User:Px79/Prototypes/EfficientTagging: Difference between revisions

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    # search for the corresponding tag in the right side-view, select it and apply (you can enable '''do not confirm when appying changes from right sidebar''' in digikam settings '''Miscellaneous''' to get rid of the '''Save Changes?'''-Dialog.
    # search for the corresponding tag in the right side-view, select it and apply (you can enable '''do not confirm when appying changes from right sidebar''' in digikam settings '''Miscellaneous''' to get rid of the '''Save Changes?'''-Dialog.
    # if there are more persons in picture one, then select this picture again go to step 5, while looking for the next leftmost person.
    # if there are more persons in picture one, then select this picture again go to step 5, while looking for the next leftmost person.
    # if you have all the persons in picture one, select picture two and look again for the leftmost person, you have not tagged yet, and go to step 5. (toggling the button '''tags already assigned''' in the lower right corner of the '''Tags''' tab, is very useful here)
    # if you have all the persons in picture one, select picture two and look again for the leftmost person, you have not tagged yet, and go to step 5. (toggling the button '''tags already assigned''' [[Image:DigiKam_tag-assigned.png‎|16px]] in the lower right corner of the '''Tags''' tab, is very useful here)


    This way you go through all your pictures. In the beginning you have to tag a lot of people, but coming
    This way you go through all your pictures. In the beginning you have to tag a lot of people, but coming

    Revision as of 12:45, 23 January 2012

    Transcribed and adapted from Peter Albrecht's article at www.digikam.org, 21 January, 2012

    In the two years, the author is using digikam at the time of writing this article, he always searched for a way to tag the persons on his photos in a fast and easy way.

    The batch-click way

    How-To

    1. switch to thumbnail view (you have to be able to select more than one image)
    2. shift the preview size to the maximum of 256 pixel (you want to be able to recognize the people on the photos)
    3. switch the right side-view to Caption/Tags and select the tab Tags
    4. select picture number one and look at the leftmost person on this picture
    5. hold CTRL down and select all other pictures, showing this person
    6. search for the corresponding tag in the right side-view, select it and apply (you can enable do not confirm when appying changes from right sidebar in digikam settings Miscellaneous to get rid of the Save Changes?-Dialog.
    7. if there are more persons in picture one, then select this picture again go to step 5, while looking for the next leftmost person.
    8. if you have all the persons in picture one, select picture two and look again for the leftmost person, you have not tagged yet, and go to step 5. (toggling the button tags already assigned in the lower right corner of the Tags tab, is very useful here)

    This way you go through all your pictures. In the beginning you have to tag a lot of people, but coming to the last pictures, most people will already be tagged and you can fast jump to the next picture.

    Usability

    This process is good, if you have a high number of photos proportional to the amount of different persons. If you have lots of different tags in your database, it's worth to think about substituting step 6 with the keyboard way, which is coming up next.

    The keyboard way

    There is a famous bug-report at BKO: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=114465 According to it's number of 127 comment posts, it is the most impressive bug report, I've ever seen.

       -- epic-tag on --
    

    This bug report holds the secret of a tagging technique which gives you full keyboard-only tagging power.

       -- epic-tag off --
    

    And that's the way you go:

    1. select an album
    2. switch to "view image"-view (the bigger the picture, the better you can recognize the people, you want to tag)
    3. switch the right sideview to "Caption/Tags" and select tab "Tags"
    4. click in the uppermost input box, which shows the text: "Enter new tag here..."
    5. look for the leftmost person, you have not tagged yet
    6. start typing a few letters of the desired tagname (You have to start with the first letters in your tag name. There is no "mid word matching".)
       -> you will see a list of possible tags appear that shrinks with every letter you add to the input box
    
    1. if the list is reduced enough, use TAB to select the desired tag from this list
    2. hit ENTER to assign this tag to your picture
    3. if there are more persons, you want to tag, go to step 5 again
    4. if all persons on this image have been tagged, hit PAGE_DOWN to go to the next image and resume with step 5

    Keyboard focus will always stay in the tag input box. So you can keep your hands on the keyboard all the time and tag very fast. As mentioned above, you can enable "automatic apply" in digikam settings to get rid of the "Save Changes?"-Dialog.

    Usability

    This process is most useful, if you have a high number of different persons proportional to the amount photos. And especially steps 6 to 8 are very handy, if you have lot of tags, you don't want to scroll through by hand.

    Keyboard shortcuts for specific tags

    If you have certain tags, you use very often, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to it. I did this with "places/myHome", which is assigned to CTRL + SHIFT + H.

    But there is already a nice tutorial at: http://scribblesandsnaps.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/assign-keyboard-shortcuts-to-tags-in-digikam/ So I'll keep this section short.

    Some stats about the primary authors digikam usage

    Some numbers:

    • 206 different tags (in multilevel-hierarchical order: places, people, other)
    • 24,580 tag assignments (assigned in the last 2 years)
    • 25,687 pictures in digikam database (collected in 10 years)

    The author was using digikam 2.5.0 at the moment of writing, but the features mentioned above have been introduced in earlier version. If you are curious about, just have a look at the corresponding NEWS-file in the git repository: DigiKam git repository

    E.g.: What's new in DigiKam 2.0.0

    Final words

    Since the keyboard method is new to the primary author, he can't tell about long term experience. But chances are high that the most efficient way of tagging will be a mixture of the three methods mentioned above, depending on the situation.