Cleaning up Theasaurus

[voronwe]

Hi

For some strange reason (probably a setting), my Theasaurus for Keywords was filled with all keywords available in the DB when I updated the @Keywords in Kategory.
Because I'm in a big task to clean up my keywords, this is kind of contraproductive, because now I have all the keywords I want to get rid off in the Theasaurus.
So my questions are:

What do I have to set that the Theasaurus will not be updated with all existing keywords?

Is there a fast way to clean up the Theasaurus, e.g. by removing all keywords which have 0 entries in DB?

Greetings

Thorsten

[Mario]

The thesaurus does not change by itself. We are speaking about the Thesaurus, and not the @Keywords category, right?

If you enable the corresponding option, new keywords you add in the Keywords Panel will be added to the Thesaurus.
There is also an import command which allows you to fill the Thesaurus from all keywords in your database.
I don't recall any other way to accidentally fill the thesaurus.

There are no features to programmatically remove entries from the Thesaurus.

The @Keywords category always represents all keywords in your database.
Unless you enable the option to not keep empty categories, categories which previously had files assigned but not longer remain in @Keywords.

[voronwe]

The thesaurus does not change by itself. We are speaking about the Thesaurus, and not the @Keywords category, right?

If you enable the corresponding option, new keywords you add in the Keywords Panel will be added to the Thesaurus.
There is also an import command which allows you to fill the Thesaurus from all keywords in your database.

Maybe something like this happened, I at least switched off the corresponding option. I think it is "Neue Schlüsselwörter in Theasaurus einfügen" in "Schlüsselwörter -> Konfigurieren"

There are no features to programmatically remove entries from the Thesaurus.

Sounds like a long evening of cleaning.    I think I will wait for IMatch 2021 for this, it sounds like the work will be easier there.

[Germ]

I think this can be done quickly:
- open the thesaurus manager (by clicking the AZ book icon in the Keywords Panel.
- Klick the import or export thesaurus data button
   . klick export thesaurus to make a backup of present data
- after making a backup: select the keywords item
- hit the delete key and confirm by clicking the yes button.
Now the thesaurus is empty.
- Klick the import or export thesaurus data button
- klick import from database

Now all entries in the thesasurus are in sync with your keywords.

Kind regards from Holland
Germie

[Mario]

I thought the OP tried to not have all keywords in the database also in the thesaurus...?

[Germ]

Hi Mario,

Sorry if I did not understand the question correctly.
The question was "Is there a fast way to clean up the Theasaurus, e.g. by removing all keywords which have 0 entries in DB?"
That can be done as I described as long as orphaned keywords (with no entries) are removed from the database.

[Mario]

This is correct. Your procedure will fill the thesaurus only with all keywords appearing in the database.

The OP said:

For some strange reason (probably a setting), my Theasaurus for Keywords was filled with all keywords available in the DB

which makes me think that he does not want all keywords in the Thesaurus, but somehow managed to do that, basically flooding his thesaurus with keywords he does not want.

[voronwe]

I thought the OP tried to not have all keywords in the database also in the thesaurus...?

This is right. There are currently to many keywords in the Theasaurus, a mixture of old keywords and a new keyword-structure.

- Klick the import or export thesaurus data button
- klick import from database

Now all entries in the thesasurus are in sync with your keywords.

This is the description how the mess started 

[Germ]

Is there a particulart reason to keep all the empty keywords in your database?

[voronwe]

Is there a particulart reason to keep all the empty keywords in your database?

You misunderstood: They are not empty, they are just old. I'm talking here about pictures from 2004, where I started scanning my negatives. At that time I used ACDSee for Image controlling and had no idea of hirachical keywords. And some of the keywords are a mess, e.g. a lot of placesnames are in there, which are not needed, because they are in the Location-Data. Also, I had some streetnames as keywords, where the Housenumber appears now as seperate keyword - No need for this at all.
When they are empty they will be gone anyway from the @Keywords Category. -> This cleaning up is what I'm currently doing.
My problem is only, that they are now in @Keywords and accidently went to the Theasaurus, where they are unwanted and unneeded.

[Mario]

Do you have a backup of that database from before this accident?

In that case, open that database in IMatch via Database menu > Open.
Open the Thesaurus Manager and export it to a file on your disk.

Switch back to the current database and re-import the thesaurus. This resets it back to what is was before.

Exporting Thesaurus Data

[Germ]

Very similar to my road. My keywords were a total mess.
I ended up building a new keyword hyarachy and then moving the files from the old keyword to the new one.
Removing the keywords that were left empty or the informatio that I would not need at all.
Updating the thesaurus came only after I completed this task.

For instance if I had two keywords like Insects|greta oto and Insects|glasvleugelvlinder (wich is one and the same type of butterfly), I would create a new keyword: Fauna|Insects|Butterflies|Glasvleugelvlinder (Greta oto) and select all items assigned to both old keywords and drag them to the new one.

Or -alternatively- I would drag the old keyword to its correct position in the new structure (and if neccessary update its name) if that is quicker.

This would give you a clear insight of what is in the old, and what is in the new structure.

After that I would clean up unused keywords and build a new thesaurus.

Does that make any sense to you?