Subject: Re: Category Name Refused - msg#00071

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Re: Category Name Refused

It seems this "tags vs folders" thing is debated all over the place (not just f-spot), so I set up a simple Drupal poll to see what people think. http://goodmami.org/?q=node/4 I set it up so you can vote without logging in, therefore the results cannot be taken too seriously, but it might be a good indicator of where preferences lie (which could guide future development). If you have a second, please vote once for your preference. I only included the options "Folders", "Tags", "Both", and "Other", so if your choice isn't represented you can write something in the comments (or to this mailinglist). Note that for comments, if you don't log in, the comment will be held for moderation, so it won't show up immediately. (Anyway, sorry for posting a link to my personal site, but I needed somewhere to host the poll. There is no advertising or anything on the site. If this is still a no-no, please let me know) Hope to get some good responses! On 7/11/07, Daniel Falk <f-spot@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Todd, > I really enjoy discussing this stuff. You have a different perspective > that I'm trying to be more aware of. > >> A simple example. Let's say you went to venice and decided to tag > >> it The > >> Streets and Venice. Then you wanted to change the tag to be "The > >> Canals". > >> But you can't, because the tag doesn't correspond to a complete idea, > >> but > >> only a set of words. > > Why not? Don't we use words to represent ideas? I could easily change > > the tag from "streets" to "canals". Maybe I just want to find all the > > canal pictures I have, I don't want to have to search for > > canals+venice, canals+eerie, canals+someotherplacethathascanals. Or > > even drill down some hierarchy like Places > Planets > Earth > Land > > > Continents > Europe > Countries > Italy > Cities > Venice > Canals. > While we use words to convey concepts, the concepts themselves are > separate from the word we use. "The Streets of Rome" can be a single > concept, whereas the words are many. And it often goes the other way > too, where you have one word corresponding to several different > concepts. The bottom line: words are not the same thing as concepts. > > When organizing photos, I'm interested in the concept more than the > words. Otherwise I could just type keywords for every picture. Some > photo organizers work that way. I don't find that powerful enough. So > I'd rather have a tag that corresponds to the concept [streets of rome] > if I so choose, that allows me to put whatever words I feel like on the tag. > > Perhaps in the case of Rome and streets, that makes good sense to have a > Streets tag and a Rome tag. But consider this example. I have pictures > of my family and my wife's family. I've taken pictures of my mom and my > wife's. So I have a "Mom" tag and a "My Family" tag and a "Wife's > family" tag. My mother-in-law is tagged with "Mom" and "Wife's > family". Now let's suppose I want to rename the "Mom" tag to "Wife's > mom". It will rename all the mothers in my entire photo collection to > "Wife's Mom". Clearly not what I want. That was my point about the > "Canals" example earlier as well. It comes when you want to assign new > words to your tag. > > I hope that's clearer. I'm poor at explaining this, as you might have > noticed. > >> It's not that I don't see the value of a list or cloud, but can't we > >> allow > >> for both concepts in the same interface? > > I'm not a developer, just a user. > I am a developer, so maybe that's why I see things differently, but I'm > also into photography on the side. So far I have not contributed to > F-Spot as far as development goes, but I am interested in doing so in > the future. > >> In my humble opinion, it's a deficiency to not allow tag names to > >> have the > >> same name. Unnecessary, and confusing to certain people. Should this > >> discussion go to the bug report? Does anybody have the link for that? > > It sounds like you want nested folders and I want tags. I think Picasa > > allows for both options in its interface, though the last time I > > looked the tags interface was rather clunky. I believe they called > > them keywords, but you can also use I think what they call albums. > Perhaps I want something closer to nested folders. But those aren't > powerful enough either. Linux give you the ability to nest folders > without using a photo manager like f-spot, so if that's all I wanted, > the file system would suffice. > > If you want a good example of what I like (as far as tags go), there is > a program called Adobe Photoshop Album on windows. > > I never liked picasa's system because I found the folders too weak and > the labels too weak. If they were put together into the same thing like > Photoshop Album does, then it would have the best of both worlds. > > Can you just clarify why you need to use duplicate tags? I still don't > > understand. I mean as an end-user, I'm just interested in your process > > since obviously I'm not doing any coding. > It's not duplicate tags, but rather tags that happen to have the same > name. I just think they ought to be able to have the same name as long > as the tags have different parent tags. I mean, if my brother's name is > Gary and I went to school in Gary, Indiana, I wouldn't want them both > showing up all the time if I wanted to search for one or the other. One > solution is to name the tags "Gary, the brother" and "Gary, the place". > Or you could do Places > Gary and People > Gary. > > By the way, I really like your idea about related tags for when you > select "giraffe" and it gives you a list of related tags you have. I > think your approach to organization makes perfect sense, especially for > you, but I would like something capable of doing something more powerful > as well. I don't see why the system shouldn't be capable of doing > both. Therefore, if you don't like Category tags, don't make any, and > it should work fine. > > _______________________________________________ > F-spot-list mailing list > F-spot-list@xxxxxxxxx > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/f-spot-list > -- -Michael Wayne Goodman

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Re: Category Name Refused

Hi Daniel, On 7/11/07, Daniel Falk <f-spot@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Todd, > I really enjoy discussing this stuff. You have a different perspective > that I'm trying to be more aware of. Me too, I enjoy seeing how different people approach the same task, and how an app can be flexible enough to meet their various requirements. <snip> > While we use words to convey concepts, the concepts themselves are > separate from the word we use. "The Streets of Rome" can be a single > concept, whereas the words are many. And it often goes the other way > too, where you have one word corresponding to several different > concepts. The bottom line: words are not the same thing as concepts. Agreed, words are arbitrary symbols of concepts, but agreed upon by a community. > When organizing photos, I'm interested in the concept more than the > words. Otherwise I could just type keywords for every picture. Some > photo organizers work that way. I don't find that powerful enough. So > I'd rather have a tag that corresponds to the concept [streets of rome] > if I so choose, that allows me to put whatever words I feel like on the tag. I think that is what I'm after, then, because I'm interested in just tags/keywords. For me these are concepts, too, but very broad. And they can be combined. > Perhaps in the case of Rome and streets, that makes good sense to have a > Streets tag and a Rome tag. But consider this example. I have pictures > of my family and my wife's family. I've taken pictures of my mom and my > wife's. So I have a "Mom" tag and a "My Family" tag and a "Wife's > family" tag. My mother-in-law is tagged with "Mom" and "Wife's > family". Now let's suppose I want to rename the "Mom" tag to "Wife's > mom". It will rename all the mothers in my entire photo collection to > "Wife's Mom". Clearly not what I want. That was my point about the > "Canals" example earlier as well. It comes when you want to assign new > words to your tag. Well it would work if you had done it right in the first place <ducks> ;). I see what you're doing. I would have used either names or mom and mom-in-law. What would you do if you had a picture of your mom with someone from your wife's family but not your mother-in-law? You'd still need to use "My Family" and "Wife's Family" and possibly "Mom" and "Brother". Would one family be dominant, such as if it were a get together at your family's place vs. your wife's? > I hope that's clearer. I'm poor at explaining this, as you might have > noticed. Yes, that helps, thanks. As I wrote to Richard off-list, one of the problems I think has to do with there not being standard, accepted meanings for certain words we're using. What is a tag? A label? A category? A folder? A category tag? Google Reader really confused me when they offered both labels and folders and I could never figure out what the difference between them was because they seemed to function exactly the same. <snip> > Perhaps I want something closer to nested folders. But those aren't > powerful enough either. Linux give you the ability to nest folders > without using a photo manager like f-spot, so if that's all I wanted, > the file system would suffice. I have seriously been considering this. I use Tracker desktop search and previously played around with leaftag. If you took Tracker's search results GUI and dropped that into Nautilus, you could tag photos directly. Since Tracker knows when you move a file, that eliminates the problem leaftag had with not being able to track moved files. All that would need to be built would be a tag list and possibly another search GUI and I think that would be a great little system. <snip> > > Can you just clarify why you need to use duplicate tags? I still don't > > understand. I mean as an end-user, I'm just interested in your process > > since obviously I'm not doing any coding. > It's not duplicate tags, but rather tags that happen to have the same > name. I just think they ought to be able to have the same name as long > as the tags have different parent tags. I mean, if my brother's name is > Gary and I went to school in Gary, Indiana, I wouldn't want them both > showing up all the time if I wanted to search for one or the other. One > solution is to name the tags "Gary, the brother" and "Gary, the place". > Or you could do Places > Gary and People > Gary. Yep, I get it now. Again, I'd use different tags. > By the way, I really like your idea about related tags for when you > select "giraffe" and it gives you a list of related tags you have. I > think your approach to organization makes perfect sense, especially for > you, but I would like something capable of doing something more powerful > as well. I don't see why the system shouldn't be capable of doing > both. Therefore, if you don't like Category tags, don't make any, and > it should work fine. So I have been using category tags I guess, when I put people under the People category? If I don't use a parent tag, then is it not a category tag? I think this is what is confusing me in F-spot lingo. Best, Todd

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Re: Category Name Refused

It seems this "tags vs folders" thing is debated all over the place (not just f-spot), so I set up a simple Drupal poll to see what people think. http://goodmami.org/?q=node/4 I set it up so you can vote without logging in, therefore the results cannot be taken too seriously, but it might be a good indicator of where preferences lie (which could guide future development). If you have a second, please vote once for your preference. I only included the options "Folders", "Tags", "Both", and "Other", so if your choice isn't represented you can write something in the comments (or to this mailinglist). Note that for comments, if you don't log in, the comment will be held for moderation, so it won't show up immediately. (Anyway, sorry for posting a link to my personal site, but I needed somewhere to host the poll. There is no advertising or anything on the site. If this is still a no-no, please let me know) Hope to get some good responses! On 7/11/07, Daniel Falk <f-spot@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Todd, > I really enjoy discussing this stuff. You have a different perspective > that I'm trying to be more aware of. > >> A simple example. Let's say you went to venice and decided to tag > >> it The > >> Streets and Venice. Then you wanted to change the tag to be "The > >> Canals". > >> But you can't, because the tag doesn't correspond to a complete idea, > >> but > >> only a set of words. > > Why not? Don't we use words to represent ideas? I could easily change > > the tag from "streets" to "canals". Maybe I just want to find all the > > canal pictures I have, I don't want to have to search for > > canals+venice, canals+eerie, canals+someotherplacethathascanals. Or > > even drill down some hierarchy like Places > Planets > Earth > Land > > > Continents > Europe > Countries > Italy > Cities > Venice > Canals. > While we use words to convey concepts, the concepts themselves are > separate from the word we use. "The Streets of Rome" can be a single > concept, whereas the words are many. And it often goes the other way > too, where you have one word corresponding to several different > concepts. The bottom line: words are not the same thing as concepts. > > When organizing photos, I'm interested in the concept more than the > words. Otherwise I could just type keywords for every picture. Some > photo organizers work that way. I don't find that powerful enough. So > I'd rather have a tag that corresponds to the concept [streets of rome] > if I so choose, that allows me to put whatever words I feel like on the tag. > > Perhaps in the case of Rome and streets, that makes good sense to have a > Streets tag and a Rome tag. But consider this example. I have pictures > of my family and my wife's family. I've taken pictures of my mom and my > wife's. So I have a "Mom" tag and a "My Family" tag and a "Wife's > family" tag. My mother-in-law is tagged with "Mom" and "Wife's > family". Now let's suppose I want to rename the "Mom" tag to "Wife's > mom". It will rename all the mothers in my entire photo collection to > "Wife's Mom". Clearly not what I want. That was my point about the > "Canals" example earlier as well. It comes when you want to assign new > words to your tag. > > I hope that's clearer. I'm poor at explaining this, as you might have > noticed. > >> It's not that I don't see the value of a list or cloud, but can't we > >> allow > >> for both concepts in the same interface? > > I'm not a developer, just a user. > I am a developer, so maybe that's why I see things differently, but I'm > also into photography on the side. So far I have not contributed to > F-Spot as far as development goes, but I am interested in doing so in > the future. > >> In my humble opinion, it's a deficiency to not allow tag names to > >> have the > >> same name. Unnecessary, and confusing to certain people. Should this > >> discussion go to the bug report? Does anybody have the link for that? > > It sounds like you want nested folders and I want tags. I think Picasa > > allows for both options in its interface, though the last time I > > looked the tags interface was rather clunky. I believe they called > > them keywords, but you can also use I think what they call albums. > Perhaps I want something closer to nested folders. But those aren't > powerful enough either. Linux give you the ability to nest folders > without using a photo manager like f-spot, so if that's all I wanted, > the file system would suffice. > > If you want a good example of what I like (as far as tags go), there is > a program called Adobe Photoshop Album on windows. > > I never liked picasa's system because I found the folders too weak and > the labels too weak. If they were put together into the same thing like > Photoshop Album does, then it would have the best of both worlds. > > Can you just clarify why you need to use duplicate tags? I still don't > > understand. I mean as an end-user, I'm just interested in your process > > since obviously I'm not doing any coding. > It's not duplicate tags, but rather tags that happen to have the same > name. I just think they ought to be able to have the same name as long > as the tags have different parent tags. I mean, if my brother's name is > Gary and I went to school in Gary, Indiana, I wouldn't want them both > showing up all the time if I wanted to search for one or the other. One > solution is to name the tags "Gary, the brother" and "Gary, the place". > Or you could do Places > Gary and People > Gary. > > By the way, I really like your idea about related tags for when you > select "giraffe" and it gives you a list of related tags you have. I > think your approach to organization makes perfect sense, especially for > you, but I would like something capable of doing something more powerful > as well. I don't see why the system shouldn't be capable of doing > both. Therefore, if you don't like Category tags, don't make any, and > it should work fine. > > _______________________________________________ > F-spot-list mailing list > F-spot-list@xxxxxxxxx > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/f-spot-list > -- -Michael Wayne Goodman

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Re: Category Name Refused

On 7/11/07, Daniel Falk <f-spot@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Michael Wayne Goodman wrote: > > It seems this "tags vs folders" thing is debated all over the place > > (not just f-spot), so I set up a simple Drupal poll to see what people > > think. > > > > http://goodmami.org/?q=node/4 > > > > I set it up so you can vote without logging in, therefore the results > > cannot be taken too seriously, but it might be a good indicator of > > where preferences lie (which could guide future development). > > > > If you have a second, please vote once for your preference. I only > > included the options "Folders", "Tags", "Both", and "Other", so if > > your choice isn't represented you can write something in the comments > > (or to this mailinglist). Note that for comments, if you don't log > > in, the comment will be held for moderation, so it won't show up > > immediately. > > > > (Anyway, sorry for posting a link to my personal site, but I needed > > somewhere to host the poll. There is no advertising or anything on > > the site. If this is still a no-no, please let me know) > > > > Hope to get some good responses! > > > > On 7/11/07, Daniel Falk <f-spot@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> Todd, > >> I really enjoy discussing this stuff. You have a different perspective > >> that I'm trying to be more aware of. > >> >> A simple example. Let's say you went to venice and decided to tag > >> >> it The > >> >> Streets and Venice. Then you wanted to change the tag to be "The > >> >> Canals". > >> >> But you can't, because the tag doesn't correspond to a complete idea, > >> >> but > >> >> only a set of words. > >> > Why not? Don't we use words to represent ideas? I could easily change > >> > the tag from "streets" to "canals". Maybe I just want to find all the > >> > canal pictures I have, I don't want to have to search for > >> > canals+venice, canals+eerie, canals+someotherplacethathascanals. Or > >> > even drill down some hierarchy like Places > Planets > Earth > Land > > >> > Continents > Europe > Countries > Italy > Cities > Venice > Canals. > >> While we use words to convey concepts, the concepts themselves are > >> separate from the word we use. "The Streets of Rome" can be a single > >> concept, whereas the words are many. And it often goes the other way > >> too, where you have one word corresponding to several different > >> concepts. The bottom line: words are not the same thing as concepts. > >> > >> When organizing photos, I'm interested in the concept more than the > >> words. Otherwise I could just type keywords for every picture. Some > >> photo organizers work that way. I don't find that powerful enough. So > >> I'd rather have a tag that corresponds to the concept [streets of rome] > >> if I so choose, that allows me to put whatever words I feel like on > >> the tag. > >> > >> Perhaps in the case of Rome and streets, that makes good sense to have a > >> Streets tag and a Rome tag. But consider this example. I have pictures > >> of my family and my wife's family. I've taken pictures of my mom and my > >> wife's. So I have a "Mom" tag and a "My Family" tag and a "Wife's > >> family" tag. My mother-in-law is tagged with "Mom" and "Wife's > >> family". Now let's suppose I want to rename the "Mom" tag to "Wife's > >> mom". It will rename all the mothers in my entire photo collection to > >> "Wife's Mom". Clearly not what I want. That was my point about the > >> "Canals" example earlier as well. It comes when you want to assign new > >> words to your tag. > >> > >> I hope that's clearer. I'm poor at explaining this, as you might have > >> noticed. > >> >> It's not that I don't see the value of a list or cloud, but can't we > >> >> allow > >> >> for both concepts in the same interface? > >> > I'm not a developer, just a user. > >> I am a developer, so maybe that's why I see things differently, but I'm > >> also into photography on the side. So far I have not contributed to > >> F-Spot as far as development goes, but I am interested in doing so in > >> the future. > >> >> In my humble opinion, it's a deficiency to not allow tag names to > >> >> have the > >> >> same name. Unnecessary, and confusing to certain people. Should > >> this > >> >> discussion go to the bug report? Does anybody have the link for > >> that? > >> > It sounds like you want nested folders and I want tags. I think Picasa > >> > allows for both options in its interface, though the last time I > >> > looked the tags interface was rather clunky. I believe they called > >> > them keywords, but you can also use I think what they call albums. > >> Perhaps I want something closer to nested folders. But those aren't > >> powerful enough either. Linux give you the ability to nest folders > >> without using a photo manager like f-spot, so if that's all I wanted, > >> the file system would suffice. > >> > >> If you want a good example of what I like (as far as tags go), there is > >> a program called Adobe Photoshop Album on windows. > >> > >> I never liked picasa's system because I found the folders too weak and > >> the labels too weak. If they were put together into the same thing like > >> Photoshop Album does, then it would have the best of both worlds. > >> > Can you just clarify why you need to use duplicate tags? I still don't > >> > understand. I mean as an end-user, I'm just interested in your process > >> > since obviously I'm not doing any coding. > >> It's not duplicate tags, but rather tags that happen to have the same > >> name. I just think they ought to be able to have the same name as long > >> as the tags have different parent tags. I mean, if my brother's name is > >> Gary and I went to school in Gary, Indiana, I wouldn't want them both > >> showing up all the time if I wanted to search for one or the other. One > >> solution is to name the tags "Gary, the brother" and "Gary, the place". > >> Or you could do Places > Gary and People > Gary. > >> > >> By the way, I really like your idea about related tags for when you > >> select "giraffe" and it gives you a list of related tags you have. I > >> think your approach to organization makes perfect sense, especially for > >> you, but I would like something capable of doing something more powerful > >> as well. I don't see why the system shouldn't be capable of doing > >> both. Therefore, if you don't like Category tags, don't make any, and > >> it should work fine. > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> F-spot-list mailing list > >> F-spot-list@xxxxxxxxx > >> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/f-spot-list > >> > > What does your poll mean by both? It's been my point that tags could > have a hierarchical structure without affecting those who want a flat > structure (i.e., pleases both points of view). Is that what you mean by > both? Or do you mean like how picasa does it? > Sorry it's rather vague. I saw some people discussing having both in some fashion. Whether it means "both side-by-side" or "a hybrid of both", i guess that's up to you. The current system allows for a hierarchy of tags (ie. you can give a photo multiple tags, but the tags themselves reside in a hierarchical structure. This is an example of a "hybrid of both") (I know the following have been addressed, but just to reiterate) When using flat hierarchies: As for the issue about renaming a tag (ie. a friend gets married and changes her name): Just create a new tag for the new name, apply it to all she's in, then remove the old tag from her pictures (or keep it in there if you want both). As for ambiguity, such as Gary the place and Gary the person, there's no need for "Gary, the place" and "Gary, the person" as separate tags. Just tag them both "Gary", then for the person give it a tag like "people", and the other one "place". If you happen to have a picture of Gary the person at Gary the place, just tag it with both "people" and "place" As someone mentioned, you can emulate the complete flat-tag system in F-Spot just by never creating nested tags, and only using top-level ones. And you can emulate folders by using nested tags and only giving each picture one tag. Getting back to the _original_ issue, where Richard Krone found that you can't create tags in two separate hierarchies with the same name... If you really want to have nested tags, then this is a bug, and it should be fixed to allow these "duplicates". In my opinion it's better to just have a flat structure. Thanks for your votes on the poll site, guys! Only 3 votes so far, but I'm leaving the poll open, so hopefully we'll get some more responses. I will resist voting until later (although you should already know my position by now). -- -Michael Wayne Goodman