[Techtalk] photo collection management software

[Akkana Peck]

John Sturdy writes:
> You mention "keywords file" above, do you mean the same format that
> pho outputs (or rather, the part of it other than rotate commands
> etc)?

I started writing up how I use pho and Keywords files to tag photos,
and it got to be long (especially if we're the only two people here
interested) so I wrote up and checked it in:
https://github.com/akkana/pho/blob/master/doc/keywords

The quick summary is: after I use the keywords dialog to tag all
the photos in a directory, pho prints the results on stdout and I
paste that into a file called Keywords in the same directory as the
photos.  The format looks like this:

western bluebird: img_6944.jpg img_6945.jpg img_6946.jpg img_6947.jpg

dead tree, stump, art: img_6948.jpg img_6949.jpg img_6950.jpg

When I want to search for tagged photos later, I have a simple
python script that searches for keyword matches in files named
Keywords recursively beneath the current directory.

The script isn't that smart (it can't do boolean logic, like searching
for photos that include a lake AND a duck) but since it's all text
files I can extend it, change the format or add features as I need them.

> As someone who lives in emacs, I was thinking of using an org-mode
> file, with a bottom-level heading for each file, and org-mode labels
> for the labels.

We should talk about file format options. I don't use org mode
myself (though I do use emacs for editing) but that doesn't mean I
couldn't use the format. Or we could make the file's format configurable.

> But whatever the file format is, I'd suggest being able to preload the
> keywords from it, and write them back to it afterwards.  I'm happy to
> have a go at this myself.

Definitely. Been meaning to do that for ages, and just haven't gotten
around to it. I've been lazy, and cat > Keywords is so easy.  :-)

> I'd like something where I can categorize a run of related photos with
> at most one keystroke per photo --- I'd probably put that onto the
> return key, so the space bar means "go on to next photo" and return
> means "tag this photo the same as the previous one, and go on to the
> next one".

Almost. From the Keywords dialog, you can tag with a keyword that
already exists with Ctrl plus a number, e.g. <Ctrl>2. If you aren't
going to add any more keywords, then you could keep your focus in
the image window and just type 2 and not need the control key.
There's no keystroke for "use same categories as last photo"
though it would be easy enough to add.

> If there were a thumbnail window, I'd want something like emacs'
> numeric prefix, so I could tell it "tag the next 12 photos the same as
> the previous one", and thus have even fewer keystrokes and be even
> faster!

That would be great in a thumbnail-based tagging program. My problem
with thumbnails is that I can't see enough of what the photo is
about (is that 3-pixel thing there in the center a lizard or a
sparrow?) And choosing a photo, zooming in then getting back to the
thumbnails almost always requires a lot of mousing around.

> And the other thing I've thought of so far would be to have a
> file-level rename command.

Okay by me, though I doubt I'd use it myself -- I use the shell for
anything like that.

	...Akkana