Lightroom - Dragging and Dropping Keywords Nightmare!

I finally decided to move all of my cataloged images from iView to LR. I had also already changed the hierarchy and many of the keywords in LR so many of my keywords imported from the iView images did not match up with them. So, I ended up having to drag and drop several of them into higher level keywords that I established in LR.

Now, I don't know if anyone else has tried this and had issues or not but for me it's been a nightmare. I'll drag a keyword and when I drop it I find that somewhere along the way it got dropped and another one altogether got picked up. Or, while traveling over other keywords another keyword was picked up and dragged somewhere in the list. Try finding some of those! I ended up having my Family category and Friends category move from under People and end up as children of the one of the folks I was trying to move into the Friends category. That was fun to resolve!!

Has anyone else had this issue? I've thought that it might have something to do with my wireless mouse but don't have a corded one at home to test this out.

I'd be looking at the mouse, from your description its losing the "click" part of the "click and drag"

I have dragged mine around quite a bit without any issues.

Thanks John - I'd rather have it be the mouse than LR! I'll see if I can grab a corded mouse tomorrow at work and give it a go.

The method LR has us do that is ridiculous...

I put in a feature request awhile back that they let us right click a keyword, and choose which other keyword to put it under (or to make it a parent keyword.)

The dragging and dropping, waiting for scrolling to get where its going is just dumb, and for 50+ keywords its unbearably frustrating. I STILL haven't gotten around to it, and honestly don't know if I ever will until they fix this.

Because (seriously) some of this should have been a no-brainer... hasn't any of them ever used MS Outlook and reorganized their folders... same concept. Plus, they could have taken ideas directly from Elements in regards to keywords too... but apparently they never used Photoshop Elements because they thought it was a toy.

Don't get me wrong, I like LR overall... but some of this basic functionality is frustratingly weak, especially for Adobe, and considering the price they ask.

Try this instead. Click the keyword you wish to move. Select all images under that keyword (CTRL + A). In the Keyword section of the RIGHT Panel change the keyword. For instance, if you had "Mike" and "Mike" was under "Friend" it would actually be "Mike > Friend". But if you wanted it under "Family" then change "Mike" to "Mike > Family".

I think, after reading this, I'm going to stick with Capture 1. What a nightmare!

liza wrote in post #3785400
I think, after reading this, I'm going to stick with Capture 1. What a nightmare!

LOL. There are some quirks but LR really is a fantastic program. Remember that Capture 1 has been around a while while LR is in its infancy (not even a year yet). It is different from other programs and once you get used to the interface, layout, and the tools it really is a joy to use.

In2Photos wrote in post #3785389
Try this instead. Click the keyword you wish to move. Select all images under that keyword (CTRL + A). In the Keyword section of the RIGHT Panel change the keyword. For instance, if you had "Mike" and "Mike" was under "Friend" it would actually be "Mike > Friend". But if you wanted it under "Family" then change "Mike" to "Mike > Family".

That's a good one, I'll keep in in mind, does it leave an empty Mike under Friend?

davidcrebelxt wrote in post #3785334
The method LR has us do that is ridiculous...

I wholeheartedly agree - it could be much simpler.

More likely, keywording was probably not as high on the agenda as getting the image processing correct. I'm hoping it will catch up with the rest of the product in future releases.

In2Photos wrote in post #3785389
Try this instead. Click the keyword you wish to move. Select all images under that keyword (CTRL + A). In the Keyword section of the RIGHT Panel change the keyword. For instance, if you had "Mike" and "Mike" was under "Friend" it would actually be "Mike > Friend". But if you wanted it under "Family" then change "Mike" to "Mike > Family".

Thanks for the suggestion; I'll give that a try also.

liza wrote in post #3785400
I think, after reading this, I'm going to stick with Capture 1. What a nightmare!

I agree with Mike. LR is a really good tool with some quirks that I have faith Adobe will straighten out as the product matures.

Hmmmm...... strange things going on here. When looking at many of my hierarchical keywords in the right panel, I no longer see the relationships; i.e. Rick > Family > People is now showing as individual keywords; Family, People, Rick. The hierarchy is maintained in the left panel though. I'm going to have to do more experimenting to see what is actually exported to XMP.

rfreschner wrote in post #3786362
More likely, keywording was probably not as high on the agenda as getting the image processing correct. I'm hoping it will catch up with the rest of the product in future releases.

You are correct, I'm sure... just my frustration is showing through after 6 months(?) of using LR.

I was hoping they could address some of those simpler issues in 1.1, but they didn't... and who knows if there will be a 1.2 before they ask us to pony up again? If it would have included the keywording abilities in beta4 or another beta release we could have given feedback on it before going to 1.0 when the code really code locked down.

As far as the panels... I think the right panel is just the 'quick keyword list' (don't remember proper term) for accessing your recently used or most often used keywords (you can use keypad to quickly access each of those nine keywords.) I believe they write the heirarchy to the metadata, just as the full list does on the left... but it probably is a good idea to test it.

davidcrebelxt wrote in post #3786698
You are correct, I'm sure... just my frustration is showing through after 6 months(?) of using LR.

I can certainly understand your frustration on this one. For me, it's not an easy decision to move things over from iView, which has been excellent, but I like the idea of having everything in one place.

Hopefully, they'll get this resolved at some point in the not too distant future.

jbimages wrote in post #3786275
That's a good one, I'll keep in in mind, does it leave an empty Mike under Friend?

Good question. I am not sure. I would think that it would so yu would then have to delete it under Friend.

rfreschner wrote in post #3786582
Hmmmm...... strange things going on here. When looking at many of my hierarchical keywords in the right panel, I no longer see the relationships; i.e. Rick > Family > People is now showing as individual keywords; Family, People, Rick. The hierarchy is maintained in the left panel though. I'm going to have to do more experimenting to see what is actually exported to XMP.

That is weird. If Rick is only under Family > People it should only say Rick and nothing else, unless of course you also have People and Family as kywords not associated with Rick.