XnView Software

Other software like ACDSee has both, categories and kewords.
And I like this concept better.
Why? Categories are more a general hirarchical structure vs. keywords that can be considered as associative content description.
Therfor categories often come in a tree layout with tedious way to search and add multiple categories, while adding keywords is normally a process by simply typing the keywords one by one into a field only seperated by comma or enter. Existing keywords will simply be recognised as I type and used and new keywords will be generated on the fly while typing.

Therfor I would be absolutely for adding keywords to XnviewMP for content description and hassle-free addition.

1. generates confusion (yes, I know from ACDSee & other packages)
2. slows down the DB quite a bit because the keywords are stored as text and not as reference. Even if they are stored as FKeys, because the keywords aren't constrained the foreign table will grow a lot.

IMHO a workflow improvement (yours?) is the way to go. For example you can add shortcuts to the most used categories.

Honestly I think it is more confusing the way it is now as they are neither tags nor categories. It's like not being fish or flesh.
A better overall implementation or a strict implementation of both would imho do much better.
Just one example: There is the setting to apply parent category automatically. For a hierarchical structure like categories very good. Vor non hierarchichal struture like tags it's very bad.
Once you have checked this setting and use it, if you change the hierarchy of your categories the files still remain having their old parent categories applied.
Tags should be something that are 'tagged' to a file while categories should be something where to 'place' the file. Like a container.
I think these are 2 different concepts that could work well together but not by mixing them up and making one acting like the other.
This does not work very well.

http://thepolymathlab.com/categories-and-tags-explained
http://forum.acdsee.com/forum/main-cate ... #post41741