XnView Software

Please consider adding an additional ability to see the assigned categories for a selected image in a tab of the info panel. Ideally, I would use such a panel to assign categories as well as view them.

As an experiment I tried docking the Categories panel to the Info panel, hoping it would appear as a peer tab of Properties, EXIF, etc, but such luck.

Here is what I wish for:



If the selection consists of more than one image, then a symbol (such as a red checkmark) would be appropriate for those categories not shared by all images in the selection.

As always, thanks for listening!

Hi there,

I think categories has been moved off Info pane onto Data pane as part of UI development... it did use to be a tab on info pane, got there by mouse wheel.

It can now sit in same place as the Info pane -got to with a side tab - which seems to be about the same as as before - the mouse wheel can switch between them.

Also Categories Sets can be added as a tab too.

View > Data pane > check Categories... then drag it by its top bar to the right hand side, so it sits with info pane - but it might do that first time.

multiple files select: a category attached to some of them not all will be greyed out.

My request is for an additional panel specific to the Info container, not parallel to it.

Notice in your example that the categories tab is a peer of the Info tab, not a subordinate to it. This violates the logical structure of the image metadata. Categories are metadata peers of the IPTC, EXIF, etc. fields and subordinate to the abstract concept of Info.

Picture an entity-relationship diagram of image metadata with the key tuple belonging to the image entity and you may appreciate my perspective.

Another way to say this is that the division of the panels into the Data and Info groups is logically incorrect. The names themselves are an unfortunate choice, too. Databases 101: "Data" are w/o context, "Info" is Data w/context.

An accurate distinction between the panel groups would be along the lines of Navigation/Filter vs. Image/Info.

Categories belong to Info.

Their navigation and filtering is an entirely separate UI design issue. The removal of the category tree from the info panel overloads the category navigation UI inappropriately. It does not adequately distinguish the filter, navigation, assignment, and presentation aspects of user interaction with categories. IMO not an improvement but a step backward in utility (I think actually a retreat to the design of a previous version).

Also, from a purely practical point of view, toggling visibility of the Categories panel now takes an extra step and cannot be controlled via the single Info toolbar button as previously, but this would not be the case if the UI followed the logical metadata structure.

The categories interaction model has been an issue for XnView for many years and several approaches have been tried, AFAIK none successfully enough to satisfy a majority of users. I prefer the previous design, but could live with the new one if Categories was added back to Info where they belong.

well, I didn't say I agree with the development!

what would suite me, and perhaps not you, is Info able to pop-up as a wide dialogue window, shown/closed with a single hotkey ("i") I think like Irfanview has? Geeqie on Linux has it.

For me anyway I don't need info all the time and as a side pane, all the info is hidden as per file as well and needs scrolling to right.

But it wouldn't harm to have categories, category sets on same tab bar as info would it?

(my tabs size in pics is terrible)

Hi Orbspider

Sorry to come on so strong. It is just frustrating to have to revisit issues I thought long resolved. Feels like starting over.

MP has been making good strides toward correct UI design/behavior. This new approach to categories is a step off that path.

John, take care: The Categories Pane is now much much more than it used to be. The Assigned Categories for the Current Selection is only a very small part from the entire engine hidden there. If you want to see the Assigned Categories you are much better served by the Category Sets pane where you have in the 'Assigned' system set all the categories for the current selection, and not scattered in a category tree full of hundreds or thousands of categories and deep of many levels.

Working with Categories in the same screen real estate which I allocate for eg. Histogram or File Proprieties is either too small for Categories either too big for the other Panes.

That's why all the other DAMs (including Zoner ) - Lightroom, AfterShotPro, IDImager, PhotoSupreme, ACDSee have the Keywords/Categories pane separated from the Info pane, most of these programs exactly in the same manner in which Orbspider shown in his screenshot.

Here is a screenshot from Zoner Photo Studio: Red Circle - Info pane; Green Circle - Keywords pane.

Hi m.Th.

I disagree with almost all of your points and was going to address them individually but life beckons instead.

That's why all the other DAMs (including Zoner ) - Lightroom, AfterShotPro, IDImager, PhotoSupreme, ACDSee have the Keywords/Categories pane separated from the Info pane, most of these programs exactly in the same manner in which Orbspider shown in his screenshot.

This is exactly why I don't use those tools for image categorization (having spent good money on several of them). I really dislike Zoner 16's new UI direction, consider it a surrender to Adobe, and am very disappointed to find that very same UI-design "virus" has infected XnView.

MP Category functionality was close enough to correct design in 0.64 that I had finally begun to plan my image categorization project, willing to commit my 390 Gigs of images to the XnView Category "engine". Guess I'll postpone that one more time.

Pierre, please, please restore a Category assignment panel to the Info group!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi John,

I truly understand your right to have a different opinion.

I feel that there is a valid reason to have this UI "virus" and this not only because of my opinion, even if we have ~ 8 TB (8 Terrabytes) of photos (nearly 1 million of them) starting from 1870 (IOW forty years after photography's discovery) - yes, we hold the copyright for 99.99% of them and we have cataloged a part of them, we work on them from 10 years now - but because this is the market's general consensus. And I humbly think that there is a solid argument for this. See, everyone goes in this way. Sorry to say, but this means that you are a corner case. I'm pretty sympathetic to you - I know how it is, perhaps much better than you - but I think that it is really wrong to do a tradeoff, to impair the usage for everyone else (as the common experience in the area proves) just for a corner case.

See, we don't talk here between two new, untested roads. We talk between an old road which all other programs have - road which (at least AFAIK) did not raise problems with the huge user base which the other programs have - and your road which, at least IMHO, did not present any advantage.

This is discussion.

What I don't understand, tough, is why you cannot cope with the solution which Orbspider presented to you - which (again IMHO) is much more that satisfactory, in fact it is the same layout, just that you'll have now the 'Category' tab on the side.

Also, perhaps I should repeat, now there are better ways to see the assigned categories grouped together.

Hi m.Th.

It's very simple:

All I am asking is that some sort of category assignment panel be allowed to dock inside the Info group. That way the user can toggle visibility of ALL the metadata panels (including categories) with the one toolbar "Info visibility" button.



IMO the Category Sets panel should never be subordinate to (i.e. contained in/by) the Navigation (aka "Data") panel group. It has no navigation function, only assignment and presentation and therefore doesn't belong there. But regardless of that, where that panel goes should be up to the user, yes? I want it (or some sort of category assignment tool) inside the Info container.

With regard to the Category Sets panel itself:

Suffice it to say that horizontal rows of concatenated category words with no apparent organization do not an efficient UI make. The user will spend too much time scanning the lists looking for a word. Much faster to scan scrollable vertical lists with control over the sorting order. Sometimes screen real estate efficiency has to be subordinate to interaction efficiency.

I'll address improvements/redesign of the Category Sets panel in a separate post after I have made a mockup to illustrate my proposals.

No need for a separate "engine", just a better UI.

See Issue 375 for current status and details.

Thank you for addressing this, Pierre. I'll be pleased to accept whatever solution you decide.