Tagging

Attach tags to images, and manage the tag dictionary.

Las etiquetas proporcionan un medio para agregar información a las imágenes mediante un diccionario de palabras clave. También puede administrar las etiquetas como un árbol jerárquico, lo que puede resultar útil cuando su número aumenta.

Tags are physically stored in XMP sidecar files as well as in Ansel’s library database and can be included in exported images.

In Ansel, attaching tags is also the way to build collections: a collection is the dynamically-queried set of all images sharing a given tag, always kept up to date. So the everyday job of this module — attaching a tag to images — is the same act as “putting images into a collection”. The tag dictionary itself (creating, renaming, deleting, importing and exporting tags) is a separate, occasional, housekeeping task and lives in its own window.

Definitions

Las siguientes definiciones asumen que ha configurado una sola etiqueta llamada “lugares|Francia|Norte|Lille “.

etiqueta

Una etiqueta es una cadena descriptiva que se puede adjuntar a una imagen. Una etiqueta puede ser un solo término o una secuencia de términos conectados que forman una ruta, separados por el símbolo de la pleca. Por ejemplo, “lugares|Francia|Norte|Lille “define una sola etiqueta, donde cada término de la ruta forma un subconjunto más pequeño de los anteriores. Puede adjuntar tantas etiquetas a una imagen como desee.

Puede asignar propiedades (nombre, privado, categoría, sinónimos y orden de las imágenes) a una etiqueta.

nodo

Cualquier ruta que forme parte de una etiqueta es un nodo. En el ejemplo anterior, “ lugares “,” lugares|Francia”, “ lugares|Francia|Norte"y"lugares|Francia|Norte|Lille`” son todos nodos. En la vista de árbol jerárquica, los nodos forman las ramas y hojas del árbol.

nodo libre

Cualquier nodo que no esté definido explícitamente como etiqueta se denomina nodo libre. En el ejemplo anterior, “lugares “,” lugares|Francia” y “lugares|Francia|Norte “son todos nodos libres. No puede establecer ninguna propiedad, excepto “nombre”, para un nodo libre y no puede agregar un nodo libre a una imagen. Consulte la sección “múltiples etiquetas” a continuación para obtener más información.

categoría

El usuario puede marcar cualquier etiqueta como una “categoría”.

Multiple tags

Las definiciones anteriores se consideran un ejemplo simple: una sola etiqueta y sus propiedades. En su lugar, considere el escenario en el que las siguientes cuatro etiquetas delimitadas por plecas se definen por separado en Ansel.

1lugares|Francia|Norte|Lille
2lugares|Francia|Norte
3lugares|Francia
4lugares|Inglaterra|Londres

In this case the nodes are

1lugares
2lugares|Francia
3lugares|Francia|Norte
4lugares|Francia|Norte|Lille
5lugares|Inglaterra
6lugares|Inglaterra|Londres

Los únicos nodos libres son “ lugares “y” lugares|Inglaterra”. Ambos de estos nodos libres también son (por implicación) categorías.

Puede adjuntar cualquiera de estas etiquetas a cualquier imagen. Cualquier etiqueta adjunta a una imagen, excepto las etiquetas de categoría, se puede incluir cuando esa imagen se [exporta] (./ export.md).

Si adjunta la etiqueta “lugares|Francia|Norte|Lille “a una imagen, las etiquetas” lugares|Francia|Norte” y “lugares|Francia “también se adjuntan implícitamente a esa imagen (no No es necesario adjuntarlos manualmente). Tenga en cuenta que esto solo es cierto aquí porque esas etiquetas adicionales se han definido por separado; el nodo “ lugares “no está incluido porque es un” nodo libre “(no una etiqueta).

Module layout

The tagging experience is split across two surfaces, matching the two distinct jobs of culling (fast, frequent) and dictionary maintenance (occasional):

flowchart TB
    subgraph Sidebar["Tags sidebar — lighttable / map (top to bottom)"]
        C["view (list/tree) · sort (name/count)"]
        B["Tag entry + ✓ validate button —
type or pick a tag, then Enter or ✓ to attach"]
        A["Attached tags list — tags on the hovered / selected
images, shown as a list or a tree, trash icon on each row"]
        D["☑ show system tags"]
    end
    M["module gear menu → “manage tags…”"]
    subgraph Popup["“manage tags…” window"]
        E["Tag dictionary — list / tree, multiple selection,
no per-image checkboxes"]
        F["search box · new · import… · export… · tree/list · suggestions"]
        G["suggestion settings: confidence · recent-tags count"]
    end
    M -->|opens| Popup

The sidebar toolbox (the Tags module in the left panel) is for the “one image → many tags” workflow: it shows the tags already on the current image and lets you attach more. The manage tags window is for the dictionary itself (create / rename / delete / import / export) and its suggestion settings. It never attaches anything to your images — it only edits the tags. Open it from the module’s gear (preset) menu → manage tags….

Sidebar toolbox

From top to bottom, the sidebar contains:

• Display controls — a row with two combo boxes:

  view

  Chooses how the attached list below is rendered: list shows each tag as its whole a|b|c path on one line; tree breaks the paths on the pipe | and shows them hierarchically, so common parents are grouped.

  sort

  Chooses whether to order the attached tags by name (alphabetically) or by count (how many of the targeted images carry each tag).

• Tag entry — a text box where you type or pick a tag to attach. As you type, an autocompletion list of matching existing tags appears below it; pick one with the arrow keys/mouse, or keep typing a brand-new name. A small clear (✕) icon inside the box empties it.

  validate — the check-mark button to the right of the entry attaches the typed (or picked) tag to the target images, exactly like pressing Enter. It is there so that, after choosing a tag from the autocompletion list with the mouse, you do not have to reach for the keyboard.

• Attached tags list — the tags attached to the image(s) currently under your mouse cursor (if hovering over an image in the lighttable), or to the currently selected image(s) (if not hovering). Each user tag row carries a trash icon on its right that detaches that single tag in one click. Automatically generated Ansel system tags (with names starting “Ansel|”) are shown for information only — only when show system tags is enabled — and have no trash icon. The number in brackets next to a tag indicates how many of the targeted images carry it. You can adjust the height of this list by holding Ctrl and scrolling with your mouse wheel. The list is rendered as a flat list or a hierarchical tree according to the view control above (see Detach tag for the right-click actions).

• show system tags — a checkbox at the bottom that reveals the system tags Ansel manages automatically (the Ansel|… family). They are hidden by default.

The manage tags window is opened from the module’s gear (preset) menu, not from the sidebar.

Manage tags window

Open this window from the module’s gear (preset) menu → manage tags…. It is a separate window dedicated to maintaining the dictionary, and contains:

• a search box at the top that filters the tag list as you type (its ✕ icon clears it);

• the tag dictionary, listing every tag known to Ansel, either as a flat list or as a hierarchical tree. Multiple tags can be selected at once (Ctrl-click / Shift-click) for bulk operations;

• a row of buttons:

  new

  Create a new tag using the name typed in the search box.

  import…

  Import tags from a Lightroom keyword file.

  export…

  Export the whole dictionary to a Lightroom keyword file.

  suggestions

  Show a list of suggested keywords based on the keywords already associated with the selected images (see the suggestion settings below). CAUTION: this view queries the database so it might be slow.

  list / tree

  Toggle the dictionary between the flat list view and the hierarchical tree view.

• the suggestion settings (formerly a separate preferences dialog), applied immediately:

  suggested tags level of confidence

  Level of confidence used to include a tag in the suggestions list (default 50):

  • 0: display all associated tags,

  • 99: match tags with a 99% confidence level,

  • 100: an essentially unreachable level of confidence, so no matching tags are returned. Use 100% to disable the best-matched suggestions list (faster).

  number of recently attached tags

  Number of recently attached tags to include in the suggestions list (default 20). A value of “-1” disables the most-recently-attached suggestions list.

In the hierarchical tree view, a name in italics represents either a free node or a category. You can adjust the height of the dictionary by holding Ctrl while scrolling with your mouse wheel.

All other dictionary operations (rename, change path, delete, “set as a tag”, navigation to a tag collection, …) are reached by right-clicking a tag — see Usage below.

Usage

Attach a tag

To attach an existing or new tag to the image(s) under the cursor (or, failing that, the selected images):

• Type its name in the sidebar tag entry — picking from the autocompletion list if it already exists — then press Enter or click the ✓ validate button. Hierarchical tags are created using the pipe symbol “|” to separate nodes. If the tag does not yet exist it is created, then attached.
• Press Ctrl+T to open a small text box at the bottom of the central lighttable view, type a tag name and press Enter. The tag is created if needed and attached to all the selected images.
• Drag an image or group of images from the lighttable/filmstrip and drop them onto a tag row in the collections tab of the Library module. This attaches that tag to the dragged images (no file is moved).

For a tag that is attached to only some of the targeted images (shown with a count lower than the number of images), right-click it in the attached list and choose attach tag to all to extend it to every targeted image.

When hovering over images in the lighttable you can check which tags are attached either in the attached list here, or in the tags attribute of the image information module.

Detach a tag

From the attached tags list in the sidebar:

• click the trash icon on the tag’s row to detach that one tag;
• double-click a tag to detach it;
• select one or several tags and press the Delete / Backspace key;
• select one or several tags, right-click, and choose detach tag(s) to detach them all in one go;
• right-click anywhere in the list (even on empty space) and choose detach all tags to remove every tag from the targeted images at once.

Create a tag

Hay varios modos de crear una nueva etiqueta:

• Type into the sidebar entry and press Enter (or ✓). The tag is created and attached to the target images in one step.
• Use “create tag…” in the dictionary’s right-click menu (manage tags window). The tag is created under the selected node (hierarchical) or at the root, and is not attached to any image.
• Use “set as a tag” in the right-click menu to turn a free node (e.g. “places|England”) into a real tag, so that it gets implicitly attached to all images carrying its sub-tags (e.g. “places|England|London”).
• Import a Lightroom keyword text file (the import… button). Existing tags are updated, new ones are created. You can export your tags, edit the file, and re-import it.
• Import already-tagged images. Tags found in imported images are added to the dictionary (no opportunity to rename or re-categorize them during import).

A number of tags are generated automatically by Ansel for certain actions — for example “Ansel|exported” and “Ansel|styles|your_style” identify images that have been exported or had a style applied.

Edit / rename a tag

In the manage tags window, right-click a single tag:

edit…

Change the tag’s name (you cannot move it to another node here — the pipe “|” is not allowed in this field), and set its private and category flags and its synonyms. The command is aborted if the new name already exists. These attributes are recorded in the XMP-dc Subject and XMP-lr Hierarchical Subject metadata. Which tags end up in exports is controlled in the export module.

• A tag set as “private” is, by default, not exported.

• A tag set as “category” is not exported in XMP-dc Subject, but is exported in XMP-lr Hierarchical Subject (which holds the organization of your tags).

• “synonyms” enrich the tag information and mainly assist search engines — e.g. “juvenile”, “kid” or “youth” as synonyms of “child”. They can also be used to translate tag names to other languages.

change path…

Available in tree view only. Lets you change the full path of a node, including the nodes it belongs to (use the pipe “|” to specify the hierarchy). The dialog shows how many tagged images would be impacted. This is powerful but can significantly rewrite your images’ metadata, so use it carefully. The operation is aborted if it would conflict with an existing tag.

A quick way to reorganize the structure is drag and drop of nodes in the tree view: drag any node and drop it onto another node to make it (and its descendants) a child of the target. Dragging over a node opens it automatically (drag over the node’s selection indicator to avoid opening it). Drop a node onto the top of the window to move it to the root level. Conflicting moves are aborted.

The “copy to entry” right-click item copies the selected tag into the search box, so you can tweak its name and use new to create a similar tag.

Delete a tag

Deleting a tag removes it from all images (selected or not) and from the database. Because this can impact many images, a confirmation dialog shows how many images are affected. Take this warning seriously — there is no undo (short of restoring your database and/or XMP sidecars from a backup).

In the manage tags window:

• right-click a tag and choose delete tag;
• select several tags (Ctrl-click / Shift-click) and right-click → delete tags to remove them all after a single confirmation;
• right-click a branch node and choose delete node to delete that node together with all its child tags.

Tags can also be deleted (and renamed) from the collections tab of the Library module.

Import / export

The import… button reads a text file in the Lightroom tag file format: existing tags are updated, missing ones are created. The export… button writes the entire dictionary to such a file. Round-tripping (export, edit, re-import) is a convenient way to bulk-edit tags.

Keyboard

• In the sidebar entry, Enter attaches the typed/picked tag (creating it if needed). Shift+Tab moves focus to the first user tag in the attached list.
• In the attached list, Tab returns focus to the entry; Delete / Backspace detaches the selected tag(s).
• In the manage tags window, the dictionary’s Left/Right arrows collapse/expand the selected node in tree view; Tab / Shift+Tab move focus to/from the search box.

Navigation

To see the images carrying a particular tag, right-click it in the manage tags window and choose go to tag collection. This opens a collection showing all images with that tag.

Choose go back to work from the same menu to return to the collection you had open before, as long as you have not selected another collection in the meantime.