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[EpF]

Coming very late to the Nesting party, I'm confused about a couple of things:

1 - How do I use the '=<expression>' formulation in the People field? I'm trying =Family/\[people], but it's not working.

2 - I read that List-Type fields are supposed to reorganise themselves alphabetically when edited, but that is not working for People either. Is there something I have to do to get it to work?

Thanks in advance!

[marko]

Howdee Doodee EpF, long time, no speak!

I'm assuming that you're selecting all the people you want in the "Family" branch, then trying to edit the [People] field for that selection...

If a picture only has one person tagged, then there's no semi-colon to key off, and if there's more than one person, then we have to deal with the first person, as well as the semi-colon delimited others that follow. I have not thought about the possibility of the added complexity of the possibility you have more than one person tagged in a photo, but only one of those is "Family"!!!

This operation has been further complicated by a recent change that adds spaces between delimited items. Try changing a photo list to details rather than thumbnails, and adding a [people] column to a file list.
Any time since the change that MC has updated the tags for a file, it will convert any lists to include the spaces, which means that you are most likely to have a combination of both in your library. Force the issue by selecting all files, add a bogus person, let the tags update, then remove the bogus person again.

Having done that, the following expression should work for "Family" people:
=Family\replace([people],; ,; Family\)

Expressions work on the raw list data, which in this case, is a string of names separated by "; " (a semi-colon and a space). We need to take each instance of that "; " and insert the "Family" nest in there.

The given expression will do just that, but by now, you should understand my misgivings regarding non-family members getting caught up in all of this.

See how bad it is, because if it's not all that bad, it's possible to drag and drop tags between branches when shown in a view pane, so maybe not too much hassle to fix any anomalies.
Try a couple before going wholesale, and if any unforeseen issues crop up, post back and we'll see if we can't iron them out as we go.

The "alphabetic" thing is even more recent, and I've not had a lot of time to work with it. My flimsy grasp was that they would stay alphabetical unless the order was changed by the user, at which point, all alphabetic ordering for that file would cease, and any new additions to the file tag would be appended to the end.
gappie is in on this one, up to his neck.... you there gapster? did I get that right?

-marko

[EpF]

Hey Marko! Sure has been a while - I knew I could count on you, though! I've tried your suggestion; actually, I was more or less on that track anyway, but it's not working as I expected.

Here's the 'people' list from a photo I'm trying to tag:
Robert Flood Sr.; Constance Murphy; Niamh Farrell; Adrienne Evans; Nicholas Flood Jr.

And here's what happens when I try to input your expression as a new 'person':
Robert Flood Sr.; Constance Murphy; Niamh Farrell; Adrienne Evans; Nicholas Flood Jr.; =Family\replace([people],; ,; Family\)

The '=' doesn't seem to be triggering whatever  special commands it should. I'm using v.143, by the way.

[gappie]

The "alphabetic" thing is even more recent, and I've not had a lot of time to work with it. My flimsy grasp was that they would stay alphabetical unless the order was changed by the user, at which point, all alphabetic ordering for that file would cease, and any new additions to the file tag would be appended to the end.
gappie is in on this one, up to his neck.... you there gapster? did I get that right?

yes.. that is how it works. before, mc ordered everything alphabetic when it was opened, now items are added alphabetic when the list is unsorted (=alphabetic in mc's). when you want to sort items for a file alphabetic, then you can rightclick in the tag window of the tag you want to order (or with inplace tagging) and choose 'sort all' to get them alphabetic.

 
gab

[EpF]

Eureka! I don't know if it's supposed to work any differently, but I was able to get the expression to work by right-clicking and using the text editor. Thanks Marko and Gappie!

By the way, Marko, how do you deal with the Family plus Friends issue with your system?

[gappie]

nice find EpF. didnt know that, had not tried an expression that way on list field for a while. ill need to remember that.

 
gab

[marko]

yes.. that is how it works. before, mc ordered everything alphabetic when it was opened, now items are added alphabetic when the list is unsorted (=alphabetic in mc's). when you want to sort items for a file alphabetic, then you can rightclick in the tag window of the tag you want to order (or with inplace tagging) and choose 'sort all' to get them alphabetic.

 
gab

Cheers gappie. I didn't know about the right click re-order options. Thanks for the clarification. I do 99.99% of my "list type" tagging in panes, rarely using the tag window.... All of these recent list changes happened while my PC was going through it's whole "whining" issue, and being bounced around the country for four weeks!! I'm only just getting things back to normal here!!

Eureka! I don't know if it's supposed to work any differently, but I was able to get the expression to work by right-clicking and using the text editor. Thanks Marko and Gappie!

I just tried this using the expression as given above in blue, and got some very bizarre results indeed!! The foolproof way to apply an expression like that to a list type field is to use in-place editing in a file list column. That way, the raw field data is replaced by the results of the expression.

By the way, Marko, how do you deal with the Family plus Friends issue with your system?

A long long time ago, I moved everything into the keywords field. I no longer use [people], [places], [events] etc. as they are all branches of my keywords tree. I can't remember all of the intricacies of arriving there, sorry.

I don't know how fat your people field is, but, consider adding each category of people you want. So, at it's most simple, Friends and Family. Find a photo that contains both, and and add Friends and Family tags to its people field. Now look at the people field in a pane. Forget about the file list, just concentrate on the pane itself. You can select all the "Family" names by ctrl+clicking and then drag and drop them onto the "Family" entry in the pane. You'll receive a warning, OK through that, and bob's yer uncle, that'll be your Family branch taken care of...

Would an approach like that work for you?

-marko.

[EpF]

I just tried this using the expression as given above in blue, and got some very bizarre results indeed!! The foolproof way to apply an expression like that to a list type field is to use in-place editing in a file list column. That way, the raw field data is replaced by the results of the expression.

Yes, I was coming back to say that my 'Eureka' was a bit premature! That method acutally only works on one file at a time, or multiple files that have exactly the same pre-existing lists; try it on 2 files that have different entries and weirdness ensues.

The problem is that I'm not having any luck with the list-column method. If I have my image file-list set to 'Details' and hit F2 on the 'People' entry for a file, I get a drop-down similar to the Action Window tagging interface. If I paste your expression in as a new entry, I just get:
Robert Flood Sr.; Constance Murphy; Niamh Farrell; Adrienne Evans; Nicholas Flood Jr.; =Family\replace([people],; ,; Family\)

A long long time ago, I moved everything into the keywords field. I no longer use [people], [places], [events] etc. as they are all branches of my keywords tree. I can't remember all of the intricacies of arriving there, sorry.

That's ok - Just curious.

I don't know how fat your people field is, but, consider adding each category of people you want. So, at it's most simple, Friends and Family. Find a photo that contains both, and and add Friends and Family tags to its people field. Now look at the people field in a pane. Forget about the file list, just concentrate on the pane itself. You can select all the "Family" names by ctrl+clicking and then drag and drop them onto the "Family" entry in the pane. You'll receive a warning, OK through that, and bob's yer uncle, that'll be your Family branch taken care of...

I've been trying that, and it's working pretty well, though ultimately I'd like to get the list-editing system to work. I'm just not a big fan of drag/drop. But for the moment at least it achieves what I want, so thanks for that!

[marko]

Jeez, you're right!! That's 'orrible...

Here's the work around...
Right click a list column header and choose "Add expression column"

Name the column something interesting, and the expression to use is simply [people] nothing more, nothing less. Once it's in, you should see the raw people data the way we used to it in the old days!! F2 on that, paste in the expression, and the real [people] field gets updated accordingly. Pretty neat, and what I was doing when testing before posting my answers to you above, only problem was, I didn't realise that's what I was doing as I used "a view I'd made earlier" where I'd called my expression column "People". DOH!

-marko.

[EpF]

That is neat! Nice one!