More prominent tag check, or "Client Mode"

[rob.strong@gmail.com]

Hi! Longtime user, first time poster.

I never use anything but PhotoMechanic to ingest and edit all my work. I've been a professional for two decades. No complaints! Thanks for everything you do to keep this piece of software essential to my workflow.

One use case that I find myself in a couple of times a month is reviewing images shot while tethered to a MacBook, on the spot, with a client/sitter. My regular spiel is

"Use the arrow keys to navigate forward and backward through time; use the T key to tag an image, and you'll see a little check mark right here. Tag as many as you like, and then we'll look at just the tagged images, and you can pick a winner".

I've given this instruction thousands of times, and there's a fraction of people who get it right away; most people understand it soon enough; but some folks struggle to keep track of what's been tagged. (Also, everyone at some point says "ok how do we just see the tagged images?", and if there were a way for them to make that transition intuitively, it would be a boon.)

My feature request is for a "client mode" that simplifies the interface so that users who have never heard of photo mechanic can interact with it for a minute or two and navigate through a set of options, make a rough selection, and then pick a winner.

In the extreme case, maybe this is a whole streamlined app, built on the PM architecture but with everything superfluous stripped away.

But in a more realistic case, here's what I imagine: a selectable preference that makes it much more obvious in Preview and Contact Sheet mode what's been tagged. Maybe that means giving tagged images a bright colorful outline, or maybe just making the tag check box like five times larger.

Thanks for your time and consideration! Can't wait to keep using PM for another 20 years and more.

Rob

[ahoward]

Good suggestions, some would obviously require more time/effort than others. We will consider them for additions in future releases.

I have a few suggestions that might make your life easier for the time being until we might one day be able to add a kiosk mode of some kind.

First, have them use a number key to give a star rating or a color label (depending on your settings). Where the T key will toggle a tag (and therefore untag an image if it has already been tagged), pressing the Red key for an image that is already labeled as Red will just confirm the choice. They would have to press 0 to remove the label entirely. The color labels can be set to whatever color you'd like them to be, and are significantly more visible than the tag checkbox.

Next, if you do want to continue having them tag images, then from the Contact Sheet they can always go to the "View" menu and choose "Tagged" if they want to reduce the Contact Sheet to just those items.

[rob.strong@gmail.com]

Good tip! I have such deeply ingrained instincts when it comes to tagging vs color coding that it will take an adjustment in my brain to do it that way, but the bright red flag is definitely more visible than the check box for folks who aren't familiar with the application. Thanks again for your time!

Rob