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neroplatino
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Joined: 06 Jul 2017, 04:37

Tags - Categories and search

18 Jul 2017, 05:58

I miss the possibility to tag/categorize the images (assign tags/categories to the images from the backend and/or extract tags/categories from IPTC) and a search field where a user find the images.
Is there a plan to add this possibility in a future release?
This is because if I create a menu in the latest version of X3 with a categories submenu, the only way to categorize the images is to duplicate the same image in different folders.

Thanks
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Tags - Categories and search

18 Jul 2017, 23:59

I'll be honest with you here, one of the MAIN differences between X3 and many other websites (for example wordpress or even Flickr), is that images are stored and sorted physically into folders, instead of sorted in by tags/categories unrelated to any page. There are clear benefits of this in terms of simply creating pages and galleries for a website. With other websites, since images are not related to a page, you would have to "add gallery" to each page where you want a gallery to display.

Having said that, X3 is simply not the best platform if you need to create abstract galleries with categories and tags. This is one of the fundamental differences that will always be a feature of X3. If you want to have galleries from a single section displayed across multiple sections, your options are limited.
This is because if I create a menu in the latest version of X3 with a categories submenu, the only way to categorize the images is to duplicate the same image in different folders.
May I ask how you planned to implement galleries from one page into another using categories/tags?

There is already an option in page settings > gallery > assets, which allows you to assign a gallery from a different folder. In this way, you can add a gallery from a single page into other pages.
tag/categorize the images (assign tags/categories to the images from the backend and/or extract tags/categories from IPTC) and a search field where a user find the images.
In a future version, you will be able to TAG images. This will have TWO benefits: 1) It will be used for an upcoming "search" feature, and 2) There will be a "filter" plugin, which will allow the visitor to "filter" images in a single gallery based on tags. It is NOT a way to abstract images so you could for instance create a single gallery from images stored in dozens of pages with the same tag.

"Categories" is not be a feature.

We may explore new features in regards to your request. However, X3 is a mainly a platform for creating website pages/galleries, where images are physically linked to the page itself. Do you have an example of a system where you can insert multiple advanced galleries (X3 style) from other pages based on tags and/or categories? The best I can imagine, is perhaps Wordpress where you could insert a simple gallery directly into the "content" section based on tags.
 
hwilms
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Joined: 11 Aug 2018, 15:49

Re: Tags - Categories and search

20 Aug 2018, 06:57

There are other galleries that allow such features. They are using a database, e.g. MySQL, to manage metadata and define which photos are shown on a single page. This allows to define that all images tagged with #abstract are shown in a corresponding gallery. At the same time there can be galleries per year that are fetching the corresponding images (links to the images) from the same database.

There are pros and cons for both approaches and I am currently fine with a direct connection with images and a single page. In some cases I will have to duplicate images. Your feature of fetching images from a different gallery does not help, because in some cases you do not want to show all images from the other gallery.

Another issue is that you cannot define metadata for pictures in the gallery or define which metadata in the images shall be shown, e.g. the title of the image instead of its filename.
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Tags - Categories and search

20 Aug 2018, 09:48

hwilms wrote:There are other galleries that allow such features. They are using a database, e.g. MySQL, to manage metadata and define which photos are shown on a single page. This allows to define that all images tagged with #abstract are shown in a corresponding gallery. At the same time there can be galleries per year that are fetching the corresponding images (links to the images) from the same database.

There are pros and cons for both approaches and I am currently fine with a direct connection with images and a single page. In some cases I will have to duplicate images. Your feature of fetching images from a different gallery does not help, because in some cases you do not want to show all images from the other gallery.
I can only refer to my previous post in this topic. Indeed X3's approach is to have a direct connection with a FOLDER and the images uploaded to the folder. The idea is to keep a simple structure where a page is a page, and displays in the menu. Other systems, for instance Wordpress, you would first create a POST, then you would need to create an abstract menu item to link to the post, and then of course your galleries would have to be referenced by ID's (or tags) ... Three steps that X3 does in one logical step. This has been the concept of Imagevue/X3 from the very start, and many users enjoy the straight-forward idea that a page is a page and contains it's own images. Unfortunately, this does not make it suitable for cross-referencing images by tags across multiple pages.

Although we may consider improvements, that is how it currently works in X3. You can assign a page to read a gallery from another folder, but no you cannot assign a page to read galleries spread out in different folders across the entire content structure with a specific tag.
hwilms wrote:Another issue is that you cannot define metadata for pictures in the gallery or define which metadata in the images shall be shown, e.g. the title of the image instead of its filename.
I don't know what you mean. You can assign TITLE and DESCRIPTION for all images, and you can decide which of these items should display in a gallery layout and in which order. Where are you seeing image NAME instead of image TITLE? The idea of having a TITLE would be to NOT have to use the IMAGE NAME, which X3 would only use if TITLE is left empty.
Image
 
metallissimus
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Re: Tags - Categories and search

20 Feb 2020, 14:19

mjau-mjau wrote: In a future version, you will be able to TAG images. This will have TWO benefits: 1) It will be used for an upcoming "search" feature, and 2) There will be a "filter" plugin, which will allow the visitor to "filter" images in a single gallery based on tags.
Is this feature still in the making? If so, can you give a vague idea of when to expect it coming?
www.danielbollinger.de – corporate photography
hochzeiten.danielbollinger.de – wedding photography
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Tags - Categories and search

20 Feb 2020, 21:16

metallissimus wrote:
mjau-mjau wrote: In a future version, you will be able to TAG images. This will have TWO benefits: 1) It will be used for an upcoming "search" feature, and 2) There will be a "filter" plugin, which will allow the visitor to "filter" images in a single gallery based on tags.
Is this feature still in the making? If so, can you give a vague idea of when to expect it coming?
#1 probably, #2 definitely ... Not 100% sure if we will or will not use "tags" explicitly, or just rely on filename, title, IPTC keywords, but that is up for debate. I already have the FILTER function available in my new "Files" app, which is the fundament for the upcoming panel 2.0. See demo. Sorry I can't currently give any timelines, but filtering-per-gallery should be available after the summer.
 
metallissimus
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Re: Tags - Categories and search

21 Feb 2020, 06:31

mjau-mjau wrote:#1 probably, #2 definitely ... Not 100% sure if we will or will not use "tags" explicitly, or just rely on filename, title, IPTC keywords, but that is up for debate. I already have the FILTER function available in my new "Files" app, which is the fundament for the upcoming panel 2.0. See demo. Sorry I can't currently give any timelines, but filtering-per-gallery should be available after the summer.
I had already seen the demo but I can't find a filter option there, only sorting and different layouts.
www.danielbollinger.de – corporate photography
hochzeiten.danielbollinger.de – wedding photography
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Tags - Categories and search

21 Feb 2020, 23:15

metallissimus wrote:I had already seen the demo but I can't find a filter option there, only sorting and different layouts.
You don't see the large input search where you can filter all the items realtime??
Image

You can filter by file name, iptc title, iptc description, iptc keywords, and it will only show the items that matches your input. Or you can filter by extension (jpg,mp4,mp3,doc,pdf) or mime type (image/video etc). Or you can filter by features, for example iptc, gps, landscape, exif etc. Almost perfect filtering functionality. Perhaps you are expecting some kinda predefined "tags" to click? Pointless for this app at least, as there is no such concept as "predefined tags". Besides, you can use the filter input to search any combination of what you would have added to tags anyway. You want to add topic-like tags to all your photos, and then display all those tags as clickable items for each gallery? How many tags will you have? All galleries will include at least one item for each tag? Assuming you will assign many tags for each photo, which might mean nothing changes when clicking many tags (depending on your gallery). Sounds a bit dodgy to me, unless planned properly from the visitors perspective, and it provides nothing that input-filter cannot do.
 
metallissimus
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Re: Tags - Categories and search

25 Feb 2020, 05:42

mjau-mjau wrote: You don't see the large input search where you can filter all the items realtime??
Indeed I looked for something called "filter" and not for something called "search". And you're right in your assumption that I'd like to filter for predefined options. Especially so after now seeing it's realtime, that would be an amazing feature.
Sounds a bit dodgy to me, unless planned properly from the visitors perspective, and it provides nothing that input-filter cannot do.
Well, of course planning that out would be my first priority. And I have to disagree on that last part: It would provide guidance and clarity for the visitor. Also it's something visitors are accustomed to – almost every online shop has a vast array of predefined filtering options and it's something that's very common in photography portfolios, too (similiar to this plugin https://awplife.com/demo/portfolio-filt ... y-premium/).

The serach/filter seems to be already 90% of that feature, there's only some interface missing.
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Tags - Categories and search

25 Feb 2020, 07:49

You are right. It's not difficult to implement either, as it's part of the same plugin that handles live search/filtering and sorting.

The only thing I don't like, is that it requires a configuration system for TAGS, global AND on a per-page basis. Also, it's difficult to design. How many tags will users be adding? Some might have 3-4, in which case the tags can be big (like a menu), but some might have 10-20 tags, in which case they need to be much smaller. Tags need to functional on small (mobile) screens also. Anyway, just me thinking aloud  :thumbsup:
 
metallissimus
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Re: Tags - Categories and search

25 Feb 2020, 09:16

Maybe designwise you can "borrow" something from the carousel tabs (https://demo.photo.gallery/examples/fol ... usel-tabs/) for the tags. They look great and already are responsive.

A little thinking aloud from me, too, how I could imagine this to work from a user's perspective:
1. Assigning tags to images would happen in the gallery, alongside title, description etc.
2. Enabling tags filter would be an option in settings > gallery
3. There you could define the tags that should be available as option for this specific gallery the same way you now assign effects, captions etc. One important filter option is of course ALL, which doesn't filter anything.
4. Optionally there are some styling options for the tags like position, alignment, borders etc. and maybe animations/transitions.
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Tags - Categories and search

26 Feb 2020, 05:22

Indeed something like this. Keep in mind, the concept of "tags" in X3 is a new concept that has to be integrated properly. The first and currently ONLY usage of "tags" would be for live filtering. Not much more one could use tags for at this point, considering X3 is not a database application. Also, it could be an idea to fuse IPTC keywords with tags (or not). 
Optionally there are some styling options for the tags like position, alignment, borders etc. and maybe animations/transitions.
Wasn't quite sure what you meant here. I won't be adding tons of position/alignment/borders to settings for how something as simple as tags are to display. That would be over-complicating an already over-complicated panel. Custom styling can be applied per custom CSS, but a point in X3 is to pre-design elements.

As for animations and transitions, might work nicely in all the demos you have seen with less than 20 items. This is unproductive with larger galleries though. Also, animations won't just work nicely with all the different X3 layouts using Javascript. The far best and most effective solution, is CSS-only gallery layouts, and filtering without animations (as in our Files demo). This requires taking some time to rewrite the X3 gallery layouts. Are there any filter features like this in professional services like Flickr or 500px (etc) I wonder? It needs to be done properly if done at all.
 
metallissimus
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Re: Tags - Categories and search

26 Feb 2020, 06:53

mjau-mjau wrote: I won't be adding tons of position/alignment/borders to settings
I was just thinking of options that already there for similar features in X3. Like the carousel tabs that can be placed above/below the carousel, left/center/right alignment and maybe styles like the tabs (https://demo.photo.gallery/examples/features/sample/) have. A few simple choices to toggle in the settings.
As for animations and transitions, might work nicely in all the demos you have seen with less than 20 items. This is unproductive with larger galleries though.
I can see that and it's nothing I'd consider important.
It needs to be done properly if done at all.
Great mindset. I think it's something that really sets you and X3 apart from many other systems, who implement stuff just for the sake of having it on offer.
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Tags - Categories and search

26 Feb 2020, 09:50

All good, thanks for the feedback!