Working with existing keywords (Allen)

ChancyRat

Allen, you said on another thread:

The reason I'm working with a Smart gallery is editing keywords. I'm removing single quotes from keywords and have hundreds to clean up. Very slow process especially when there's issues with the smart gallery. Why has Smugmug refused to fix the keyword problems?
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Al - Just a volunteer here having fun

Could you share the details of your method? And what you're changing to what and why?
I was able to edit the commas and semis in a regular gallery keyword/caption area.
I did it in 2 steps:

1. Replace ", " [comma space] with "; " [semi space] in [all keywords containing]
I had to click 'preview' more than once, in fact as many times as I had keywords. I.e., the replace worked on the first comma only, but each time I clicked preview, the next keyword was fixed.
This replaced all of them except the last comma, I presume because it didn't have a space after it.
2. Replace "," [comma] with ; [semi]

I know we can't edit keywords by a single keyword gallery, so is your Smart gallery a way to get around that? How do you set that up?

Allen

I created one unlisted smart gallery to use and change the smart rules each time to suck in a KW with
single quote. Then use bulk change to remove the single quote. I don't worry about extra commas or
semi-colons.

Might try to replace " ' " with a blank. Been doing whole words. Baird's to Bairds and baird's to bairds. Case is important.

I use ; on all new KW's but leave , and " " on old ones.

ChancyRat

Thanks Allen. You said on another thread, can't remember which but what you said stuck with me, that you use semis to separate keywords. Someone was complaining there were problems when using commas. You said semis had always worked without issues. Did I get that right?

Allen

I use to use commas but now only use semis. The old commas still work and I leave them there.
I used to use double quotes for multi-word and leave them there but now don't use with the semis.

But it's important when editing with photo tools to add the last semi (if multi-word) if missing or the multi-word splits up.