# Keyword count and functionality



## GrahamP (Jan 16, 2018)

Do you think that Adobe will give serious arrention to revamping its handling of keywords anytime soon?

They have introduced a count of keywords in a tooltip hover over the keyword entry panel.  It tells you how many keywords you have entered.  Better than nothing, I suppose, but not by much.

Put in a keyword in a hierarchy, and it reports only the one keyword, not the number of parent keywords in the hierarchy which will export. Nor does it tell you how many synonyms will be exported.  And, bizarrely, even a keyword marked not to export is counted in the total.

It would be much more useful if the tooltip count worked with the “will export” window, but it does not.

It looks as if someone was told to do something, anything, to add to a new feature to the keywording module, so that Adobe could claim it has received attention, but if this is the case, whoever implemented a tooltip count in what is often an irrelevant box for this purpose clearly gave the subject very little thought at all: someone in Adobe’s chocolate teapot production department, maybe?

There is so much that needs to be done to the keywording function to make it more useful.  Examples include synonym search, export word and character count, ability to edit per image which synonyms and parent keywords will be exported, larger or stretchy “will export” window, spell check, whole word or multiple word search rather than only on the fly, etc. etc.  

Will any of this ever happen, or has the keywording function simply be left to stagnate for the foreseeable future?  What programmes do others use which actually achieve these kind of features?

Graham


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Jan 17, 2018)

I agree with you that "there is so much that needs to be done to the keywording function to make it more useful"



> include synonym search


This does work. Seaching on a keyword retrieves synonym also (but there is no search on synonym only). I use it from time to time.


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## GrahamP (Jan 17, 2018)

"but there is no search on synonym only"

Yes, this is my point.  If you have a number of dissimilar synonyms and cannot remember which of them was the actual keyword, searching for the correct word can be a chore.  There is no inherent difference between a keyword and a synonym (so far as the XMP specification is concerned) so why not be able to search for either?  If you can find the keyword, you can easily check its synonyms, but not the other way round.

Graham


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## tspear (Jan 18, 2018)

GrahamP said:


> "but there is no search on synonym only"
> 
> Yes, this is my point.  If you have a number of dissimilar synonyms and cannot remember which of them was the actual keyword, searching for the correct word can be a chore.  There is no inherent difference between a keyword and a synonym (so far as the XMP specification is concerned) so why not be able to search for either?  If you can find the keyword, you can easily check its synonyms, but not the other way round.
> 
> Graham



Likely due to data model. Based on what features are present and what are not for search functionality; and also peaking in the database, it would likely take a fair bit of programing to pull off. Further, it likely does not have a large vote count as a feature request.

Tim


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## Jim Wilde (Jan 18, 2018)

GrahamP said:


> "but there is no search on synonym only"
> 
> Yes, this is my point.  If you have a number of dissimilar synonyms and cannot remember which of them was the actual keyword, searching for the correct word can be a chore.  There is no inherent difference between a keyword and a synonym (so far as the XMP specification is concerned) so why not be able to search for either?  If you can find the keyword, you can easily check its synonyms, but not the other way round.
> 
> Graham


You can search for synonyms either via a smart collection or using the Text option in the Library Filter. The only place you can't search for them is in the Keyword List search box.


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## johnbeardy (Jan 18, 2018)

GrahamP said:


> Do you think that Adobe will give serious arrention to revamping its handling of keywords anytime soon?



No, it already offers more capability than its obvious competitors (like CaptureOne), and the world is moving towards automated methods of finding images.



GrahamP said:


> There is so much that needs to be done to the keywording function to make it more useful.  Examples include synonym search, export word and character count, ability to edit per image which synonyms and parent keywords will be exported, larger or stretchy “will export” window, spell check, whole word or multiple word search rather than only on the fly, etc. etc.
> 
> Will any of this ever happen, or has the keywording function simply be left to stagnate for the foreseeable future?  What programmes do others use which actually achieve these kind of features?



Sure, there are always things that can be done. Multilingual support is one that you don't mention, saving keywords in non-alphabetical order is another. But I don't think there's one change that would be transformational on its own, and Adobe aren't going to invest across a feature that isn't a competitive weakness - they aren't even syncing keywords with Mobile. So I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for big changes.

John


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