TechNote

Changes to Bridge keyword functionality with Bridge CS3 2.1 update

What's covered

Keyword list
Creating keywords
Finding keywords
Applying keywords
Excluding keywords
Importing and exporting keywords
Reading and writing keywords

Introduction

The keywords panel is enhanced significantly in the Adobe Bridge CS3 2.1 release. The primary enhancement is the addition of support for nested keyword hierarchies. In previous versions of Bridge, only a single level of nesting was supported. Bridge also now allows the hierarchical information to be written with the keywords. There are also new ways to find keywords quickly in your keyword hierarchy and to add new keywords at any level in the hierarchy. Additionally, Bridge now provides a way to import and export the keywords defined in the keyword panel.

Keyword list

In previous versions of Bridge, keywords were organized using keyword sets. This allowed only a single level keyword hierarchy to be created. Additionally, keyword sets could not contain other keyword sets.

In Bridge 2.1 keyword sets have been eliminated and keywords can now contain other keyword hierarchies of arbitrary depth. When upgrading from Bridge 2.0, keyword sets are transformed into keywords. Keyword sets now have checkboxes next to them to allow them to be applied as keywords.

Creating keywords

Create new keywords in Bridge 2.1 using any of these methods:

Click the New Keyword and New Sub Keyword buttons in the keyword pane
Use the context menu by right-clicking anywhere in the list of keywords
Choose the New Keyword or New Sub Keyword menu items in the keyword fly-out menu.

If a keyword item is selected, clicking New Keyword creates a new entry at the same level as the selected keyword (a sibling to the selection). Clicking New Sub Keyword creates an entry subordinate to the selected item (a child of the selection.) If no selection exists, only the New Keyword action is available. Selecting this option creates a new keyword at the root level.

To create a simple keyword structure starting at the root, follow these steps:

Deselect any current keyword item by clicking in the empty space at the bottom of the keyword list. If empty space does not exist, select any root level keyword.
Click New Keyword. This creates an empty root level keyword.
Name the keyword and press Enter; the new keyword is sorted alphabetically and selected.
Click New Sub Keyword. This creates a new keyword entry as a child of the currently selected item. Name the keyword press Enter.

Repeat the steps above to create more keywords at the root level or sub levels.

Batch creation of keywords

It is now possible to create multiple keywords in a single step using the Keyword Lookup (Search) field at the bottom of the keyword panel. Type keyword names separated by commas or semicolons into the Keyword Lookup field, and then click New Keyword or New Sub Keyword. Keywords are created immediately using the current selection rules described above.

Finding keywords

New to Bridge 2.1 is a Keyword Lookup field. This field has been added to help you navigate and search for items in large keyword lists. To perform searches:

Click the magnifying glass icon in the Keyword Lookup field located at the bottom of the keyword panel.
Select one of the search methods, Contains, Equals, or Starts With.
When you type in the text field, all keywords that match the search criteria are located.

All matching items are highlighted in colors. Green represents a found keyword that is selected, while yellow represents a found but unselected keyword. To find previous or next keywords click the Find Previous or Find Next buttons next to the Keyword Lookup field, or use the F3 and Shift+F3 keyboard shortcuts.

To clear text from Keyword Lookup field, click the circle with an X to the right of the field.

When a keyword has been found, press Enter to apply (or remove) the keyword from currently selected images. If the keyword doesn't yet exist, press Enter to create and apply it to the selected images.

Applying keywords

Keywords are applied in the same way that they were in the previous versions of Bridge.

Click the check box next to a keyword to apply it to the currently selected files. Deselect a keyword to remove the keyword from the selected files.

To apply a keyword and all of its parents hold the Shift key while clicking. To make this the default behavior for standard mouse clicks, choose File > Preferences > Keywords (Windows) or Bridge CS3 > Preferences > Keywords (Mac OS) and select Automatically Apply Parent Keywords.

Excluding keywords

It is possible to add entire keyword branches to images with a single click. Keywords that are marked as excluded are ignored in this case. Excluded keywords are shown in square brackets. To exclude a keyword, right-click the keyword (Windows) or Ctrl+click the keyword (Mac OS) and select Exclude from the context menu.

Note: Keywords can only be excluded if they contain other keywords. You can include an excluded a keyword by right-clicking on it and selecting Include from the context menu. The Exclude feature is only relevant when you auto-apply parent keywords. Excluded keywords are applied to hierarchical keyword structures.

Importing and exporting keywords

The pop-up menu in the upper right corner of the keyword panel now contains entries for importing and exporting keywords. The Import menu is used to merge the imported keywords with those already existing in the keyword panel. The Clear And Import menu replaces any preexisting keywords with those being imported.

Keywords are imported and exported using text files. These files are encoded as UTF-8 (or ASCII which is a subset of UTF-8). To share your keywords with another Bridge user, select Export from the pop-up menu and specify a file name and path where the keywords will be written. This file can then be imported by other Bridge users. You can also use the export capability to backup your keyword data or to keep separate keyword lists that you load as needed.

Example of a keyword export file

There is no need to open or edit keyword files outside Bridge. However, since these are simple text files you can edit your keyword list in a text editor and then import it into Bridge. The format is simple; each line of the file contains a single keyword. Leading <TAB> characters are used to signify parent/child relationships between keywords. A line with no preceding <TAB> characters indicates that the keyword is at the root level. A single <TAB> character indicates that it is one level deep and is a child of the closest keyword above it that is at the root. Keywords can optionally be marked as excluded by enclosing them in square brackets. See the section on excluding keywords for more details.

[People]

<TAB>John

<TAB>Kathy

City

<TAB>San Francisco

<TAB>New York

Food

<TAB>Vegetables

<TAB><TAB>Carrots

Reading and writing keywords

Bridge provides different methods for reading and writing hierarchical keywords, which can be selected under File > Preferences > Keywords (Windows) or Bridge CS3 > Preferences > Keywords(Mac OS).

By default, Read Hierarchical Keywords is selected. Below is an overview of the Reading and writing keyword options:

1) Neither option is selected.

In this configuration the behavior is identical to Bridge 2.0. Keywords are written into the XMP dc:subject field as flat keywords (with no hierarchical information). When displaying the keywords applied to a set of selected files, Bridge looks for all matching keywords in the keyword panel hierarchy and selects them all. Deselecting one instance of the keyword in the hierarchy removes it from dc:subject, and that keyword is thus deselected in all other locations. If keywords are encountered that are not in the hierarchy, then they are added to the Other Keywords keyword at the same level.

2) Only the Read Hierarchical Keywords option is selected (default).

Although this checkbox is labeled "Read" it also has a side effect related to the way keyword data is written. In this configuration, keywords are written to the dc:subject field flat (just as in option 1), but they are also written to the lr:hierarchicalSubject in a "|" delimited hierarchical form.

Bridge makes use of this hierarchical information when showing which keywords were applied to the selected files. If hierarchical information is present (either in lr:hierarchicalSubject or dc:subject), then keywords that exist in multiple locations in the keyword panel hierarchy are not selected in every location. Instead, Bridge finds and selects only the one that was originally applied. Also, Bridge does not add unknown keywords to Other Keywords if they have hierarchical information. Instead, they are added to the keyword hierarchy in their proper location, adding parent keywords if necessary. Keywords added in this way are not persistent unless explicitly made so by the user (as is true of the keywords added to Other Keywords).

Example:
dc:subject - Places; California; San Francisco
lr:hierarchicalSubject - Places; Places|California; Places|California|San Francisco

3) Both Read Hierarchical Keywords and Write Hierarchical Keywords options are checked.

In this configuration you get the same behavior as #2, except that hierarchical keywords are written into dc:subject (in addition to lr:hierarchicalSubject). You have the option of using any one of the following characters as the delimiter when writing to dc:subject: "|", ":", "/", "\". The default is "|". The "|" character is always used when writing to lr:hierachicalSubject. Bridge can be configured to interpret any combination of these characters as delimiters when reading.

Example:
Dc:subject - Places; Places/California; Places/California/San Francisco
lr:hierarchicalSubject - Places; Places|California; Places|California|San Francisco