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Keyword Phrases - Am I unreasonable
Ferguson
Registered Users Posts: 1,339 Major grins
If you have a keyword phrase, such as "Vacation Home", and if it is the only keyword in an image, AND if you update/republish it with the Smugmug plugin, it appears as two separate keywords "Vacation" and "Home".
If it is tagged with another keyword it works properly so the phrase comes in as a keyword.
If it is uploaded with the web utility, it comes in as a single keyword.
When it is FIRST uploaded via the plugin it works correctly.
But for example:
- Create photo and add to gallery (no keyword)
- Publish
- Add keyword TEST KEYWORD (one phrase) in lightroom
- Publish (it should already be marked to republish, if not mark it so)
What you get is separately "TEST" and "KEYWORD" at that point.
Smugmug says "put it in quotes in lightroom".
If you do, the actual image file then contains quotes, the keyword phrase sorts to the top (since quote is alphabetically less than "A"), and any other program sees it as a different phrase than the phrase without quotes.
I find this totally unacceptable, but it is where I ended up with Smugmug, they seem disinclined to acknowledge it is a bug (or more precisely that when they fixed this bug a while back they missed a spot).
Am I unreasonable?
Does anyone else have this issue? Or do you not use phrases (and/or do you always have another keyword(s) with the phrase)?
If it is tagged with another keyword it works properly so the phrase comes in as a keyword.
If it is uploaded with the web utility, it comes in as a single keyword.
When it is FIRST uploaded via the plugin it works correctly.
But for example:
- Create photo and add to gallery (no keyword)
- Publish
- Add keyword TEST KEYWORD (one phrase) in lightroom
- Publish (it should already be marked to republish, if not mark it so)
What you get is separately "TEST" and "KEYWORD" at that point.
Smugmug says "put it in quotes in lightroom".
If you do, the actual image file then contains quotes, the keyword phrase sorts to the top (since quote is alphabetically less than "A"), and any other program sees it as a different phrase than the phrase without quotes.
I find this totally unacceptable, but it is where I ended up with Smugmug, they seem disinclined to acknowledge it is a bug (or more precisely that when they fixed this bug a while back they missed a spot).
Am I unreasonable?
Does anyone else have this issue? Or do you not use phrases (and/or do you always have another keyword(s) with the phrase)?
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Can you please provide a screenshot of the "Keywords Tags" box in LR for the above mentioned photo....I'm interested to see what is being shown there.
Thanks,
David
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos
Sure.
First for reference here is the photo on Smugmug:
http://www.captivephotons.com/Other/Test-Shots/n-vSVzH/i-DkS693H
Attached is a screens hot showing the photo I picked and keyword. Note this is the second (replacement) keyword.
The first time you publish a photo it works properly (phrase or single word).
If you then change that keyword (to a phrase) it fails, splitting it up.
I'm happy to get a debug log if that's helpful.
Note my real issue is this, and maybe there's a better workaround...
Long ago when the new stuff came out this bug appeared. The workaround at the time was to use multiple keywords -- if there was more than one, then one or more of them as a phrase worked. It was only when there was a single keyword (which was a phrase) that it failed.
So have now have thousands and thousands of photos where I have artificially inserted keywords, such as "Vacation" or "Friends" when what I really wanted was just a name (as a phrase) alone.
My intent was to go clean those up -- remove the extraneous keywords, now that the bug was "fixed".
However, it appears (unless I am missing something) that as soon as I try to do so, the republish will break the phrases back up.
I don't know if I'm the only one who used this sort of workaround or not from the original bug; there may be others coming out of the closet eventually. Or that do so accidentally and do not notice (at first) what a mess it makes.
- Create a smart gallery with the problem keywords (the individual ones that should not be individual).
- Use Nicholas' Chrome extension tool to bulk edit them. (His tool is awesome for many purposes.)
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=247592
As a simple test I added a multi-word keyword to images that have no keywords in one of my galleries, and they "took" as one keyword. (Did not break apart.) So you can add a single MWKW to any image.
And then the search/replace functions will let you fix the existing separations.
I probably wasn't clear on one aspect of this -- it's not a one time thing.
If an image is ever updated, any part of the image (title, caption, development properties), and published again. Or you mark it to republish manually and publish, it breaks the keyword again.
Fixing it is only temporary.
This also occurs if you have something like this:
- Image with keywords "X" and "A B C".
- Put in collection and publish (it works correctly)
- Remove keyword "X"
- Publish
At this point the image now has keywords "A", "B", and "C" even though you never touched that aspect of it.
WORSE still...
- Image with keyword "A B C" - publish
- This works correctly (it's the initial publication)
- Edit the title of the image (don't touch the keyword)
- Republish
In this case, despite the fact you are not even working with keywords, causes the image to be marked to republish, and when it does, it changes the keyword from "A B C" to "A", "B", "C" (separately). But only if it is the only keyword of course.
In other words, it's like a timebomb, it keeps coming back.
This is a site issue of sorts, but I can add something to the LR plugin that will prevent it from happening.
Cheers,
David
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos
You would know better, but I can't reproduce this problem with manual uploads (through the web) even if I do a replace in the manual upload, it still works correctly.
I only have been able to reproduce this in the plugin.
I have not tried the editing screens -- I'm only considering keywords put in images already.
in regard to replaces via the website, metadata such as captions, keywords, titles and geodata are not refreshed, so that could explain why you're not seeing the same issue.
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos
Sure.
http://www.captivephotons.com/Other/My-SmugMug-Site-Files-Do-Not/n-CbVKm/i-gxDJFH2/A
Note in that gallery there are two images that are visually the same shot, but the manual one was a lower resolution and the above link should go directly to it.
I'm a bit confused by the last comment, and do not think it matters to me (because I use the plugin), but it might for others.
So hypothetically:
- Upload via web with keyword X
- Change image so instead of keyword X it is keyword Y (e.g. change in lightroom and export)
- Upload "replace duplicates" in the web
Are you saying that it continues have have keyword X in that case?
But my problems are only in the plugin, I have not experimented much with the web.
I've looked at the code and it's pretty obvious now why it's doing what you describe. For uploads, I'm looking to see if the keyword string contains any delimiters (eg: commas), if it doesn't I'm adding one to the keyword string when uploading.
But I don't have the same logic for the API call that I make to refresh metadata on a replace.
I've changed the code and it will be in the next release.
Cheers,
David
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos
A quick note here, at the point that the image is being republished, I know that the metadata has changed or the image has been physically altered. I don't know what metadata has specifically changed, as a result, all metadata is republished.
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos
Wow, that's terrific. I think the help desk got tired of talking to me and said they were sending it off to "QA", in case it is helpful for you to tie these together in some fashion to prevent double work.
I really appreciate you picking this up, especially since while broken, it doesn't seem like a lot of people must be experiencing it, at least from the lack of reaction.
SmugMug API Developer
My Photos
In a brief test it appears to be working, I have a bunch of updates to do, try to clean up sins of the past, so will exercise it will later today.
Thank you!