Some controversial tagging/editing changes were made late in MC15's evolution, which switched default tag editing behavior to searching for tags, then presenting small subsets, with more actions needed to see a larger selection, ultimately requiring more typing/mousing to get to the desired tags. Overlaying these actions on keystrokes also added steps to field/tag navigation.
There was a BIG discussion about the changes, such as
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=60366.0. In summary, some users (including me) find the keyboard much faster than mousing, know exactly what tags we use so no need to be searching for anything, and just want to efficiently select and apply desired tags. (Pane tagging was/is not a useful alternative when there are many fields, and many, many tags in most fields, plus it's not keyboard efficient either.) I realize that this "problem" might mean little or nothing to some users, but as the old discussions show, for some of us it is a really BIG PROBLEM.
The switch to forced searching essentially broke the product for my primary use. I spend 90% of my MC time tagging/managing a huge music library -- two-dozens tags/fields per track, dozens to hundreds of tags for some fields -- so every hand move and keystroke counts. My solution is to run MC 15.0.122 on my music editing PC; this seems to be the last version with the original efficient tag editing behavior.
(My music playback PC runs an even-older MC15 because I prefer the display mode that uses ActiveX visualizations, but that's not a show stopper.)
During the controversy (and still NOW) I wished for TWO tagging/editing modes, one that does new-style searching for those users it helps, but ALSO retaining the original super-fast straight-line keyboard field editing and navigation mode. It seems unnecessary to discard a superior feature of MC. Maybe the two editing modes could be on Function keys to be invoked as desired, and/or allow the user to set which mode is the default behavior. If MC17 could restore its lost editing efficiency I'd happily give up on MC15.
To avoid flames about not keeping up, please note that I've used the product since MJ7, I'm paid up through MC17, and I've been using MC16 for photo and video library management. With far fewer tags to manage for photos and videos, the search-style edit mode isn't as annoying, though I still find it clumsy and slow. And for photos I sometimes use pane-tagging, though that's also a tad clumsy with many, many tags (I always end up with many, many tags
).
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Topic: I'm Keeping MC12 Installed Just for This? (Read 2166 times)