I wouldn't call it a bug, exactly. A bug is when something isn't working as intended. This is working as intended.
Well, I won't disagree too stronly with this, as it was my first thought, too. But I think it's a fair statement to say that if it is a "feature", it breaks its own paradigm.
To expalin further, I think there's a problem with the way MC tries to do both searches and tags with the current interface. The whole point behind tagging images with the GUI is that you can see all the tags available. This is clearly not possible. The problem starts with restrictions based on hierarchies.
Arguably, restrictions (filters) make sense when searching hierarchies. If you're using Series/Season/Episode columns, it's clear that there's no need to see extraneous tags (well, with searching, perhaps we should consider them fields). But this breaks down with non-hierarchical columns such as People/Places/Events.
And I don't think tags should ever filter.
But I'm not all critical without some suggestions for a solution. Here's what I recommend... even if some of it has been said before:
In
mixed tag/search mode (which doesn't exist except in my own mind) why not separate the "tag" graphic and the name? Clicking on the name would perform a search... this would be especially useful if you present the <all> tag like in the original version of view schemes. In this way, the current default of showing only applicable tags could be shortcircuited with a simple click on the <all> tag.
In
search mode, implement an AND and OR search much like APA does. MC already does OR by holding CLTR or SHIFT when clicking on additional fields. Here's a screenshot of APA to explain better:
When clicking on the tags, the results are grouped in "Matching" (AND), "Closely Matching" (OR), and "Not Matching" (not OR). If there are no matches in AND, there is no "Matching" group.
Remember that APA doesn't do a "tag" GUI in the sense that MC does... instead, the tags are dragged to the photo thumbnail.
In
tag mode don't allow any further search restrictions (like mentioned above in mixed mode) and don't filter any of the tags. As Nila has pointed out, it is very difficult (verging on impossible) to use MC to refine tags.
In conclusion, I think MC still has room for improvement with photo management - but it's getting close to being an acceptable replacement for something like APA. Nonetheless, it should really do the most common stuff (searching and tagging) as well as others. After all, isn't media file organization MC's claim to fame?
Scott-