Hey André
I appreciate your consideration. I don't want to drag this out too much and waste your time, but I'll add a few more points.
The keywords does exactly what you want. You probably need just a more user friendly GUI to (batch) assign the keywords to your existing images.
Except it doesn't give as much control over what gets added and how. For example, it would be nice to have the option of an album set up for, say, Mt. Blackburn photos, where I add a collection like maybe 50 images to that album ... so I can optimize that album for SEO purposes to rank high for Mt. Blackburn .. but it need not have each and every image from my website that has "mount blackburn" as keywords. Visitors could use the search function to browse the complete collection. Same thing with with other albums .. landscape features, such as 'glaciers' for example. I wouldn't want an album to include each and every image I have with the word glacier" in its IPTC data .... that would serve neither me nor the visitor much use. There are currently 500 images on my site with that keyword:
http://www.skolaiimages.com/stock/thumbnails.php?album=search&title=on&keywords=on&type=and&search=glacierBut an album with 50-70 images selectively added to it would be a great boon to my website.
And yes, a better interface to batch add keywords to images would be great .. and also a workaround to the character limit, mentioned below.
Each picture has to be assigned to exactly one album in Coppermine by design. It might be possible to add it to more than one album (without using the keyword feature), by modifying the database structure and adjust all references to that part in the core code. But I don't see any reason why we should change Coppermine in such a significant way, if we could achieve exactly the same with the already existing and working album keyword feature (which could be extended as said above).
Because then the albums are little more than meta albums anyway, are they not? They offer some improvement, but not an awful lot, over just using the search function.
Of course it is possible, but you should drop the idea of uploading dupes to your gallery because it has a lot of drawbacks like:
"1. You waste disk space and CPU cycles on your server" -- agreed.
"2. You have to enter/update the meta data (title, description, keywords, ...) for both files" .. not really. I have all that in the file on my computer. entered once, and cpg reads the iptc on upload.
"3. The views, rating and comments differs for both files" .. I've disabled all those features, so it wouldn't affect my use of cpg at all. But I understand other folks have it set up differently.
"4. You have to modify the core code to achieve your actual goal" .. I agree, adding dupes isn't a good way to go, which is why I'd request the option of being able to add a single file to multiple galleries.
What you're saying might well be correct, and maybe I've not set up my initial album structure as efficiently as I should have; I don't know if thats the issue or not. But it also comes down to keywording practices, and that's something I do, as a stock photographer, reasonably well. It also comes down to the search function on cpg, and as yet, I have not been able to make it call exact phrases, which I'd really need for effective album management like you suggest. For example, how do I set up an album for "Mt. St. Elias" photos? or 'brown bears' ... people search on google for grizzly bears, and also for brown bears .. it's hard to optimize a page for both phrases, so an album of each would be optimal; yet most of the images in either album would be keyworded the same.
Another issue is the character restrictions on cpg keyword structure. I have it set so I can upload a file with all iptc data embedded, and cpg reads all those keywords .. but when I try to add or edit keywords via cpg, I can't because it's effectively 'full'. So I'd need to open the file on my computer, use a file management program like Photo mechanic to ad keywords, delete the original file from my cpg gallery, and reupload and then add the newly edited one; and do this for hundreds of images.
I'm certainly open to suggestions or instruction on how better to utilize cpg; but the only way I can see to achieve what I want, under the current structure, is to make up an arbitrary keyword like, say 'eliasx' and add that to each image I want to add to a Mt. St. Elias album .. then add a new album, put 'eliasx' as the keyword and have those images appear in it. If I could do this without having to delete files currently online, it would be workable, though time consuming. But I need some workaround the keyword character limit in cpg to do that. (I realize this forum isn't the place for support, so if you'd like to contact me via pm or me make a new post, let me know).
Oh .. and if the album keyword feature was extended to include more than one keyword, it still wouldn't work for exact phrase matches.
Thanks again.
cheers
Carl