Categories for folders possible?

[Mario]

The level is not enabled. At least one level must be enabled before you can save the changes.

[sinus]

The level is not enabled. At least one level must be enabled before you can save the changes.

Exactly.
I can remember, I struggled at the beginning also over (about?) this.
Then I checked it, the level must be enabled.
Roland, you will lern more and more and finally you will be almost a master! 

[rolandgifford]

Roland, you will lern more and more and finally you will be almost a master! 

I'm a long way off that in a lot of respects.

But life has taught me that I only get an answer if I ask first. Sometimes the answer is to a different, more useful, question to the one I thought I needed answering. This case is an example of that.

[Tveloso]

You must set Enabled to Yes, to activate the Preview an OK buttons.

[ubacher]

Reply to your question about creating Favorites-tabs for each processing category:

See the attached screen shot of a dummy setup.
The presence of a folder as a favorite under the named favorite tab shows its status.
When the folder no longer has this status you remove it from the favorites.
You can add a folder on more than one of the favorites tabs.

Clearer now?

[Tveloso]

I can remember, I struggled at the beginning also over (about?) this.
Then I checked it, the level must be enabled.
Roland, you will lern more and more and finally you will be almost a master! 

This happened to me as well...and here, I also didn't notice that this thread had gone to two pages, so I posted this:

You must set Enabled to Yes, to activate the Preview an OK buttons.

...long after the matter had been settled.  Sorry about that!

[Lord_Helmchen]

Using favorites for assigning my workflow steps could be a viable option. I have already have several favorites. I is there a way to have multiple favorite panels, so that there could be a dedicated one for workflow?

And is there a "Favorite Splasher" to assign a folder into several favorite sets when I added new folders?

[Mario]

I is there a way to have multiple favorite panels, so that there could be a dedicated one for workflow?

No. You can have multiple Favorite Sets to organize your favorites. And a Favorite Set can contain any number of Favorites. And you can make the Favorite Panel very big, dock it where you like, even move it to a second monitor.
You can associate keyboard shortcuts with Favorites so you can execute them without seeing them.

And is there a "Favorite Splasher" to assign a folder into several favorite sets when I added new folders? 

Does not compute...

[Lord_Helmchen]

I is there a way to have multiple favorite panels, so that there could be a dedicated one for workflow?

No. You can have multiple Favorite Sets to organize your favorites. And a Favorite Set can contain any number of Favorites. And you can make the Favorite Panel very big, dock it where you like, even move it to a second monitor.
You can associate keyboard shortcuts with Favorites so you can execute them without seeing them.

And is there a "Favorite Splasher" to assign a folder into several favorite sets when I added new folders?

Does not compute...

I don't understand what you mean.

[Mario]

"Does not compute": funny way to say "I don't understand".

Please explain again what you want to do with folders you add somewhere and several favorite sets.
You cannot drag a folder to multiple Favorite sets at the same time, if this is what you mean.
You can run multiple favorites via an Automation Favorite. If this is what you mean by "Favorite Splasher".

[Lord_Helmchen]

"Does not compute": funny way to say "I don't understand".

Please explain again what you want to do with folders you add somewhere and several favorite sets.
You cannot drag a folder to multiple Favorite sets at the same time, if this is what you mean.
You can run multiple favorites via an Automation Favorite. If this is what you mean by "Favorite Splasher".

Yes, that's what I meant. How can I drag a folder to multiple Favorite sets?

[Mario]

Yes, that's what I meant. How can I drag a folder to multiple Favorite sets?

As I said: you cannot.
Drag it to one set after another. You cannot drag folders, categories or other objects to multiple Favorite Sets at the same time.

[Lord_Helmchen]

Yes, that's what I meant. How can I drag a folder to multiple Favorite sets?

As I said: you cannot.
Drag it to one set after another. You cannot drag folders, categories or other objects to multiple Favorite Sets at the same time.

Sorry, I misunderstood you. That's a pity, because then I'd have to add e.g. 5 folders each to 7 favorites. This would result in a significant risk of forgetting to assign workflow steps.

I think I'll add a feature request with reference to this thread and see how many other users are interested in a solution.

[Mario]

I have never needed more than one Favorite for a folder. Why would you need 5 folders for 7 Favorites?
I mean, a folder favorite allows to you move/copy files to that folder. And, in a tertiary capacity, to go to the folder. Why do you need that more than once?

[Lord_Helmchen]

The idea was to use the favorites to assign the workflow tasks to a folder. As it could happen, that the steps will be done in different order. Therefore I need multiple favorites per folder (one per task).

[Mario]

This sounds rather special.
Feel free to open a feature request if you think that there are other users out there who would need such a thing.

Your workflow is quite special. Which is OK of course, to each its own etc.

In my experience, though, most users handle this with XMP labels (which were designed for this purpose) or a set of IMatch categories with appropriate assignment actions to automatically move files along the workflow stages implemented by these categories.

Both methods give the additional benefit of direct visual feedback in File Windows (label color or category color bar), easy filtering for files in specific workflow stages etc. Automatically.

[rolandgifford]

In my experience, though, most users handle this with XMP labels (which were designed for this purpose) or a set of IMatch categories with appropriate assignment actions to automatically move files along the workflow stages implemented by these categories.

I have always used labels, each label specifying a particular activity.

I'm also using bookmarks to help with one particular task. I have a number of video files with no GPS data. I have bookmarked all of those and can easily skip to the next bookmarked file. I then copy GPS data from a photo taken at the same place (there is almost always at least one) and I have correct GPS data for my videos.

[Lord_Helmchen]

I created a feature request in this thread.

If you think this would be good for your workflow please like that feature request.

[sinus]

In my workflow I mainly work based on folder level for the following tasks

• Culling (FastRawViewer)
• Face detection (IMatch)
• Content detection (Excire)
• Raw Development (PhotoLab)

Currently I assign categories for these tasks to the photos, but this doesn't fit good into my workflow, as this is photo bases and not folder based.

Is there a way, I could assign a folder to a category or something similar? Labels etc. won't work, as I may vary the order of the workflow steps.

One possibility could be, working with folder-thumbnails.
I would create some nice icons for me, what represent the different tasks.

Then I could add for folders these thumbs and I could see the state of each folder with ohne glimpse.

If I then a folder has a new state (like culling done), I would change the thumb, and the new state of this folder would be reflected.

Culling, raw developement and so on will take some time, then this 5 seconds to change a thumb should not be a problem.

I checked this here (well, at home with an old IMatch-version), works very good.

[Mario]

For users who don't know about the folder thumbnail feature: Folder Thumbnails

[stefanjan2]

One possibility could be, working with folder-thumbnails.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I think for me it would make it difficult to navigate the folders view. I currently work with the folders compacted like the attached.

Also while for me a linear workflow would probably be OK, Lord_Helmchen needs a concurrent workflow.

[Darius1968]

I still might not be fully comprehending Lord_Helmchen's need, and I hope any advice won't be off-base because of that. 

If there are given several workflow categories that he relies on for feedback about what folders still need work for said categor(y/ies), but his habits aren't as such that he follows each category consecutively, but rather, skips about here and there, then would the Value Filter Panel maybe be of some use to him in that he could set it to File Folder, thereby providing him a list of all the folders - that would update according to which category he is on - for which there are still files in that particular category that need addressed for that stage of the workflow? 

[Mario]

I've just made a suggestion in the feature request corresponding to this thread:

https://www.photools.com/community/index.php/topic,12960.msg91580/topicseen.html#msg91580

I guess it makes no sense to discuss the same thing in two threads.

[Lord_Helmchen]

One possibility could be, working with folder-thumbnails.
I would create some nice icons for me, what represent the different tasks.

Then I could add for folders these thumbs and I could see the state of each folder with ohne glimpse.

If I then a folder has a new state (like culling done), I would change the thumb, and the new state of this folder would be reflected.

Culling, raw developement and so on will take some time, then this 5 seconds to change a thumb should not be a problem.

I checked this here (well, at home with an old IMatch-version), works very good.

Thanks for your idea. But that won' help for not sequential processing of the workflow tasks. It's not necessary task 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It could be 1, 5, 3, 2, 4 or 1, 2, 5, 4, 3.

And I agree that it make no sense to discuss the same topic in two threads. For further ideas please use the Feature Request thread.