Which photos are in a catalogue - right click adding and removing

[Graham1]

If you right click a thumbnail on a contact sheet, you can see from "Catalog info" the catalogue(s) in which an image is included: entirely as it should be.

There are two other right click menu items: "Include in catalog" and "Remove from catalog".  The menu state does not indicate whether or not the selected photo is, or is not, in any particular catalogue.  Moreover, clicking "Include" seems to add the image to all the catalogues which have Add/Modify enabled, and "Remove" removes them from all catalogues, whether or not they are active (Add/Modify enabled or not).

If an image is not in any active catalogue, the Remove option should be greyed out, because it is (or should be) meaningless in this situation.  If the image is in more than one catalogue, then selecting "Remove" should open a tick box which allows you to select the catalogue(s) from which the image should be removed.

In similar vein, if an image is already in all active catalogues, the "Include" option should be greyed out, because it will do nothing.  If it is in none, or some but not all of the active catalogues, again there should be a tick box which allows you to select the catalogue(s) into which you want to add the image.

Also, should these two menu options be limited to active catalogues, those with Add/Modify checked?  To my mind, it is not expected behaviour that choosing an action from the right click menu on a contact sheet should operate to add to or modify the contents of a catalogue that you have not marked as being subject to modification.

Is there any reason why it does not work like this, or should not work like this?  Or have I misunderstood how it works? 

Graham

[bazography]

I also have issues with "Include in catalog", and made a suggestion about it quite a while ago. I thought that when you select "Include in catalog”, there should be a pop-up to select which catalog. Kinda like a Save As always has a pop-up asking where to save the file.

Since day one the biggest issue I’ve had with PM+ is that I find it too easy to make cataloging errors, mostly because I have to remember to select various checkboxes BEFORE making any changes to a catalog.

I know I should be paying attention to which catalogs are ticked, but as hard as I try it is inevitable that I sometimes end up selecting “Include in catalog” and discover later that I had the wrong catalog ticked. If I don’t catch my mistake right away it becomes very difficult to fix days or weeks later because I may not remember exactly which photos I added. The pop up would remind users to select the correct caralog(s) before continuing. If you already have the right catalog selected, then you just need to hit enter... it’s only one extra keystroke.

The only downside I see is that the pop-up would be pointless if you only use one catalog. But perhaps there could be a preference item such as:
Open catalog selector when using “Including in catalog”

Because I was finding it so easy to make cataloging errors, I became curious if I had been messing up my catalogs without even knowing. Turns out yes... lots. Every month or so during the beta stage I ran a test. I made a note of how many images I had in each catalog, then deleted the catalogs completely and re-scanned new ones from scratch (I wasn’t building thumbnails so it was quick and easy to do). I did that probably 6 or 8 times this year, and without exception, the new catalogs had different image counts than the old ones. This can only mean that somehow I messed up and added images to the wrong catalog. I realize that I'm the one who messed up, but I really think the current UI makes it difficult to avoid.

Has anyone else tried the above test? I wonder how many others have messed up their catalogs and don't don't even know it.