Currently if I double click on a keyword in the keyword list it does nothing. It would be great if doing this executed a search automatically and brought up all the images with that keyword rather than having to type it manually into the search box.
I saw that but wanted a slightly different take and did not want to hijack your request. I assumed you wanted a single click on the number to bring up the results, but I could see that resulting in accidental triggering when working on keywords so I wanted to specify double-clicking only functionality and on the whole keyword and not just the number.
How about using the space bar on a selected item? This is a Mac thing that invokes a QuickLook panel, unless Windows users have a strong objection?
I’m a firm believer in Keyboard options for as much as possible so this would be fine as an addition. But if I move the mouse to an object to select it, I should be able to activate that object with only the mouse without having to use both the mouse and keyboard to accomplish a task wherever possible.
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lightroom displays an icon next to the number of images that carry a specific keyword. Click on that icon and all the images will be presented. Have not checked if a keyboard shortcut exists.
Space bar for windows would work as it is used to select highlighted buttons.
One thing that we would have to be careful of is if you hold down the space bar it turns into a hand for dragging the image around the screen.
Isn´t that just an extra step and inefficency? A single click is a selection and a double click an execution isn´t it in Windows?
The problem comes when different people expect different things from the double-click event.
In PL5, there is a context menu on each keyword…
None of those options provide for showing related images, therefore it would also be necessary to add in an item there.
In my keywording app the context menu looks like this…
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The first option is to show the QuickLook panel with previews of all related images. The keyboard shortcut is also visible to aid in learning it for future use
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The second option is to instigate a search and show the results in the main thumbnail view, so that metadata on any image can be changed.
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The last option allows for the renaming of a keyword in the dictionary and, also in any images that contain it.
Since you have to click once to select which keyword you want to view/edit/etc, instead of left-double-clicking, why not right-click then left click to choose an option on the context menu like in my app? It’s still two clicks but it is obvious what the result of those two clicks will be.
You also have to account for those times when a user uses the arrow keys to move from one item to the next after the first clicked item, rather than using the mouse to select the next one.
In the last case the most obvious I guess should be to hit Enter i suppose. I think most Windows user would expect a double click on the keyword to initiate search.
Is that what happens when you double-click on a file in Windows Explorer?
Joanna, double click has been used since the beginning in Windows to start an action like open a folder or a file a single click was used to select. It´s really not all that intuitive. In the nineties when Windows started to get wind and get more widely spread (especially when version 3.0 came) most people were still computer illiterates. I saw many examples of people trying to get something to happen clicking around without anything happened.
Here the folder option dialog in Windows Explorer. As you can see the double click is still default but it can be altered these days.
In Photo Mechanic you can select a keyword in the Browser and activate a search with one click.
In Photolab 5 today it´s either keyboard or a mixture of keybord and single click
A nice feature is that Photolab specifies with symbols if the keywords are found in IPTC, folder or file name just to name a few types av all awailable and an equally strange thing is that Photolab stores the keywords in metadata-fields that seems to be EXIF and I haven´t found a way to delete them if I select the wrong one. That´s not a problem for me that only use the metadata in Photolab to search since I make all the metadata maintenance in external tools. Maybe some one with more experience of this can enlighten me 
, even if I´m sure I will continue to be a rather passive user of the PhotoLibrary.
The thread is getting longer but no-one voted for it yet…
Ah, the “good old days” 
You see, I still think Windows allows some incredibly confusing things - like going to the Start menu to stop the computer 
And, as for allowing a choice of either single-click or double-click to “open” something - well, that all depends on what is meant by “opening”. MacOS Finder is more consistent when it comes to that differentiation - single-click for “opening” is reserved for items on the Dock and its popup panels, everywhere else it takes a double-click (unless someone knows differently).
If folks want to keep their hands on the mouse, and the two clicks involved in a double-click is acceptable, why not use those two clicks by right-clicking to invoke a context menu and then left-click to select the desired option?
Rather than vote for this proposal, I would rather see the option to execute a search on the context menu that already exists.
Many years there was a pretty well accepted interface standard in Windows most application manufacturers adapted to - but Lotus. For example the main menues where always File - Edit …and I think Window - Help. In between the spece was open to fill with what the software manufacturers found necessary for their iwn specifik.
When applying tools, like in Excel you first selected a tool and then selected the data to apply it to. Lotus made it completely opposit both in OS/2 and Windows.
When the functions got many and the menu systems got too deep and complicated Microsoft abandoned the old Windows standard and replaced it with the banner system that completely confused all the rest but the developers of Visio (flow chart progam) that Microsoft later bought. So when the character based dialogs like in Wordperfect and Lotus 1-2-3 started to demand three simultaneously pressed keyboard buttons in the early nineties they got replaced by graphical interfaces and applications and when they got to deep and complex we got “wizards” and banners and after that we got what we have which is more like the early part of Mao Tse Dongs Cultural Revolution when he urged China to let a thousand different flowers to blossom - a while before the red terror set in that costed millions of people their lives.
So it is hard to maintain interface standards and as you could see above there is a lot of differences between how DXO, Microsoft and Camera Bits is doing it. Even Adobe has many times gone their own way (often because Windows was not sofisticated enough to support their needs) and I don’t believe in that we will get anywhere voting for a solution here. Initiatives like that has to come from the OS-platform manufacturers like Apple and Microsoft and a problem is also that these platforms promotes and uses their own solutions. I guess that’s why Microsoft now let us decide ourselves if we want single or double clicks (many are using both Windows and Mac). Another difference has also been the differences of how a mouse is designed. Earlier there was just one button on an Apple Mouse for example.
In the nineties Microsoft had a slogan that went something like “If you know one you know them all”, but the truth was that Microsoft themselves did not at all live up to that. Word 6 had an old character based interface, Works was something in between and Excel and Windows was graphical and the only application in what was later going to be the Office suite.
I still prefer Lightroom’s approach / use of the keyword list:
Click on the arrow and the respective images will be shown.
Photolab 5 PhotoLibrary is really in version 1.0 still. I’m sure DXO will refine it quite a bit the nearest years to come. Both Lightroom and Photo Mechankc have been around for decades in a constant stream of input from their users. Of course that have had a great impact on their usability and both of them has a lot of keyboard shortcuts that it takes a while to get right. Using a mouse is not all that effective in many times and using a mouse too intensively might even be harmful phisically.
I’d be happy with most of the suggested options so long as:
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It isn’t too easy to activate by mistake and so lose the place in the library were you were working when it changes views on you.
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It doesn’t require both the mouse and the keyboard to activate it. Options for both are great, just not a requirement to use both.
Yes, this is the problem with searching currently. The selected folder in the tree view changes and there is no obvious way back from the search.
There is no way around this, specially if images with a certain keyword reside in several folders…but we usually know and remember what we’re working with.
As a workaround, we could assign currently treated images to a project called “current work”.