Batch Keywording & Captioning

lkbart · June 18, 2014

After writing to the help desk because I thought there was something wrong with my galleries, I've been urged to put my issue here. A few weeks ago, I could click on Organize, and go to a gallery, and click on the wrench, and enter keywords and captions in a batch process - where I could see what was typed for each photo. Now, the wrench is not available until you select the photos you want to batch keyword or caption, and the fields that used to show the keywords and captions are gone, so you can't tell if you have something duplicated, or what may already be in the keywords or captions for the photos, and you can't go through & add or subtract keywords for individual photos in the group setting like before. You have to select each individual photo separately to view what the keywords are for that photo, and it takes a while for each photo to load, like it's loading the photo in a slow app. IMHO, this is a huge step backward, like blindly adding keywords, & apparently you can blindly remove them also. I also never understood why the Title was not included with the batch keyword and caption organization feature.

So SmugHeroes, a feature request: please restore the more intuitive batch keywording and captioning where you can see what the keywords and captions are for each photo in a group setting (like it was) and you can type directly into the caption or keyword fields (or copy and paste), and please include fields for batch Titling there also. It just makes sense. Thank you!

thenickdude · June 18, 2014

I recreated a modern version of the old bulk editing tool as a Google Chrome Extension:

http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=247592

It sounds like it'll do just what you want. It also adds a Title field that was missing from the old editing tool.

rainforest1155 · June 18, 2014

Hi Lillian,
There's been an extensive discussion on the new photo editor already. To learn what's behind the changes and what we plan on doing with the extensive feedback we received, check out the posts from Baldy and mbonocore on this page.

lkbart · June 18, 2014

Thanks for the feedback & info - I just added thenickdude bulk editing tool, looks good! And from the other thread linked by rainforest, it appears that they will be bringing back the old bulk edit tool (according to a post on 5/30) but it's not working on any of my galleries yet.

sixguntom · June 21, 2014

Have you heard any progress on this. I just discovered they had removed the ability to bulk caption photos (core functionality since the site started and VERY critical). Tried contacting support and got the usual "thanks for playing" response. I can't believe they would get rid of something so important.

denisegoldberg · June 21, 2014

sixguntom wrote: »

Have you heard any progress on this. I just discovered they had removed the ability to bulk caption photos (core functionality since the site started and VERY critical). Tried contacting support and got the usual "thanks for playing" response. I can't believe they would get rid of something so important.

Have you seen the New bulk title/caption/keyword editor extension that thenickdude made available?

--- Denise

Allen · June 21, 2014

denisegoldberg wrote: »

Have you seen the New bulk title/caption/keyword editor extension that thenickdude made available?

--- Denise

Smug needs to incorporate this into their site. I use Firefox and have to open Chrome to use it.
Although it works great it's a PITA going back and forth.

sixguntom · June 21, 2014

denisegoldberg wrote: »

Have you seen the New bulk title/caption/keyword editor extension that thenickdude made available?

--- Denise

I did, am using it now, its a lifesaver (thank you thenickdude) and appears to do everything the old editor and the new editor do combined (bulk + batch). But this should be returned as an integrated feature, not a 3rd party add on for every computer/browser you work on. I've got no problem with Chrome, but others do.

pmbpro · June 25, 2014

Allen wrote: »

Smug needs to incorporate this into their site. I use Firefox and have to open Chrome to use it.
Although it works great it's a PITA going back and forth.

I agree, Allen. Not everyone uses Chrome. I hope they incorporate the old feature back into SmugMug soon. I was flabbergasted that they'd removed it in the first place.

uketeecee · July 4, 2014

I'd like to see this tool restored too. It saved me a lot of work.

pilotdave · July 4, 2014

uketeecee wrote: »

I'd like to see this tool restored too. It saved me a lot of work.

The big question is who prefers the new smugmug tool? I just don't get it. To me it's more confusing, slower, less convenient, and more prone to errors. The only reason smugmug gave for getting rid of the bulk tool is to reduce helpdesk tickets. I can't even begin to imagine that was successful.

Dave

AZimages · July 6, 2014

I am guessing there has been no updates on this?

very disapointing as the bulk captioning option is vital for me- it saves so much time

mbonocore · July 10, 2014

AZimages wrote: »

I am guessing there has been no updates on this?

very disapointing as the bulk captioning option is vital for me- it saves so much time

I don't have any ETA on a release that will accomplish this, but as Baldy said, we have heard you loud and clear and we are working on making the tool better for your bulk needs. I will update you as soon as I have something.

Allen · July 10, 2014

mbonocore wrote: »

I don't have any ETA on a release that will accomplish this, but as Baldy said, we have heard you loud and clear and we are working on making the tool better for your bulk needs. I will update you as soon as I have something.

If it's anything less then the Chrome hack we'll be very disappointed.

mbonocore · July 12, 2014

Allen wrote: »

If it's anything less then the Chrome hack we'll be very disappointed.

You know I hate disappointing you Allen :cry

MVPinBoynton · July 15, 2014

So Disappointed
I just used the new bulk captioning tool. I couldn't believe how much more difficult it is to caption my photos. I do like that I can do a bunch of photos with the same caption easily; but because you can't see the existing captions when editing, you don't know if the caption needs changing. The old method where you saw the photo with the existing captions in rows that were easy to edit was so much better. I am quite disappointed that this type of change was made. It is almost as though the programmers don't have their own photos that they have needed to caption in the past. At least a lot of them.

Please help make this process better.

mbonocore · July 17, 2014

MVPinBoynton wrote: »

I just used the new bulk captioning tool. I couldn't believe how much more difficult it is to caption my photos. I do like that I can do a bunch of photos with the same caption easily; but because you can't see the existing captions when editing, you don't know if the caption needs changing. The old method where you saw the photo with the existing captions in rows that were easy to edit was so much better. I am quite disappointed that this type of change was made. It is almost as though the programmers don't have their own photos that they have needed to caption in the past. At least a lot of them.

Please help make this process better.

Thank you for your feedback. We have heard that alot of users did like the ability to scroll through and be able to edit multiple captions in the way you describe. We will keep this thread updated with improvements that we think will be able to help you.

Thanks!

denisegoldberg · July 17, 2014

MVPinBoynton wrote: »

I just used the new bulk captioning tool. I couldn't believe how much more difficult it is to caption my photos.

Are you aware of the Chrome extension thenickdude wrote to provide bulk updates of titles, captions, and keywords? See New bulk title/caption/keyword editor extension now available.

--- Denise

dmc · August 1, 2014

mbonocore wrote: »

Thank you for your feedback. We have heard that alot of users did like the ability to scroll through and be able to edit multiple captions in the way you describe. We will keep this thread updated with improvements that we think will be able to help you.

Thanks!

I just tried it as well.... ok, so I can select a bunch of photos, Then I can assign the SAME title and caption to the bunch at one shot.

Not very useful to me.

Does anyone who actually maintains a Smugmug site actually test these new features BEFORE you introduce them?

My process was...
-- upload a bunch of photos to a new gallery
-- I go into bulk keyword/caption update screen (all pics in gallery are displayed)
-- I go to description field of first photo and I type in something quick, tab, tab, I enter a couple keywords, tab, tab, tab and I'm at the next photo...

I work my way down the list of pics, adding unique descriptions and keywords (using the tab key is fast way to work through the fields), then I hit save and I'm done.

duplicate that functionality please

Occasionally I would use the replace or erase function to fix keywords that I didn't like or something like that, which was useful as well.

Newsy · October 28, 2014

I sure don't like the new Smugmug. Seems like a lot of the old handy tools are missing.

Noticed my Keywords were out of control today thanks to how Smugmug imports and uses the file name to create a keyword. I'd like to turn that "feature" off - let's see if I can find it via the master menu.

Where has the bulk Keyword editing tool gone to? I tried this Chrome tool though I never use Chrome for viewing images, just FireFox. It works good enough for what I want to do. Thanks "thenickdude"!! *sigh*

I used to promote Smugmug to fellow photographers but I dunno now - it's starting to get complicated. There should be an easily accessed set of tools to clean up after your uploads, and the option to generate an anonymous link in the Links menu for sharing to forums and not lead cretins back to your photo site.

.

denisegoldberg · October 28, 2014

Newsy wrote: »

...imports and uses the file name to create a keyword. I'd like to turn that "feature" off - let's see if I can find it via the master menu. .

In case you haven't found this, go to Account settings, Discovery, Search tab.

--- Denise

Newsy · October 29, 2014

denisegoldberg wrote: »

In case you haven't found this, go to Account settings, Discovery, Search tab.

--- Denise

Thank you very much. I did spend 10 minutes looking and then closed Smugmug in frustration. I really really really dislike the GUI structure now.

.

coldclimb · January 15, 2015

I'm gonna take another swing at this horse, just because it came up again tonight. I have, over time, accumulated a lot of photos of a particular young lady who recently got married and changed her name. I could find no better way to update my keywords than to load up the page for her name and then open every single gallery that she has ever been tagged in in new tabs, and go through them one by one and update the tags in each gallery using the new system. It would be nice (and make sense?) to have a way to edit every instance of a single tag, in cases like this.

Allen · January 15, 2015

coldclimb wrote: »

I'm gonna take another swing at this horse, just because it came up again tonight. I have, over time, accumulated a lot of photos of a particular young lady who recently got married and changed her name. I could find no better way to update my keywords than to load up the page for her name and then open every single gallery that she has ever been tagged in in new tabs, and go through them one by one and update the tags in each gallery using the new system. It would be nice (and make sense?) to have a way to edit every instance of a single tag, in cases like this.

I use this method to edit a keyword that's all over my site.
I create a special hidden smart gallery for site maintenance of keywords.

In Organizer create a new unlisted gallery at the top level. Name it something like "Mass KW edits".
In the gallery settings click "Smart Rules".
Click setup.
Start typing the original keyword in and in the drop pick the KW.
Save
You will now have a gallery with only photos with that keyword.
You can now use the Bulk Edit to replace/edit KW's from multiple galleries.

I have three KW's that are up in the thousands so had to run the old KW multiple
times to get them all. Smart galleries are limited to 1000 photos.
Refreshing the gallery should bring up ones not changed yet.

ChancyRat · January 17, 2015

Thank you for that great set of instructions, Allen. I knew the theory of the keyword gallery but wasn't clear on the steps.
In case this part hasn't been spelled out, the method to do the actual keyword changes, caption edits, etc., is most easily accomplished with a Chrome extension, found via this thread:
http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=247592

Makes bulk edit changes a snap.

jrogers · February 16, 2015

Has there been any progress made in the bulk captioning area yet? That was one feature that worked very well in the old Smugmug, IMO.

Batch Keywording & Captioning

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