Keyword Hierarchy

Have not noticed this until now, when exporting an image from PL6 not all keywords are carried over. For instance I have a hierarchy - England>Somerset>Washford - and only Washford is exported with the image. It its bad enough not having the full hierarchy displayed in PL6 (it only shows the keyword and the immediate parent unless one hovers over the keyword at which time the full hierarchy appears in a pop up. Am I missing something?

This is a problem, down to the way DxO have designed the user interface for keyword management.

In principle, when selecting a keyword at the bottom of a hierarchy, you should also select the entire hierarchy down to that word.

But it is all to easy to only select (in your case Washford) from the tree view, leaving England and Somerset unchecked.

If I start by typing in England>Somerset>Washford for example…

Capture d’écran 2022-11-06 à 12.52.02

As soon as I press Enter, this gets parsed and the tree shows…

Capture d’écran 2022-11-06 à 12.52.15

But the editing field only shows the leaf keyword as a token and the tree view only shows the leaf node as being checked.

In theory, a keyword hierarchy manger should be a separate tool, not just crammed into the very small space that has been allocated for everything to do with both managing, assigning and viewing keywords and their hierarchies.

In order to ensure that the whole hierarchy gets assigned, it is necessary to check all the parent nodes in the tree view…

Capture d’écran 2022-11-06 à 12.52.24

However, if the hierarchy is already visible in the tree view before assigning, checking the leaf node will automatically check all the parents at the same time. Somewhat inconsistent - typing doesn’t select everything but checking with the mouse does :roll_eyes: :wink:

I know there is a tooltip for any tokens on the editing field that shows the hierarchy behind a given keyword but that is misleading, as you have found.

This all revolves around DxO’s decision to ignore the MWG (Metadata Working Group) guidance document and implement the same rules as Lightroom, which do not record the metadata in a universally readable format.

In other words, the MWG guidance states that all keywords in a hierarchy must be written, flattened, to the dc:subject tag, like so…

         <dc:subject>
            <rdf:Bag>
               <rdf:li>England</rdf:li>
               <rdf:li>Somerset</rdf:li>
               <rdf:li>Washford</rdf:li>
            </rdf:Bag>
         </dc:subject>
        …
         <lr:hierarchicalSubject>
            <rdf:Bag>
               <rdf:li>England</rdf:li>
               <rdf:li>England|Somerset</rdf:li>
               <rdf:li>England|Somerset|Washford</rdf:li>
            </rdf:Bag>
         </lr:hierarchicalSubject>

Unfortunately, DxO have decided to go with this format…

         <dc:subject>
            <rdf:Bag>
               <rdf:li>Washford</rdf:li>
            </rdf:Bag>
         </dc:subject>
         …
         <lr:hierarchicalSubject>
            <rdf:Bag>
               <rdf:li>England|Somerset|Washford</rdf:li>
            </rdf:Bag>
         </lr:hierarchicalSubject>

… which, as you can see only places the leaf node in the dc:subject tag, thus making the other words invisible to some other software.

What is needed is for you, and others, to point this shortcoming out to DxO who, previously implemented this correctly but then, bow to certain people in the forums and changed it to how it is today.

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Thank you, Joanna. A very comprehensive response. I’ll file a bug report for as far as I am concerned that is what it is.

Colin

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Just to add, the way it currently stands the hierarchy is unusable and I may as well go back to the “flat” way of doing things. I just cannot understand why they went this way - every other piece of software I play with does it more or less as expected :frowning:

Bug report sent

Well, the topic has been talked over many times in the EA forums in the last few years. Mac DPL version 5.1.3 build 55 follows MWG guidelines, all others do what they do as @Joanna wrote.

It’s best to just add the keywords from the keyword list, which will automatically activate parent keywords and insert the keywords separately as well as hierarchically:

Example: Click for “C” and both “A” and “B” will be added too.

         <dc:subject>
            <rdf:Bag>
               <rdf:li>A</rdf:li>
               <rdf:li>B</rdf:li>
               <rdf:li>C</rdf:li>
            </rdf:Bag>
         </dc:subject>
         <lr:hierarchicalSubject>
            <rdf:Bag>
               <rdf:li>A</rdf:li>
               <rdf:li>A|B</rdf:li>
               <rdf:li>A|B|C</rdf:li>
            </rdf:Bag>
         </lr:hierarchicalSubject>

Adding keywords by clicking them in the KW List has another benefit: It prevents typing errors. Even though the KW List tool is too short, it is help rather than nuisance imo.

@colin_g , this current behaviour is DxO’s design decision rather than a bug. So maybe, it’s better to file a feature request rather than a bug report. A FR also offers the possibility of the vote and could therefore gain momentum…

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Thanks Platypus but how do I find a keyword in the list? Am I missing a search somewhere? Otherwise if one keyword is buried in another I cannot see it - for example: Engand>Somerset>Washford - how do I easily find Washford when it is buried under England>Somerset?

You can’t easily. If you start typing, it will bring up a drop down but then you get the same problem as if the words weren’t already there.

Yes - that is my experience. Renders the idea useless to me, it fact it makes the entire idea if a hierarchy redundant. Might just as well go with individual keywords, at lease they work as expected :slight_smile:

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