@Joanna keywords are not being recorded at all unless the Mac DxPL works very differently to the Win 10 version. There is no notion of ‘dc’ or ‘hr’ in the Win 10 database. There is no notion of hierachical keywords being stored in a particularly searchable way!
All keywords are stored as simple keywords, i.e. any hierarchical structure is gone (except that it can be reconstructed by following the pointers). The search is of a table of “simple”/“flattened” keywords in the ‘Keywords’ structure (I believe it can’t really be of anything else) and when a match is located in that structure the ‘KeywordId’ is used to see if the keyword is actually in-use and if so by what image(s).
But (on Win 10) the entries in ‘ItemsKeywords’ (which links a ‘KeywordId’ to an ‘Items’ id) are only populated for keywords that have been “assigned” and "the Win 10 default setting** is that “only” the “leaf” item is assigned (selected), I believe that the default on Mac is that all items are assigned (selected), i.e. for Win 10 I have the following
so for the keyword “animals|mammals|bear|black bear” there will be 4 entries in the ‘Keywords’ Table, one for each simple keyword in the hierarchy but only one entry in the ‘ItemsKeywords’ Table for the “black bear” keyword which has been assigned by default.
BUT it turns out (something I did not appreciate when I started this topic) that the assignment not only controls what may or, mostly @sgospodarenko, may not be turned up by a search but also the contents of the keywords inserted in the metadata of an exported image and/or the original image. The “subtlety” of this element of the assignment had been completely lost on me, mainly because I left things as they were created by PL5.
So we have in tortuous detail the related snapshots for the following tests scenario:-
- Clear database again!!
- Select two RAWs and place in a directory and open PL5 and navigate to that directory.
- Enter “animals|mammals|bear|black bear” into the keywords for photo 1 and assign all keywords.
- Enter “animals|mammals|bear|black bear” into the keywords for photo 2 and retain the default assignment.
- Undertake searches for “animals”, “mammals” “bear” and “black bear”
- Export both photos and compare keywords with Capture One metadata for the same hierarchical keyword.
- Retire from testing because it is excruciatingly repetitive and I need to get a life!
Photo 1 - with all keywords marked as “assigned”:-
Photo 2 - with the default Windows 10 DxPL assignment:-
Photo 3 - Search for “animals”:-
Photo 4 - Search for “mammals”:-
Photo 5 - Search for “bear”:-
Photo 6 - Search for “black bear”:-
Reconstructing Hierarchical Keywords from ‘Keywords’:-
black bear (5) < bear (4) <mammals (2) < animals (1)
black bear (3) <mammals (2) < animals (1) (this exists because of my attempt to solve a typo!?)
“Reconstructing an “animals” search”:-
- “animals” located at (1) in ‘Keywords’
- Locate “KeywordId”=1 in ‘ItemsKeywords’ and this returns ‘ItemsId’=1, i.e. active count of 1
Reconstructing a “mammals” search:-
- “mammals” located at (2) in ‘Keywords’
- Locate “KeywordId”=2 in ‘ItemsKeywords’ and this returns ‘ItemsId’=1, i.e. active count of 1
Reconstructing a “bear” search:-
- “bear” located at (4) in ‘Keywords’
- Locate “KeywordId”=4 in ‘ItemsKeywords’ and this returns ‘ItemsId’=1, i.e. active count of 1
Reconstructing " black bear" search:-
- “black bear” located at (3) in ‘Keywords’ and at (5)
- Locate “KeywordId”=3 in ‘ItemsKeywords’ and this returns not found (keyword not in use)
- Locate “KeywordId”=5 in ‘ItemsKeywords’ and this returns ‘ItemsId’=1 and =2, i.e. active count of 2 (1 assignment for image 1 and 1 assignment for image 2)
But both keywords in images 1 and 2 are identical so why the difference in search “discovery”? This difference is caused by the assignment check box - incorrectly I believe @sgospodarenko!
The assignment then goes on to determine (poulate) the keywords of the exported image!
Photo 7 - Exported JPG keywords compare to Capture One:-
Hence, I don’t feel that they are being “recorded” incorrectly but rather that they are being used to “populate” the output metadata incorrectly (unless all the keywords in the hierarchy are assigned/selected) and influence the searching incorrectly, ignoring all keywords that are implicitly assigned by including only those that are explicitly assigned via the checkbox .
Please show me a snapshot of the assignment “table” as I have included above when you enter the “animals|mammals|bear|black bear” keyword to an image on the Mac.