Author Topic: User report (long list of feature requests)  (Read 7225 times)

Offline Ethan Welty

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User report (long list of feature requests)
« on: June 25, 2020, 09:30:41 AM »
Feature requests split off from original post at http://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=12188.0

Updated:
Photo Mechanic Plus Version 6.0, build 4826 (4293d5e)
Mac OS X 10.14.6

General

- [F1] Control thumbnail and preview size and quality.
  - Beta 19: Persists.
- [F2] Option to generate thumbnails but no previews.
  - Beta 19: Persists.
- [F3] Option to generate thumbnails / previews with RAW rendering.
  - Beta 19: Persists.

Collections

Command: "Remove Collection"
- Add a confirmation dialog.
  - Beta 19: Fixed.

Contact sheet

- [F4] Display search query more prominently and add a way to retrieve it (copyable text, add-to-clipboard button, or send-to-search-box button). The query can be found by right clicking on the contact sheet tab, but clicking on it does nothing.
  - Beta 19: Persists.
- [F5] Ability to filter by Catalog membership.
  - Beta 19: Persists.
- Use same interface in Search/Filter sheets as for original Navigation sheets. Doing so would simply update the query accordingly.
  - Ability to sort.
  - Ability to use standard filter (all, selected, tagged, ...).
  - Beta 19: Fixed.

Command: "Include in Catalog" / "Include items in Catalog"
- [F6] Rename to "Add to Catalog".
  - Beta 19: Persists.
- [F7] In presence of multiple catalogues, allow user to control which catalogue.
  - Beta 19: Reported.

Command: "Remove from Catalog" / "Remove items from Catalog"
- [F8] Rename to "Remove from Catalog".
  - Beta 19: Persists.
- Add a confirmation dialog.
  - Beta 19: Fixed.
- [F9] If selected images are present in multiple catalogues, allow user to control which catalogue to remove them from.
  - Beta 19: Reported.

Browse tab

- [F10] Fully expand / collapse all or a category of fields.
  - Beta 19: Persists.
- Option to show only fields with values. As it is, I have to click on a lot of little triangles to find out what fields have values.
  - Beta 19: Fixed (I think, my original meaning unclear to me now).
- [F11] Ability to add / remove fields and change their order and categories.
  - Beta 19: Persists.
- [F12] Make the list easier to parse visually. Currently, the field names and their values have the same appearance, making it hard to distinguish between them.
  - Beta 19: Persists.
- [F13] Ability to edit image metadata by drag and drop selection onto field value in Browser tab.
  - Beta 19: Persists.

Filter tab

- [F14] Why have a completely separate Filter tab to do AND operations instead of OR? Why not just add a simple switch to the Browse tab: ["AND", "OR"] and focus on making one interface awesome.
  - Beta 19: Persists.
- [F15] Ability to search for field name in dropdown menu.
  - Beta 19: Persists.
- [F16] Ability to add / remove fields in dropdown menu.
  - Beta 19: Persists.

Online Kirk Baker

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Re: User report (long list of feature requests)
« Reply #1 on: June 25, 2020, 10:31:04 AM »
Ethan,

Feature requests split off from original post at http://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=12188.0

Updated:
Photo Mechanic Plus Version 6.0, build 4826 (4293d5e)
Mac OS X 10.14.6

General

- [F1] Control thumbnail and preview size and quality.
  - Beta 19: Persists.
- [F2] Option to generate thumbnails but no previews.
  - Beta 19: Persists.
- [F3] Option to generate thumbnails / previews with RAW rendering.
  - Beta 19: Persists.

We likely won't be doing these, at least not for the initial release.  F2 won't ever be implemented.

-Kirk

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Re: User report (long list of feature requests)
« Reply #2 on: June 25, 2020, 10:50:11 AM »
Ethan,

Feature requests split off from original post at http://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=12188.0

Updated:
Photo Mechanic Plus Version 6.0, build 4826 (4293d5e)
Mac OS X 10.14.6

Contact sheet

- [F4] Display search query more prominently and add a way to retrieve it (copyable text, add-to-clipboard button, or send-to-search-box button). The query can be found by right clicking on the contact sheet tab, but clicking on it does nothing.

The next build will make the tab's contextual menu item (that shows the summary of the query) copy the full query to the clipboard when chosen.  You can then paste it in the search field if you like.

- [F5] Ability to filter by Catalog membership.

Please explain this feature in more detail.  How would the UI work?

Command: "Include in Catalog" / "Include items in Catalog"
- [F6] Rename to "Add to Catalog".

We won't be renaming the commands.

- [F7] In presence of multiple catalogues, allow user to control which catalogue.

You can already control this either in the Organizer's Active Catalogs area or the Catalog Management window (uncheck the Add/Modify check boxes of those catalogs that you don't want your images added into.)

Command: "Remove from Catalog" / "Remove items from Catalog"
- [F8] Rename to "Remove from Catalog".

We won't be renaming the commands.

- [F9] If selected images are present in multiple catalogues, allow user to control which catalogue to remove them from.

Same response as F7.

Browse tab

- [F10] Fully expand / collapse all or a category of fields.

Hold down the shift key when expanding and all children will be expanded.

- [F11] Ability to add / remove fields and change their order and categories.

While I don't understand what it would mean to change 'categories', we may add the ability to add/remove/rename the fields after the initial release.  Customization has been requested by others and we think it's worthwhile.

- [F12] Make the list easier to parse visually. Currently, the field names and their values have the same appearance, making it hard to distinguish between them.

How do you suggest we do this?  Making the labels bold or italics will hurt readability.  Changing colors can be garish or cause problems for individuals that have color blindness.  Isn't the presence/lack of the bar graphs with the item counts enough to distinguish them?

- [F13] Ability to edit image metadata by drag and drop selection onto field value in Browser tab.

We would like to implement the ability to add/remove metadata from selected images, but it will be done with a contextual menu and not drag and drop.

Filter tab

- [F14] Why have a completely separate Filter tab to do AND operations instead of OR? Why not just add a simple switch to the Browse tab: ["AND", "OR"] and focus on making one interface awesome.

It's just not possible to use a treeview with AND logic and have it not be completely jarring in use.  Each time you change a criteria, some or potentially all of the tree branches below will have to be modified or completely removed.  It just won't work well.

- [F15] Ability to search for field name in dropdown menu.

Please describe this in more detail?  I know of no way to make a popup menu have a search field in it.

- [F16] Ability to add / remove fields in dropdown menu.

If we add the other customization (F11) after initial release we could likely implement this as well.

Thanks for all of the suggestions and feedback.

-Kirk

Offline Ethan Welty

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Re: User report (long list of feature requests)
« Reply #3 on: June 25, 2020, 03:50:23 PM »
- [F5] Ability to filter by Catalog membership.

Please explain this feature in more detail.  How would the UI work?

Contact sheets have a dropdown for [All, Selected, Tagged, Untagged]. Meanwhile, you have added empty or green circles to indicate whether an image is in a catalog. So a simple UI to filter by catalog membership would be to add the following options to the existing dropdown: [Cataloged, Uncataloged] (or equivalent). A "Sort by {incatalog}" could also be added to the other dropdown.


- [F10] Fully expand / collapse all or a category of fields.

Hold down the shift key when expanding and all children will be expanded.

That helps. However, there seems to be a bug: shift-click when another field is selected leads to all the fields between the selected one and the clicked one to become selected. This behavior should NOT be triggered when clicking on the expansion icon.


- [F7] In presence of multiple catalogues, allow user to control which catalogue.
- [F9] If selected images are present in multiple catalogues, allow user to control which catalogue to remove them from.

You can already control this either in the Organizer's Active Catalogs area or the Catalog Management window (uncheck the Add/Modify check boxes of those catalogs that you don't want your images added into.)

I see, that was not clear to me. Consider renaming "Include items in Catalog" and "Remove items from Catalog" to "... Catalogs" when multiple catalogs have "Add/Modify" checked, and graying out these options when no catalogs have "Add/Modify" checked.


- [F12] Make the list easier to parse visually. Currently, the field names and their values have the same appearance, making it hard to distinguish between them.

How do you suggest we do this?  Making the labels bold or italics will hurt readability.  Changing colors can be garish or cause problems for individuals that have color blindness.  Isn't the presence/lack of the bar graphs with the item counts enough to distinguish them?

The absence/presence of the bar graphs certainly helps. Let's put this one on the backburner, not a high priority ;)


- [F13] Ability to edit image metadata by drag and drop selection onto field value in Browser tab.

We would like to implement the ability to add/remove metadata from selected images, but it will be done with a contextual menu and not drag and drop.

Alright, but however you choose to implement this feature, consider making it easier to select from values already present in the catalog(s). Perhaps an autocomplete searchable dropdown of existing values to choose from, which also allows a new value (e.g. https://select2.org/tagging).


- [F14] Why have a completely separate Filter tab to do AND operations instead of OR? Why not just add a simple switch to the Browse tab: ["AND", "OR"] and focus on making one interface awesome.

It's just not possible to use a treeview with AND logic and have it not be completely jarring in use.  Each time you change a criteria, some or potentially all of the tree branches below will have to be modified or completely removed.  It just won't work well.

I don't agree. Say there is an [OR/AND] toggle at top. When OR is selected, it works the way Browse works now. When AND is selected, the only catch is that you would not want to select multiple values of a single-value field (e.g. [Tagged: true] AND [Tagged: false] will always return an empty set). To help avoid this, alternates can be greyed out when one is already selected (e.g. [Tagged: false] greyed out when [Tagged: true] selected). When toggling from OR to AND with alternates selected (the only situation where toggling will definitely lead to an empty result), these can be highlighted in red to draw the user's attention. Nested fields like Folder Path or Capture Time could operate similarly. If Photos/A/... is selected, Photos/B/... would be greyed out. And so on. Of course, there is always the option to [Clear] and start over rather than toggling directly between OR and AND. Which is what we currently have, in clunkier form, with the disjoint Browse and Filter tabs.

By "focus on making one interface awesome", I mean things like:
- Record, browse, and reuse all past search/filter/browse queries.
- Save/delete queries for later reuse.
- Ability to (alt)-drag/drop images onto field values in tree.
- Display selected field values above full tree for summary view and easy removal.
- Ability to search and select field values in autocomplete style dropdown: For example, I should be able to type "Tag", have [Tagged: true] and [Tagged: false] (or Tagged: [true] and [false]) appear, select [Tagged: true] with arrow keys, and with enter add it to my list of filters. Repeating those steps could remove it from the filters list.


- [F15] Ability to search for field name in dropdown menu.

Please describe this in more detail?  I know of no way to make a popup menu have a search field in it.

This is a pretty common interface design (either dropdown with a search field, or more commonly, search field with a dropdown). The tip of the iceberg (from the web side of things): https://select2.org/dropdown, https://select2.org/tagging, https://semantic-ui.com/modules/dropdown.html. I simply shouldn't need to know that e.g. Copyright is under IPTC > Artwork or Objects > Copyright.

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Re: User report (long list of feature requests)
« Reply #4 on: June 25, 2020, 04:59:42 PM »
Ethan,

- [F13] Ability to edit image metadata by drag and drop selection onto field value in Browser tab.

We would like to implement the ability to add/remove metadata from selected images, but it will be done with a contextual menu and not drag and drop.

Alright, but however you choose to implement this feature, consider making it easier to select from values already present in the catalog(s). Perhaps an autocomplete searchable dropdown of existing values to choose from, which also allows a new value (e.g. https://select2.org/tagging).

How were you going to find values when using drag and drop?

-Kirk

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Re: User report (long list of feature requests)
« Reply #5 on: June 25, 2020, 05:02:42 PM »
Ethan,

- [F15] Ability to search for field name in dropdown menu.

Please describe this in more detail?  I know of no way to make a popup menu have a search field in it.

This is a pretty common interface design (either dropdown with a search field, or more commonly, search field with a dropdown). The tip of the iceberg (from the web side of things): https://select2.org/dropdown, https://select2.org/tagging, https://semantic-ui.com/modules/dropdown.html. I simply shouldn't need to know that e.g. Copyright is under IPTC > Artwork or Objects > Copyright.

We only have UI widgets that are supplied by the framework that we're using.  I can't create a search field in a popup menu.

And the copyright you're likely looking for isn't the Artwork or Object Copyright.  It's more simply IPTC->Copyright.

Artwork or Object is very rarely used (in our experience.)

-Kirk

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Re: User report (long list of feature requests)
« Reply #6 on: June 25, 2020, 05:10:25 PM »
Ethan,

- [F14] Why have a completely separate Filter tab to do AND operations instead of OR? Why not just add a simple switch to the Browse tab: ["AND", "OR"] and focus on making one interface awesome.

It's just not possible to use a treeview with AND logic and have it not be completely jarring in use.  Each time you change a criteria, some or potentially all of the tree branches below will have to be modified or completely removed.  It just won't work well.

I don't agree. Say there is an [OR/AND] toggle at top. When OR is selected, it works the way Browse works now. When AND is selected, the only catch is that you would not want to select multiple values of a single-value field (e.g. [Tagged: true] AND [Tagged: false] will always return an empty set). To help avoid this, alternates can be greyed out when one is already selected (e.g. [Tagged: false] greyed out when [Tagged: true] selected). When toggling from OR to AND with alternates selected (the only situation where toggling will definitely lead to an empty result), these can be highlighted in red to draw the user's attention. Nested fields like Folder Path or Capture Time could operate similarly. If Photos/A/... is selected, Photos/B/... would be greyed out. And so on. Of course, there is always the option to [Clear] and start over rather than toggling directly between OR and AND. Which is what we currently have, in clunkier form, with the disjoint Browse and Filter tabs.

While I suppose what you're describing can work, we just don't have the time or inclination to completely change things at this point.  We have to finish the project and make it for sale sometime soon or we're going to have a number of unhappy people.  Had we discussed this a little more than a year ago then perhaps things could have been different.

By "focus on making one interface awesome", I mean things like:
- Record, browse, and reuse all past search/filter/browse queries.

We have snapshots that record and restore settings for searches and filters.  The button looks like an asterisk on macOS.

- Save/delete queries for later reuse.

Snapshots should suffice, no?

- Ability to (alt)-drag/drop images onto field values in tree.

Drag and drop just isn't possible due to insurmountable technical difficulties.

- Display selected field values above full tree for summary view and easy removal.

Please elaborate.  This would be a set of 'tokens' that could be deleted one by one?

- Ability to search and select field values in autocomplete style dropdown: For example, I should be able to type "Tag", have [Tagged: true] and [Tagged: false] (or Tagged: [true] and [false]) appear, select [Tagged: true] with arrow keys, and with enter add it to my list of filters. Repeating those steps could remove it from the filters list.

We probably won't be doing that.

-Kirk

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Re: User report (long list of feature requests)
« Reply #7 on: June 25, 2020, 10:34:59 PM »
Bonjour

Ethan say :
 "Contact sheets have a dropdown for [All, Selected, Tagged, Untagged]. Meanwhile, you have added empty or green circles to indicate whether an image is in a catalog. So a simple UI to filter by catalog membership would be to add the following options to the existing dropdown: [Cataloged, Uncataloged] (or equivalent). A "Sort by {incatalog}" could also be added to the other dropdown."


I feel it is necessary !

Why no answer for my post in French section ?
Soizic (France)
MacBook Pro M1,Ventura, PM+ à jour, deepl translator

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Re: User report (long list of feature requests)
« Reply #8 on: June 25, 2020, 11:15:56 PM »
Bonjour

Ethan say :
 "Contact sheets have a dropdown for [All, Selected, Tagged, Untagged]. Meanwhile, you have added empty or green circles to indicate whether an image is in a catalog. So a simple UI to filter by catalog membership would be to add the following options to the existing dropdown: [Cataloged, Uncataloged] (or equivalent). A "Sort by {incatalog}" could also be added to the other dropdown."


I feel it is necessary !

Why no answer for my post in French section ?

I don't speak French.  If you want direct help from me, please post here in English.  My hope for the French boards was that other forum members that speak French would help answer questions.

-Kirk

Offline Ethan Welty

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Re: User report (long list of feature requests)
« Reply #9 on: July 06, 2020, 04:46:26 PM »
Ethan,

- [F13] Ability to edit image metadata by drag and drop selection onto field value in Browser tab.

We would like to implement the ability to add/remove metadata from selected images, but it will be done with a contextual menu and not drag and drop.

Alright, but however you choose to implement this feature, consider making it easier to select from values already present in the catalog(s). Perhaps an autocomplete searchable dropdown of existing values to choose from, which also allows a new value (e.g. https://select2.org/tagging).

How were you going to find values when using drag and drop?

-Kirk

By dragging onto the Browse tree, which by definition displays only the values already present in the catalog. An autocompleting input field has the potential of being much faster than drag-and-drop, of course, and a very worthy alternative UI design.

Offline Ethan Welty

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Re: User report (long list of feature requests)
« Reply #10 on: July 06, 2020, 05:01:38 PM »
- Record, browse, and reuse all past search/filter/browse queries.
- Save/delete queries for later reuse.

We have snapshots that record and restore settings for searches and filters.  The button looks like an asterisk on macOS.
Snapshots should suffice, no?

Maybe. It isn't available on the Browse tab, just Search and Filter, and snapshots for each are kept in separate lists, even though they all boil down to search queries. Was my snapshot under Search or Filter or ... ? Also snapshots require a name and only appear with this name, rather than the query. So they have a high overhead for use and will quickly become difficult to parse once many of them exist.

Also, some possible bugs:
- "Manage Snapshots" in Search and Filter only opened a dialogue when there was no snapshot. After creating one, it stopped opening anything.
- Clicking on a snapshot in Search fills the search box but does not open the result.

- Display selected field values above full tree for summary view and easy removal.

Please elaborate. This would be a set of 'tokens' that could be deleted one by one?

Yes, that's what I have in mind. An alternative to having to scroll through the full tree to find selected field values.

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Re: User report (long list of feature requests)
« Reply #11 on: July 06, 2020, 09:29:48 PM »
Ethan,

Also, some possible bugs:
- "Manage Snapshots" in Search and Filter only opened a dialogue when there was no snapshot. After creating one, it stopped opening anything.

What did this dialog look like?  Please post a screenshot if you can.

- Clicking on a snapshot in Search fills the search box but does not open the result.

True.  It restores the text you entered.  Press enter to invoke it.  We could change the behavior to automatically invoke it, but at this time we think it is better to restore the value and let you edit if needed before issuing the query.  If enough people say they would rather have it invoke immediately, it's easy enough to change.

-Kirk

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Re: User report (long list of feature requests)
« Reply #12 on: July 07, 2020, 07:54:00 AM »
Also, some possible bugs:
- "Manage Snapshots" in Search and Filter only opened a dialogue when there was no snapshot. After creating one, it stopped opening anything.

What did this dialog look like?  Please post a screenshot if you can.

I don't really remember, but it looked like it was intended to "Manage Snapshots". I can't post a screenshot because it won't open again.

- Clicking on a snapshot in Search fills the search box but does not open the result.

True.  It restores the text you entered.  Press enter to invoke it.  We could change the behavior to automatically invoke it, but at this time we think it is better to restore the value and let you edit if needed before issuing the query.  If enough people say they would rather have it invoke immediately, it's easy enough to change.

I found it confusing because the Filter snapshot behavior was to immediately open the result. With multiple interfaces with large feature overlap (Search, Browse, Filter), I think consistency will be key.

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Re: User report (long list of feature requests)
« Reply #13 on: July 07, 2020, 10:05:48 AM »
- Clicking on a snapshot in Search fills the search box but does not open the result.

True.  It restores the text you entered.  Press enter to invoke it.  We could change the behavior to automatically invoke it, but at this time we think it is better to restore the value and let you edit if needed before issuing the query.  If enough people say they would rather have it invoke immediately, it's easy enough to change.

I found it confusing because the Filter snapshot behavior was to immediately open the result. With multiple interfaces with large feature overlap (Search, Browse, Filter), I think consistency will be key.

Agreed.

-Kirk