2 jockeys from my laptop keyword collection (UNGH) due to LR's fundamental awkwardness with its keywording.

I too, think another tab along the top is essential for keywording and metatagging images. It is a subset of the library, but fundamentally important for the vast majority of photographers who keyword their work.

Drag & Droppping keywords in the keyword list is a chore, it's either very slow, or suddenly picks up speed as your reach the top or bottom of they panel viewport. It's also inconsistent; selecting multiple keywords to drag&drop them to another keyword "directory" sometimes work, or only move the first one. Even more puzzling, moving a keyword in the hierarchy suddenly opens other parts of the keyword hierarchy tree, for no reason. You end having to close all these subtrees over and over.

The easiest way to directly edit keyword hierachies is to have two windows (or two panels). You scroll the destination panel to the correct place, and then drag from the source panel. (Just like most of us do when moving files between folders). The scroll-up/scroll-down while dragging doesn't work well in any Macintosh program I know, and is especially awful when you have 1000's of words in very small type.

I just realized when I saw Rob Cole's comment, that it is a good thing that LR uses an "or" filter to show keywords. You can show the keyword you are trying to drag, and the container you are trying to drag to at the same time. I hadn't thought of this before. But I like direct manipulation better when it works.

Especially if custom metadata does not make it to xmp come Lr4, I'd also like the ability to distinguish exportable from non-exportable keywords in the keyword form.

(If custom metadata makes it to xmp, I'll just quit using non-exporting keywords, however keywords have an advantage (over custom metadata) of not getting lost should one have to re-import)

I would like to add my voice to this request for something to edit/manage key words. At present, as I understand it, any "detailed editing" is best done by exporting the keyword list, making one's changes/edits and then reimporting it and even this approach has some serious limitations. This is like trying to drive a car sitting on the trunk facing backwards and looking into a set of mirrors, in my opinion.

Keywords and the keywording process are such an integral part of Lightroom that not having some decent formal processes within Lightroom to manage them is a severe lack of functionality, so, if there is one thing I would wish for in the next edition of Lightroom (Lightroom 4), is an easier way to edit, update, categorize, etc., my key words. At present, all I seem to be able to do is move them around within the keywording panel on the right side of the Library module and it becomes a real nuisance, for me at least, to maintain this list in any sort of reasonable "order". For example, in keywording birds, I have a top level category "Birds", then a next level category type of birds, e.g., owls, eagles, etc., and then within each of these sub-categories, I might have the actual name, e.g., Grey owl, Bald eagle, etc. If I find a new type of eagle, for example, the African Fish Eagle and use this as a new keyword, then it gets stuck in alphabetical order under the "A" part of the list and I have to move it to the location that I want it - under Birds, Eagles... - so my thinking is - 1) I am not doing the initial keywording correctly, or 2), I am missing something in LR that will allow me to "edit" and organize my keywords much more easily than trying to move them up and down within the existing right-side panel - a process that is currently very frustrating and time consuming.

Anyway, that is why I wish there was some additional functionality within LR to help me deal with the organization of my keywords in a much less time consuming and more time efficient way. I am thinking that some sort of "tabular" option that would allow editing, moving, fixing mispelling, modifying the hierearchy, etc. would probably do the trick. To me, the keywords and the ability to edit/manage them is just as important, if not more so, than being able to do raw cinversion and editing to the images themselves.

Some other things I think it would be nice to see for keyword management:

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• Ability to color keywords. This doesn't have to be exportable or otherwise saved to anything but the lightroom database (though that would be nice). The main purpose is to make it easier to scan for certain keyword types/groups when keywording.
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• Private and public keyword sections. Unlike the export options already present, this would (under the current, as of LR 3.6, representation) be two different panels. One panel would default to public/exportable keywords, while the other would default to private/non-exportable keywords. This should include the ability to move keywords/hierarchies between the two, and have their export status automatically (or optionally) changed as appropriate.
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• Some way to notify the user that a keyword other than the top-level is currently the target for keyword creation. This is most useful if the target is currently hidden due to being collapsed inside a hierarchy. One way to do this would be to put a link to the target keyword in the panel itself, in dimmer text, right next to the plus sign.
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• The ability to create custom keyword panels. Private and public categories were already mentioned above, but this would also allow, for example, separating client & photographer keywords, controlled vocabularies & other keywords, etc. Additionally, this could provide finer keyword export selection (instead of the current all or nothing approach) for different audiences. This is most useful in a separate Keyword module, as I suspect it would make it too easy to clutter up the Library module.
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• Keyword version control. Mostly useful in a multi-user context. A limited version of this could also be used as a history across application openings/closings to allow undoing the past n number of mistakes.
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• Keyword definitions. This would be provided via an additional input box in the keyword creation/editing dialogue box(es). While not exported (although, again, that would be appreciated), this allows the user to write a reminder of the purpose/meaning of some of their more ambiguous keywords ("does horizontal here refer to format or content?"). The definition could be read in a pop-up on mouse-over.
  (After writing this, I found the same idea mentioned here.)
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• Easier synonym viewing/control. I can think of two useful ways to do this:
  
  
  
• One option is to show synonyms in the pop-up mentioned in "Keyword definitions". To include both, the pop-up could be formatted as:
  

  Definition: definition text
  Synonyms: synonym-A, synonym-B

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• Another option would be to display the synonyms as sub-tags with a different text color/lightness, sorted to the top (in case there are proper sub-tags also present). With this method, one could right click on a synonym, choose the appropriate option from the pop-up menu, and have a keyword editing dialogue box appear for the proper keyword, with the synonym already selected.
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• Keyword cut & paste. Instead of having to drag keywords and keyword hierarchies, also allow cutting them and then pasting them at the top-level or into/onto another keyword. To avoid inadvertent keyword loss, the keywords should not actually be affected (i.e., not removed from their current location) until pasted.
  There should also be an easy way to indicate and cancel the move. Possibly by highlighting or changing the color of the keywords to be moved, and using the escape key to cancel.
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• In lieu of being able to do exact keyword searches, provide user-accessible and searchable GUIDs for keywords, either automatically or at user request.
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• Provide a means to automatically create tags out of certain metadata, such as camera make and model.
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These are not strictly keyword management issues, but close enough that I thought they deserved a mention:

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• Allow searching for the exact keyword in collections and other areas. I do not know if this has its own topic.
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• Allow tagging regions in an image with a/several keyword(s). This has its own topic here.
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I am not sure if this is already possible (I haven't heard of anything, and according to some random piece of information I saw on controlledvocabulary.com, I suspect it isn't), but if it isn't, I would like it to be:

• Provide the ability to write plugins to work with keyword servers. This would work best in combination with the custom keyword panels mentioned above. To wit, it would be similar to the Publish collections plugins that each create a sub-panel. The major use of this would be to provide an efficient way to include and update controlled vocabularies by source. For an example use, one could imagine a publicly accessible keyword server for biological classification.

Another idea, similar to one of Mathew Wirth's:

Keyword Libraries: I'd love to be able to keep my keywords separated from keywords included with files imported by other photographers, and separate from keywords imported from "controlled vocabulary"...