Feature request - Smart Tags

[Mammut]

It would be great if we could create not just tags in the tag groups, but "smart tags" as well.

 

Basically they'd be like the saved searches (maybe with extra, group specific functions) but they could be in their right place, in their right group.

[rene]

Hey Mammut,

I don't get what that "smart tags" would do for us

[Mammut]

Hey Mammut,

I don't get what that "smart tags" would do for us

 

Essentially a smart tag is a saved search in one of the other groups (keywords, categories, collections, people, etc.) and not in that saved search group.

 

Now the saved search is not the best usable part of Daminion.

Because...

Let's say, you often set big filters with 5-10 or more tags. It's just stupid to set a filter again and again when you need it, it's a lot of time. So you can save it as a saved search.

But you'll end up like 150 saved searches in the end, without any organizing possibility. It's just an unusable, long list of searches, like a lot of flat keywords.

 

So the smart tag could be an organizing possibility. You could make a hierarchy, etc.

 

edit: and of course this way we could use more smart tags aka saved searches in one filter, we could combine them, which is now not possible.

[rene]

Ok, that sounds kinda cool

[Russell]

Just wanted to see if there was any feedback from the Damionion team on this.

 

It would be really valuable to me. Along with the Smart Tag concept that Mammut suggested for organization, I'd like the option to SAVE that tag into the file.

 

As an example, I could create a "Smart Tag" called "Christmas" that is applied if the photo is tagged with any of the following keywords: Santa, Xmas, Christmas Presents, Christmas Tree, Mistletoe, Stockings, Wreath, etc.

 

I'd like the ability to have the tag "Christmas" saved into my file, based on this new "Smart Tag".

 

The IMatch software, from photools.com has this kind of configuration with their Categories - it'd be a good place to look to see how flexible they've built it. There's a pretty thorough explanation here: http://majid.info/blog/image-category-management-with-imatch/

 

Thanks,

 

Russell

[Russell]

Another handy "Smart Tag" would be "Color" which would assign each image a Color tag based on the main color or colors that make up the image - or the main subject of the image.

 

That way when someone's looking for a "Red Car" they can search their "Car" items and the automatically tagged "Red" Smart Tag and get Red Cars.

 

Thanks,

 

Russell

[Murat]

It would be great if we could create not just tags in the tag groups, but "smart tags" as well.

 

We could add groups for smart tags, but this will be one-level hierarchy only.

 

 

Along with the Smart Tag concept that Mammut suggested for organization, I'd like the option to SAVE that tag into the file

 

IMHO this is too complicated. You can do this by two steps: 1. Select a saved search 2. Assign a tag to your query result.

 

After adding synonyms you can add Christmas synonym for all below keywords:

Santa, Xmas, Christmas Presents, Christmas Tree, Mistletoe, Stockings, Wreath

 

and then searching for Christmas will return you all images where the above keywords were assigned.

[Mammut]

We could add groups for smart tags, but this will be one-level hierarchy only.

 

Hm, sorry, i'm a little tired, what do you mean? There is already a one-level hierarchy group for smart tags, it's called saved searches. A smart tag is a saved search but in other groups, like in Keywords, Collections, Categories, People, etc., etc. The goal would be that we could group tags easily via smart tags, and we could create more complex filters easily via smart tags, without repeating the little steps all the time, it's a comfort feature, it could add a little more customization to the program. We can't achieve this goal with a simply renamed saved search group.

 

But it would be a big help already if at least we could organize the saved searches in "folder like parent things" (with an option for every folder to combine or not its saved search children). So minimum 2-levels.

At least in my opinion the possibility to create hundreds of saved searches but only in one-level without any option to organize them is a weakness.

[Russell]

I think the link I provided might explain it well, Murat: http://majid.info/blog/image-category-management-with-imatch/

 

Thanks,

 

Russell

[Murat]

Hm, sorry, i'm a little tired, what do you mean? There is already a one-level hierarchy group for smart tags, it's called saved searches. A smart tag is a saved search but in other groups, like in Keywords, Collections, Categories, People, etc., etc. The goal would be that we could group tags easily via smart tags, and we could create more complex filters easily via smart tags, without repeating the little steps all the time, it's a comfort feature, it could add a little more customization to the program. We can't achieve this goal with a simply renamed saved search group.

 

But it would be a big help already if at least we could organize the saved searches in "folder like parent things" (with an option for every folder to combine or not its saved search children). So minimum 2-levels.

At least in my opinion the possibility to create hundreds of saved searches but only in one-level without any option to organize them is a weakness.

 

We plan to add groups for Smart Tags, Media Formats, Camera Model and Access Control tags.

[Mammut]

I see. Great, I can't wait. :)

 

But those will be multi-level groups like most of the other groups? I mean, I'm not speaking of some kind of embedded tags, i'm speaking about folder-like parents, minimum with 2 levels but more would be better.

Because if those'll be only one-level, it doesn't matter how you name them, Smart Tags, Media Formats, Camera Model or Access Control, all will be the same as the saved searches now, and because I'm using only smart tag-like saved searches now, there will be not much difference for me, it will be the same long list. :)

 

edit: But I really think that the original "smart tag" idea what we would like with Russell could be better, because there could be more feature in one place (the normal tags and the smart tags).

There are a lot of groups now, and there will be more groups, so it will be harder and harder to get all informations.

Of course, I know it's a lot of time to mix such tags. So the grouping of saved searches is a good start. :)

[Russell]

Thanks Mammut,

 

I hope the Daminion Team is reading this again soon. The "Smart Categories" as they're known in that other product (iMatch) is really where a lot of the power of that tool comes.

 

The ability to automatically write into your XML the results of your Smart Tags would be awesome.

 

And the ability to use formulas (AND, OR, NOT, etc.) to build your own custom tags would be incredible. Don't forget to support parenthesis to allow users to change their order of operations.

 

This really is a worthy read on the topic: Image Category Management See the window for the Derived Categories for a good idea of how this can work.

 

Thanks,

 

Russell

[Mammut]

Well, this kind of smart tags and extended boolean operations could be great features, i'm sure. There are a lot of softwares which are using similar smart features and boolean operations, i'm sure everyone saw a few. :)

 

But in my opinion these are mainly filtering and grouping tools so don't need to write them into the files themselves. In fact, these build up based on the tags which are written into the files, their usage is in their flexibility and it's important to not kill their advantage with carving them into stone.

 

But! Need to write them into a global thing. It's not a good thing if we can save them only in the catalog, and we always need to re-create them in other catalogs, like now the saved searches and custom tags (and I fear the controlled vocabulary will be similar). It's a slow and overcomplicated process to maintain all of your catalogs. I'm sure there is an easier way, a global tag storing file feature or something.