First, I should acknowledge that I don't expect everyone's workflow to be identical. I was primarily just pointing out that things about *my* workflow and what enhancements would suit *me*, knowing full well that others do things differently. But still, it is worth understanding other people's workflows better, and I can't resist making suggestions for what I think of as improvements. So at the risk of coming off as argumentative, let me probe a bit further.
moongate said:
no nothing changed in 238 it still works the way you describe it - meaning the problem is only on your side
Hmm, I'm still a little confused, then. I reported that tab-tab did *not* return me to the file list - it actually moves focus to the list of Categories (where it can accomplish nothing). However, I just realized (on reading your post) that I neglected to hit "Enter" after typing my keywords, which is why my tabbing stayed within the Properties pane.
However, if I do hit "Enter", I find only *one* press of Tab is necessary to return me to the file list, with the current selection intact. So I guess I still don't see where two tabs are ever necessary. This still seems odd, because I *do* remember having to hit tab twice once upon a time, and you say that is the case for you; I'm just unable to duplicate this now. I guess like you said it depends on what windows are currently active? I used to always have the Organize window up, but now I have it on auto-hide. Maybe this sort of thing is the difference?
If so, you *might* want to consider whether you really need whatever other window you have up that is getting the focus after the first tab. If its the preview, well, I can see why you might want to keep that around, so you may be stuck for now. But consider: the rest of the windows are *all* related to choosing what images to display in the file list. Once you've done your work in that window and have a list of files to start entering metadata for, you're presumably going to stay with that set of images for a while. So you might as well hide the window (Search, Organize, Calendar, Folders, Favorites) that got you there, thus freeing up more screen space for thumbs, and if it also saves you a keystroke (one tab instead of two to return to the file list), so much the better. As I said I normally do this via auto-hide, pinning a window only occasionally (and temporarily) when, for example, doing some sort of complex multi-step search. Another possibility would be to use the keyboard shortcuts to show and hide these windows (and this is what I do with the Preview window, which I'm much more inclined to need to leave up a while once invoking it).
But still, eliminating even that one Tab would be great - I do completely agree that Enter should take you back where you wer.
BTW, it is worth mentioning that once you have caught up on your backlog of existing images (and I guess maybe you have now), your priorities might change a bit. Certain things that are done often when entering data for old images aren't done as often when in a "normal" workflow, and vice versa. So it will be interesting to see what other suggestions you might have in a few week as processing *new* images starts dominating. I can say that during my long "bring legacy images on board" phase, which coincided with my :learn to use the program" an "figure out a good workflow" stages, I used th folders window a *lot*, and never even thought about the Favorites window - I was flitting about all over the place. But now that I'm in a pretty good routine, I hardly use Folders at all, but do use Favorites quite a lot, because I'm mostly just dealing with the same top level sets of folders over and over.
Anyhow, back to the probing:
1. It is possible that I go 1 on 1 only using the arrow keys and enter the keywords for a single picture.
..
2 and 3. I might also use the mouse to select files or even use tagging to group them together
I guess my question is, what are you actually going to do next? You talk of the need to return to the file list, and that's true for me to, but *why* are we returning to the file list? In my case, the answer is: to select a *different* set of files. So I never need to preserve the existing selection (meaning a single mouse click suffices, if I'm going to use the mouse). And the act of selecting another group almost always involves the mouse, so returning via the keyboard just puts off the inevitable.
If on the other hand side someone like you is using the mouse anyway after entering the keywords because he also wants to drag some categories on the thumbs
No, no - it's because I want to select another group of images, and I can do this much more easily with the mouse than with the keyboard.
The only exception would be if I was going through images one at a time - that's certainly easily done with the keyboard, so anything that makes the keyboard only workflow more convenient more efficient would certainly be a win, and having Enter take you right back to the file list. On the other hand, going through images one at time - well, I won't say I *never* do this, but it isn't very often.
If there would be a way to tag images and later on use another simple shortcut to filter by tagged - this would be like a dream come true
Isn't there? Tagging is the slash key by default, as Ii recall (I've overridden so many defaults, I don't remember). Filter by tagged doens't appear to have a keystroke by default, but you can certainly assign one via View->Toolbars->Customize->Keyboard (you need to know where the filter commands are in order to use this - they are also on the View menu).
But FWIW, I don't know that you'd need or want to filter by tagged - simply selecting all tagged is usually sufficient, and again, I don't know about the default, but I've got Ctrl-/ assigned to that and use it all the time.
I suppose if I really worked at it, I'd get to the point where I could really do all my selection using th keyboard. But I still find this to be something the mouse often makes easier.
ok raw processing is not keyboard friendly but we are talking about changing and individual functions here. Also there are different sliders to control and this can´t be compared to the entry of keywords.
Why not? It should be possible to design the interface so that the sliders can be controlled via the keybaord - and indeed, it sort of almost already is the case, sometimes. Here's another place where your perspective might change once you start processing more newly shot files and less legacy ones: I probably spend as much time in RAW processing as I do in keyword entry these days, and it's virtually all mouse time in RAW processing. If RAW processing were as keyboard-friendly as keywording already is, I might be able to reduce this time pretty significantly.
Keywording is one of the most important tasks in a DAM and it should be as easy and fast as possible.
No doubt. Also, as flexible as possible - hopefully some day there will eb some sort of support for hierachical organization of keywords, too.
New Content Since Last Visit
No New Content Since Last Visit
