[digiKam-users] How Hierarchial Tags Work

[ralphl]

As a new user I am having trouble understanding/ using hierarchical tags.  I
am used to hierarchal file systems (such as the one in Linux).  If i have a
folder path /Alaska/Demonstrations/Mine and another folder path
Alaska/Demonstrations/Sluicebox, and I select the path
"Alaska/Demonstrations", I will see the folders "Mine" and "Sluicebox".
However, if tag my a photo Alaska/Demonstration/Mine and another one
Alaska/Demonstrations/Sluicebox, go to "Filter" and check the boxes in the
hierarchy for Alaska and Demonstrations, I will see no photos in Thumbnail
View.  

If I can't select photos from hierarchal tags, what good are they?
Obviously, I don't understand how hierarchal tags work.  Would somebody
explain????

Also, sometimes some tags do not show in the Properties window, when I hover
over a photo in Thumbnail view. I can see the tags if I go to Metadata>XMP,
but it doesn't support word wrap so I have to make the Metadata window take
up my whole screen to see the tags.  Is there another way to view tags??

Any help appreciated.......



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[Andreas T. Ege]

Hello,

> However, if tag my a photo Alaska/Demonstration/Mine and another one
> Alaska/Demonstrations/Sluicebox, go to "Filter" and check the boxes in
> the
> hierarchy for Alaska and Demonstrations, I will see no photos in
> Thumbnail
> View.
There's an option in digikam to choose whether parent level tags should
automatically added when you use a sublevel tag or not (not sure where
out of the top of my head and far away from my own computer to check). I
assume it's set on not automatically the parent level, so you either
have to tick them manually or change thhe setting. At least, that's the
first thing I'd check.

--
Sincerely,

Andreas Ege, Dr. med. vet. MRCVS
mobile: [phone]

[Peter Albrecht]

Hi!

On 26.02.2018 02:06, ralphl wrote:
> If I can't select photos from hierarchal tags, what good are they?
> Obviously, I don't understand how hierarchal tags work.  Would somebody
> explain????

I have 275 tags in my digiKam DB and use the hierarchy to organize them:

  + places
     + places in my hometown
        + ...
     + other cities
        + ...
  + people
     + friends
        + ...
     + relatives
        + ...

Regards,
        Peter

[Andrew Goodbody]

On 26/02/18 01:24, [hidden email] wrote:

> Hello,
>
>> However, if tag my a photo Alaska/Demonstration/Mine and another one
>> Alaska/Demonstrations/Sluicebox, go to "Filter" and check the boxes in
>> the
>> hierarchy for Alaska and Demonstrations, I will see no photos in
>> Thumbnail
>> View.
> There's an option in digikam to choose whether parent level tags should
> automatically added when you use a sublevel tag or not (not sure where
> out of the top of my head and far away from my own computer to check). I
> assume it's set on not automatically the parent level, so you either
> have to tick them manually or change thhe setting. At least, that's the
> first thing I'd check.

Rather than automatically adding the parent tags I would just go to the
'View' menu and make sure that the 'Include Tag Sub-Tree' near the
bottom, is checked. This is a more flexible approach as it can be turned
on and off very simply.

Andrew

[Andrew Goodbody]

On 26/02/18 01:06, ralphl wrote:
> Also, sometimes some tags do not show in the Properties window, when I hover
> over a photo in Thumbnail view. I can see the tags if I go to Metadata>XMP,
> but it doesn't support word wrap so I have to make the Metadata window take
> up my whole screen to see the tags.  Is there another way to view tags??

This is a bug I think. I see the same behaviour.

To see all tags applied to an image click on the button just to the
right of the search box at the bottom of the right hand tags panel.
Unclick it to return to viewing all available tags.

Andrew

[ralphl]

Thanks to all of you that replied to my request for help.  I appreciate it.

1.  Andreas:  I have been unable to find a way to include parent tags, as
you suggested.  If you get a chance would you tell me where to set that
option.
2.  By using Properties on the right hand sidebar, I was able to see all my
tags for the selected photo.  I should have seen  that before I sent out the
help request email.  The only problem is the lack of word wrap so that long
hierarchies require me to expand the right hand properties window across the
entire screen.
3.  I figured out that the "hover Properties window" contains all my tags,
but abbreviates them if they are long.  This abbreviation is done by
omitting the beginning of the hierarchal tag, and only showing final child
tag.  Thus /Alaska/Demonstration/Sluicebox is abbreviated to just
"Sluicebox".
4.  I determined that Main menu>View>Include Tag Sub-Tree applies only to
the left hand sidebar Tags view.  With that option set (and no right sidebar
filters set) I can filter photos in Thumbnail view to work just like the
Linux hierarchal file system.  When I wrote this help request, I didn't know
that the left sidebar Tags view could be used as a filter, and I haven't yet
found it documented that it can be.
5.  The right Filter view seems to require that the lowest level child be
checked in order for photos with that tag to be included in the Thumbnail
Center panel view.  This behavior seems (to me, at least) to make the right
Filter view not very useful.  Maybe it could be used in conjunction with
Tags view to further refine filter--I haven't tried it. Anyway, if I can do
my filtering using the left Tags view, I think I can do what I need to do.

Again thanks to everybody for their help,
Ralph



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[ralphl]

Just as a note, I finally found how to filter like is done in a hierarchal
file system in the right Filters panel.  Right-click on the tag to filter by
and go to Select>Children or Parents.  Or to set it for all selections
right-click on a tag and go to Toggle Auto and set None, Children, Parents,
Both.

As another note Children/ Parents tags can be included when assigning tags
in the right Captions panel, by right-clicking and using Select or Toggle
Auto.  Selecting Toggle Auto in the Captions panel does not select it for
the Filter panel, and vice versa.

Hope this helps somebody...



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[Flying fox]

Hey

Recently I introduced digiKam for managing my photos.

Via the previous package (Synology Photo Station) I had already provided a certain simple (maximum 2 levels) folder structure and I mainly invested in tagging the photos (without hierarchy). Via Photo Station I had the possibility to add location description (by this I don't mean geotagging with the coordinates, which I also did in addition to the description). However, this info was not written in the metadata of the photos but in a database on the NAS

With digiKam I want to make work to add the location description to the metadata of the photos.

When working out how I would do this, I came up with a tag hierarchy. The principle seems logical to me, but since I only had limited knowledge of photo metedata, I wanted to take a closer look at this. I have learned a lot of things and I think I can go for it, but I can't find an answer to one particular question yet.

In all the articles I've read the hierarchy is explained with some examples and like in this thread root tags like "Location" or "WHERE" are used to indicate that there are underlying locations like countries, cities, buildings, . .. are listed.

One of the strengths of the hierarchy is that when you designate a child tag, you can automatically include parent tags as well. Fine, but if I follow this all the way to the root tag, then the "Location" or "WHERE" tag will also be added as a tag and will also be displayed as a tag. I understand that it is included in the hierarchy in the XMP, but that it is displayed is less logical to me (the only thing it could say is that there may be a location description present).

In Peter Albrecht's example in this thread, the tags "Places in my hometown" and "Other cities" would also be included as separate tags.

I would think there should be a distinction somewhere between tags that serve to create the hierarchy and tags that are elements of that hierarchy. During my search for info about tag hierarchy I thought I read that Adobe Lightroom has something for this. Does this mean that this is common use and can often be done in other applications or is it just an option that is in line with my thoughts?

I would like to ask you what your thoughts and experiences are with this.

Thank you for your feedback! :-)