Feature Requests/Bugs

[djherwehe]

Hello. I've been using Daminion for about a week now, and I'm pretty impressed. I'm just getting into the world of asset management, and I've tried a couple different programs, but even in Beta, Daminion is the best program I've tried. It seems a lot like Adobe Bridge, but without being such a resource hog. With that being said, everyone wants their software to be the best, so I figured I'd share my list of features I'd like to see, along with reporting what (I'm assuming) are some bugs. I know some of these features have already been requested, but I want to get my vote in along with them.

 

Features:

-The ability to customize coloring in the app

 

-More control over the palettes. For instance, I'd like to separate Categories and Keywords, so I can scroll in each independent of each other. Right now, there's a Properties palette and a Tags palette, and while I can control what properties are shown in each one, I can't split them up.

 

-The ability to save a workspace so I can customize different property views for different work.

 

-Better key mapping. Ctl+D jumps me to the properties palette, but it jumps to whichever property has the focus. It would be better if each property had it's own mapping (though now that I think about it, I'm only using about 4 properties, and there's a lot more than that. This may not be feasible.)

 

-Adding the functionality for Stacks (which is there, but grayed out)

 

-(this is a long one) Not sure if this is a bug, or User Experience decision, but adding keywords by typing in the properties palette does not seem right to me. If I'm trying to add three keywords ("Brown", "Cake", "Chocolate"), it goes like this:

Click photo

Ctl+D (assuming keywords have focus)

Type "Bro"

Cursor down to "Brown" (love this feature, btw)

Hit Enter

Type/Cursor to "Cake"

Hit Enter

Type/Cursor to "Chocolate"

Hit Enter

Click off of the photo (This is where the keywords are applied)

It would make more sense to me like this:

Click photo

Ctl+D (or whatever key mapping is for keywords)

Type "Bro"

Cursor down to "Brown" (still love this)

Hit Tab

Type/Cursor to "Cake"

Hit Tab

Type/Cursor to "Chocolate"

Hit Enter (This would be where keywords are applied)

Cursor over to next photo

By using the second method, I wouldn't even have to take my hands off the keyboard.

 

-Ability to change which frame a thumbnail generates from on a video. I'm not picky on this. A global property using either time or percentage of video would be fine.

 

-Ability to rename a file, or move it to a different folder within the app. I have several video files that I had to rename, so I had to delete them, go to explorer, and re-import them into Daminion.

 

-Reducing the size of the data above and below a thumbnail. All the dead space is distracting. I would suggest letting it "flow" to be just big enough to contain the data within a row (see attached image to see what I'm talking about).

 

-Allowing file type to be a display option when customizing thumbnail captions would also help with the dead space. I know that some people are concerned with knowing the file type, but I would prefer to turn it off to squeeze things together a little more.

 

 

 

 

Bugs:

I have some of these bugs with video (wmv), but not images, so let me know if I'm incorrect about them being bugs, and they're just limitations of the file type.

 

-Can't read or write any metadata/XMP data to video files. I tried changing data in explorer, then importing into Daminion, but that didn't work (explorer read it fine). I also tried editing in Daminion, but explorer didn't read the changes.

 

-(Bug or feature?) Every time I hit Enter to confirm a keyword, I get the Windows you-can't-click-on-that sound/chime.

 

-I haven't been able to reproduce this, but after reconfiguring the panels, the auto-complete for keywords feature wasn't working for a while. It's working now, and I couldn't get it to do it again, even after reconfiguring panels.

 

-To scroll on the panels, the panel has to have focus (i.e., I have to click on it, then I can scroll). Most programs allow you to scroll as long as the cursor is hovered above it, even if it doesn't have focus.

 

-(bug or feature?) When filtering, I usually use AND. I know the default was changed after comments on the forum, so I won't ask to change it, but could you make the choice persistent so I don't have to keep going back to choose AND instead of OR?

 

 

Other Comments:

I agree with another commenter that filtering keywords would make more sense to me with a checkbox on the left instead of circle on the right. I took me 5-10 minutes to figure that out.

 

Like I said, overall it's a good program, and even in Beta I prefer it to other DAM software. Keep up the good work, and hopefully, as Daminion comes close to being release-ready, it will prove invaluable to a lot of people.

[Murat]

DJHerwehe, thanks for so comprehensive feedback - and welcome to the Daminion community. My answers below.

 

-Better key mapping. Ctl+D jumps me to the properties palette, but it jumps to whichever property has the focus. It would be better if each property had it's own mapping (though now that I think about it, I'm only using about 4 properties, and there's a lot more than that. This may not be feasible.)

Yes, Ctrl + D jumps to the focused property. But let's clarify what we mean by Focused on this context. I mean the Property with title written with dashed underline. You can change it by clicking on the Property Title.

And it works for all the editable properties - you can't focus read-only property (tag).

 

 

-(this is a long one) Not sure if this is a bug, or User Experience decision, but adding keywords by typing in the properties palette does not seem right to me. If I'm trying to add three keywords ("Brown", "Cake", "Chocolate"), it goes like this:

Click photo

Ctl+D (assuming keywords have focus)

Type "Bro"

Cursor down to "Brown" (love this feature, btw)

Hit Enter

...

By using the second method, I wouldn't even have to take my hands off the keyboard.

 

Hmm... Some people might to expect to select the next tag by Tab key.

By the way you can avoid using Mouse in your scheme - after pressing the Enter key, press the Right Arrow key. This will select the next thumbnail.

Another approach is to implement something like Ctrl + Shift + S - but I guess it will be less convenient and obvious.

 

-Ability to change which frame a thumbnail generates from on a video. I'm not picky on this. A global property using either time or percentage of video would be fine.

-Ability to rename a file, or move it to a different folder within the app. I have several video files that I had to rename, so I had to delete them, go to explorer, and re-import them into Daminion.

 

These features are present in our feature list. There are a few approaches to select the master video frame:

- Select from a list of the prebuilded video-frames - this might affected to video importing performance and you will be tied with 8-10 prebuilded thumbnails

- Open a built-in video player to precisely choose the best frame - this approach will be slow but more accurate than the first one

- ...

 

-Reducing the size of the data above and below a thumbnail. All the dead space is distracting. I would suggest letting it "flow" to be just big enough to contain the data within a row (see attached image to see what I'm talking about).

 

Recently

we discussed about this feature

on the Daminion Server forum:

 

And we are not decided yet, if it will be convenient for all users.

 

 

Bugs:

I have some of these bugs with video (wmv), but not images, so let me know if I'm incorrect about them being bugs, and they're just limitations of the file type.

-Can't read or write any metadata/XMP data to video files. I tried changing data in explorer, then importing into Daminion, but that didn't work (explorer read it fine). I also tried editing in Daminion, but explorer didn't read the changes.

 

Yes. This is something that we plan to improve in the future.

 

-(Bug or feature?) Every time I hit Enter to confirm a keyword, I get the Windows you-can't-click-on-that sound/chime.

It's a more a bug rather than a feature :)

 

 

-I haven't been able to reproduce this, but after reconfiguring the panels, the auto-complete for keywords feature wasn't working for a while. It's working now, and I couldn't get it to do it again, even after reconfiguring panels.

 

I am unable to reproduce it, need more detailed steps.

 

 

-(bug or feature?) When filtering, I usually use AND. I know the default was changed after comments on the forum, so I won't ask to change it, but could you make the choice persistent so I don't have to keep going back to choose AND instead of OR?

 

Added to the bug-tracking list.

 

I agree with another commenter that filtering keywords would make more sense to me with a checkbox on the left instead of circle on the right. I took me 5-10 minutes to figure that out.

 

The expected behaviour to checkbox is independence from ither checkboxes.

In our case clicking on the other checkbox should uncheck other checkboxes, so we select Radio button control.

Probably it should be redesigned but I don't have ideas how for now.

[djherwehe]

Yes, Ctrl + D jumps to the focused property. But let's clarify what we mean by Focused on this context. I mean the Property with title written with dashed underline. You can change it by clicking on the Property Title.

And it works for all the editable properties - you can't focus read-only property (tag).

 

Yes, that is what I meant by focus. I just didn't want to have to click on a different property each time to create focus so I could use a key shortcut. After messing around with it more last night, I've become used to hitting Ctrl+D and tabbing to the property I want, so this is no longer an issue for me.

 

 

Hmm... Some people might to expect to select the next tag by Tab key.

By the way you can avoid using Mouse in your scheme - after pressing the Enter key, press the Right Arrow key. This will select the next thumbnail.

Another approach is to implement something like Ctrl + Shift + S - but I guess it will be less convenient and obvious.

 

I think people would understand if you hit Tab that it would create an empty field for the next keyword, and if you hit Tab in an empty field, it would then take you to the next tag.

 

I tested several different ways to get to the next thumbnail, but nothing worked. I tried you suggested method, but it didn't work either. I think because focus is on the properties pane, no event is sent to the thumbnail pane to change thumbnails. Judging by your suggestion, changing thumbnails this way seems to be the expected result, so I think this is a bug.

 

 

These features are present in our feature list. There are a few approaches to select the master video frame:

- Select from a list of the prebuilded video-frames - this might affected to video importing performance and you will be tied with 8-10 prebuilded thumbnails

- Open a built-in video player to precisely choose the best frame - this approach will be slow but more accurate than the first one

- ...

 

Do you mean this feature is currently present, or part of the current feature requests? Personally, I don't want to have this much control, as it would slow me down a lot when importing video. I would like to be able to have a preference option (once the preferences are up and running) that would allow me to either:

 

A) Choose a time the thumbnail generates from. For instance, every thumbnail is generated from the frame at the 1 minute mark (or whatever time I choose)

or

B) Choose a percentage of time that every thumbnail generates from. So, if I choose 10%, a 30 minute video would generate a thumbnail from the 3 minute mark, and a 10 minute video would generate a thumbnail from the 1 minute mark.

 

 

Recently we discussed about this feature on the Daminion Server forum:

 

And we are not decided yet, if it will be convenient for all users.

 

The grid size was only half of my issue for this one. If you refer to my original image, you'll notice that in the caption area, there is a lot of dead space underneath the filename. There is also a lot of dead space between the filename and tag. Even with the same grid size for the images, I think condensing this dead space would help.

 

As far as orientation deciding on grid size, I would suggest doing it on a row by row basis. If you do thumbnail view in Windows Explorer, it looks like the width is a constant size (say 256px), and all images are scaled to a box in that width (256x256). If the image is portrait, it leaves empty space on the sides of the image, and if it's landscape, it bottom-aligns the image and leaves empty space above the image. The reason the different orientations aren't distracting is because the width remains constant through the entire grid, and the height is fluid, so that the tallest image butts up against the bottom of the previous row. I would actually prefer the images to be centered vertically, but hopefully this example gets you a step closer to a solution that everyone will agree with.

 

For what it's worth, Adobe Bridge seems to use the same square grid that Daminion uses, but it doesn't have the file type above the image or the dead space below in thumbnail captions. That alone makes it seem less cluttered and distracting.

 

 

 

It's a more a bug rather than a feature :)

 

I figured. I'd also like to point out that I also get the chime when I cursor down to select a tag I've started typing. Let's go ahead and file that as a bug as well.

 

 

 

I am unable to reproduce it, need more detailed steps.

 

I moved the properties pane into the same panel as the catalog tags. I did some more stuff, just playing around in the program, that I can't remember now, then went to tag something later and found that auto-complete was not searching. As I said, I was unable to reproduce this bug myself, but if I see it again, I'll let you know.

 

 

The expected behaviour to checkbox is independence from ither checkboxes.

In our case clicking on the other checkbox should uncheck other checkboxes, so we select Radio button control.

Probably it should be redesigned but I don't have ideas how for now.

 

I would think the expected behavior of checkboxes is that you can check multiples, while it's usually expected that you can only choose one radio button. I'm not trying to turn Daminion into an Adobe Bridge clone, but I think the way they handle this makes sense. Instead of one keyword pane, they have a pane to assign keywords, and a separate pane to filter assets. In the keyword pane, all keywords are listed with checkboxes, and you click the box next to each keyword you want to apply. Then, in the filter pane, you just click anywhere on the keyword, and it shows a checkmark next to the word to show that you're filtering assets using that keyword.

 

 

 

 

I would also like to report another bug I found. Say I have two pictures: PicA and PicB, and PicA already has a keyword assigned to it. If I have PicA and PicB selected and try to assign that keyword, nothing happens. This is something that happens quite a bit, because I search for certain things, and assign keywords to all the results, then search for something else, and assign it, and PicA comes up in both searches.

[franky68]

For what it's worth, Adobe Bridge seems to use the same square grid that Daminion uses, but it doesn't have the file type above the image or the dead space below in thumbnail captions. That alone makes it seem less cluttered and distracting.

 

 

Just a quick remark on this one: Please make the "file type" caption configurable. It uses soooo much space and clutters the display.

 

I only catalog images and in 99% they are RAW (if not they are developed from a RAW and should be in a group once Daminion supports this). So I really don't care about filetypes. I much rather would free that screen estate or use it for the filename instead. Probably it can't be freed because its also used for the drop down icons but let us configure whats displayed there.

[Murat]

I tested several different ways to get to the next thumbnail, but nothing worked. I tried you suggested method, but it didn't work either. I think because focus is on the properties pane, no event is sent to the thumbnail pane to change thumbnails. Judging by your suggestion, changing thumbnails this way seems to be the expected result, so I think this is a bug.

 

I've check this on Windows 7 and Windows XP - it should works. Did you press "Ctrl + S" before pressing Right Arrow key?

 

Do you mean this feature is currently present, or part of the current feature requests?

 

It's part of the feature requests.

 

 

The grid size was only half of my issue for this one. If you refer to my original image, you'll notice that in the caption area, there is a lot of dead space underneath the filename. There is also a lot of dead space between the filename and tag. Even with the same grid size for the images, I think condensing this dead space would help.

 

As far as orientation deciding on grid size, I would suggest doing it on a row by row basis. If you do thumbnail view in Windows Explorer, it looks like the width is a constant size (say 256px), and all images are scaled to a box in that width (256x256). If the image is portrait, it leaves empty space on the sides of the image, and if it's landscape, it bottom-aligns the image and leaves empty space above the image. The reason the different orientations aren't distracting is because the width remains constant through the entire grid, and the height is fluid, so that the tallest image butts up against the bottom of the previous row. I would actually prefer the images to be centered vertically, but hopefully this example gets you a step closer to a solution that everyone will agree with.

 

You can specify what fields should be displayed below the Thumbnails. By default thumbnail captions displays:

1. Filename

2. Exposure (like "f4.0, 1/400 sec, ISO400")

3. Dimension (like "560Kb, 1600x1200")

 

You can click on the "i" button below the Thumbnail Scrolbar to customize these fields, or leave just filename.

 

I would also like to report another bug I found. Say I have two pictures: PicA and PicB, and PicA already has a keyword assigned to it. If I have PicA and PicB selected and try to assign that keyword, nothing happens. This is something that happens quite a bit, because I search for certain things, and assign keywords to all the results, then search for something else, and assign it, and PicA comes up in both searches.

 

Do you assign images to a tag by dragging them to the Catalog Tags pane or via Properties pane?

The first way should works fine with 0.8.8.466 version.

If not, could you please write a small video demo using this small utility and send me it to support at daminion dot net.

 

If yo go by the second way you should right click on the Grayed tag in the Properties pane, then click on the "Assign "TAG" to all selected files" option, and click Save button (or Ctrl + S)

[Murat]

Probably it can't be freed because its also used for the drop down icons but let us configure whats displayed there.

 

Yes, this is the main reason why we didn't remove it, but making it configurable is possible: added to the feature list.

[pgrondin]

If I understand correctly, what DJHerwehe would like is a complete interface designed to be usable without a mouse.

 

For some, this may be a personal preference, a sense of efficiency. or a necessary response to wrist or forearm pain. I personally have had forearm and wrist problems due to excessive mouse use, and constantly note that there are a lot of other people with similar problems.

 

A complete keyboard (mouseless) interface is a very helpful feature for people with wrist or forearm problems. Personally, I find a well designed keyboard interface much more efficient that a mouse only or a hybrid interface where I am constantly moving back and forth. The key here would be to deal with it as a complete interface design rather than one feature at a time.

 

As a side note, I switched to a trackball ten years ago, which has largely solved the pain issue for me.

 

On my system, if the focus is on the Catalog tags or Properties panels, the only way to get back to the thumbnails pane is to click with the mouse.

 

I've check this on Windows 7 and Windows XP - it should works. Did you press "Ctrl + S" before pressing Right Arrow key?

 

If I edit a field in Properties, and press "Ctrl + S" the changes get saved, and then I can use the cursor keys to move to the next image, but in the catalog tags panel, or after any other action in the Properties panel, (Say expand Image properties) there does not appear to any way to get back to the thumbnails pane without a mouse click.

[djherwehe]

I've check this on Windows 7 and Windows XP - it should works. Did you press "Ctrl + S" before pressing Right Arrow key?

Ah, I didn't realize I needed to hit Ctrl+S to save the files. Yes, this worked, but it's seems completely unintuitive to me. I don't think of "saving" changes to an asset. I think of it as "applying" them, so I never thought to try to save. This is also the first time I've even noticed the "Save" button at the bottom.

 

I still maintain that using Tab to add a new keyword and hitting Enter to apply changes would be the way to go on this. The nature of the software guarantees that pretty much 100% of your users live in a digital world and are familiar with web forms. With a web form, the standard is to Tab between forms and use Enter to submit the information in those forms to the server.

 

 

You can specify what fields should be displayed below the Thumbnails. By default thumbnail captions displays:

1. Filename

2. Exposure (like "f4.0, 1/400 sec, ISO400")

3. Dimension (like "560Kb, 1600x1200")

 

You can click on the "i" button below the Thumbnail Scrolbar to customize these fields, or leave just filename.

 

This has helped me understand the caption bar a little better. I had already played around with changing the displayed information, but didn't realize the consequences. I keep a couple different catalogs for different uses, but on my main catalog, I like to see File Name, Categories, Keywords, and People. I notice that each set of tags I want to display reserves space in the caption bar, regardless of whether or not any assets in that row have them assigned. I would rather see this display be more fluid, and have the caption bar only take up the amount of room necessary for displaying tags currently assigned on that row.

 

After thinking about this, I tested adding a lot of keywords to one asset (key1, key2,...key10) to see what is displayed. Because the caption bar is not fluid, it is only showing key1 through key8. 9 & 10 are not displayed. I assume that either this was overlooked, or the decision was based on the fact that tags are going to be used for filtering, and users would not necessarily search for secondary keywords by eye.

 

I can tell you that I would search for tags by eye a lot while using this program. I would filter by one or two tags, and continue to look for other tags. I may not know at the time what tag I'm looking for, but "I'll know it when I see it." The way it is currently set up, I would have to click on each asset to see all of the tags associated to it, and that would be extremely inefficient compared to letting my eyes wander around the screen, viewing all tags associated with each of the assets visible.

 

 

Do you assign images to a tag by dragging them to the Catalog Tags pane or via Properties pane?

The first way should works fine with 0.8.8.466 version.

If not, could you please write a small video demo using this small utility and send me it to support at daminion dot net.

 

If yo go by the second way you should right click on the Grayed tag in the Properties pane, then click on the "Assign "TAG" to all selected files" option, and click Save button (or Ctrl + S)

I am using the properties pane to apply tags most of the time. I tested the dragging version and the "Assign Tag" version, and you are correct. They both work.

 

However, this is not a perfect solution for me. All together, I have over 400 tags, with plans to add more, so it is A LOT easier for me to type a tag than search the Tags pane for it. While I do switch between the keyboard and mouse quite a bit, this would require me to to switch between the two a lot, simply to add tags if a tag already exists for an asset.

 

On a slightly off-topic programming note, I'm a little surprised that this action is handled differently based on where the action of adding a tag originates. I'm making a lot of assumptions about the architecture of the program, and it's a bit simplified, but I would think that you would have an ASSET class which contains an ADD_TAG() method, which would be called on to add a tag no matter which way the user does it in the UI. It sounds like it's being handled differently if I add a tag by dragging than it is if I add a tag by saving in the properties pane.

 

 

Just a quick remark on this one: Please make the "file type" caption configurable. It uses soooo much space and clutters the display.

 

I only catalog images and in 99% they are RAW (if not they are developed from a RAW and should be in a group once Daminion supports this). So I really don't care about filetypes. I much rather would free that screen estate or use it for the filename instead. Probably it can't be freed because its also used for the drop down icons but let us configure whats displayed there.

 

This was in my original feature request post, but wanted to point out that I agree with Franky. While I do catalog different file types, 99% of the time I don't really care what they are.

 

If I understand correctly, what DJHerwehe would like is a complete interface designed to be usable without a mouse.

 

For some, this may be a personal preference, a sense of efficiency. or a necessary response to wrist or forearm pain. I personally have had forearm and wrist problems due to excessive mouse use, and constantly note that there are a lot of other people with similar problems.

 

A complete keyboard (mouseless) interface is a very helpful feature for people with wrist or forearm problems. Personally, I find a well designed keyboard interface much more efficient that a mouse only or a hybrid interface where I am constantly moving back and forth. The key here would be to deal with it as a complete interface design rather than one feature at a time.

 

Yes, this is exactly what I am requesting. For me, it is mostly about efficiency, as I find switching between the keyboard and mouse to be cumbersome. As noted by Murat, the keyboard can be used for most of the features I use, but doing it is not intuitive to me, and there are still some things I have to do using the mouse (such as adding a tag to multiple files if some of those files already contain that tag).

[Murat]

We could slightly change the TAB key behavior: so you can switch between Catalog Tags, Thumbnail Workspace, and Properties panels by TAB key. And if Thumbnails are focused and I pressed TAB - the focus moves to the Properties panel. Another TAB key pressing shift me to Catalog Tags. And the third TAB key pressing focus me the Thumbnails again.

 

Shift + TAB will work either.

 

Although in this case you need to move the Focus from Title to Description tag in the Properties Panel by Down Arrow key. I guess using TAB key is more convenient than Down Arrow to go to the next property (tag)?

 

With a web form, the standard is to Tab between forms and use Enter to submit the information in those forms to the server.

 

I switch by TAB key between options in our support form.

 

so this is a common behavior for web-forms also.

[Murat]

Checked various applications, including Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign - TAB key used to to focus the next control inside the panels.

 

Probably using the same "Ctrl + D" is the best way to switch back to the Thumnails area. The same key combination can be assigned to the Catalog Tags ("Ctrl + T")

 

Any thoughts?

[franky68]

Maybe I am misunderstanding but to me the most logical behaviour would be:

TAB switches forward between entries inside a panel

SHIFT-TAB switches backwards between entries inside a panel

CTRL-TAB switches between panels

and ideally there would be shortcuts like CTRL-D, CTRL-T etc. to directly select a panel.

 

The problem with using cursor keys to move entries would be the inconsistency when inside a multirow input.

[djherwehe]

Maybe I am misunderstanding but to me the most logical behaviour would be:

TAB switches forward between entries inside a panel

SHIFT-TAB switches backwards between entries inside a panel

CTRL-TAB switches between panels

and ideally there would be shortcuts like CTRL-D, CTRL-T etc. to directly select a panel.

 

The problem with using cursor keys to move entries would be the inconsistency when inside a multirow input.

 

I could not agree more! One of the options I tried to get back to the thumbnails panel was Ctrl+Tab, and it didn't do anything.

[djherwehe]

We could slightly change the TAB key behavior: so you can switch between Catalog Tags, Thumbnail Workspace, and Properties panels by TAB key. And if Thumbnails are focused and I pressed TAB - the focus moves to the Properties panel. Another TAB key pressing shift me to Catalog Tags. And the third TAB key pressing focus me the Thumbnails again.

 

Shift + TAB will work either.

 

Although in this case you need to move the Focus from Title to Description tag in the Properties Panel by Down Arrow key. I guess using TAB key is more convenient than Down Arrow to go to the next property (tag)?

 

 

 

I switch by TAB key between options in our support form.

 

so this is a common behavior for web-forms also.

 

 

Checked various applications, including Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign - TAB key used to to focus the next control inside the panels.

 

I have been trying to think of a program with the same functionality as Daminion (where a new blank field is generated each time you complete a tag), and I haven't been able to. I will continue thinking on it, so I can give you a better example of the functionality in practice.

 

Even though I originally brought it up, I don't think web forms in general, or the Adobe applications are good examples of this functionality, because they don't mirror the act of creating a tag in Daminion. With the Support Forums and Adobe applications, there is a set amount of fields that never change, and you tab between them. That makes sense. Since Daminion is dynamically adding fields, I am suggesting that you Tab to the next field (i.e., a newly created field within the same tag category) and if the current field is empty when you hit Tab, you then move to the next tag category.

 

Like I said, I know I have used programs this way, but I can't remember what they were. Once I think of it, I'll let you know so you can check out for yourself how it works.

[djherwehe]

Like I said, I know I have used programs this way, but I can't remember what they were. Once I think of it, I'll let you know so you can check out for yourself how it works.

 

Aha! That didn't take me long. I don't know why I didn't think of it before, considering I use it every day. At work, I use Microsoft Entourage as my mail client (couldn't find online whether or not Outlook has this same functionality), and when adding address to a new message, I start typing, select the name when it comes up, then hit Tab. This creates a new field in the "To:" area for me to add another address. I can do this for as many names as I need. If I'm done adding names, I hit tab again, and it takes me to the "cc:" section. Same functionality, which takes me to the "bcc:" section. Because To:, cc:, and bcc: are all in the same pane in Entourage, I can either hit Tab or Enter, and it will take me to the subject field.