Annoyed by flickr
Hoping maybe someone can 'splain something to me.
WHY CAN'T I SORT MY IMAGES AT FLICKR.COM BY FILE NAME????
Geez, people, talk about a basic option. I've read a ton of "Help" posts about other people asking for the same thing, and am totally lost.
Yes, I understand that I can create a "set" of images, and arrange that set alphabetically. Very nice and all that, but it's not very helpful for my mess.
Basically, I have two clumps of images I'm working with. Scans of postcards I've received through www.postcrossing.com, and scans of the stamps from those cards. I can contribute unlimited stamp pictures to the "Stamps of Postcrossing" pool, but there is a limit of 60 cards/month for "Postcrossing - Postcards Traveling The World" pool. (I don't know why there's a limit there, but that's a different issue)
I've added all of my stamps images to the stamps pool. I think.
I've added most of my postcard images to the postcard pool. I know some have been missed, and would like to be able to add them now that we're in a new month and I haven't used up my quota yet.
What I would like to do would be to sort the order of my photostream alphabetically by file name. My postcard scans have all been diligently given file names that match the Postcrossing.com ID numbers. Those ID numbers are important--they use the ISO 3166-1-alpha-2 code for the country of origin, followed by a number assigned in sequential order. It's amazing to know that Finland has sent out nearly 300,000 Postcrossing cards, but the card I recently received from Puerto Rico was only #360. So the file names I'm using are NOT random camera gibberish.
For some bizarre reason, though, flickr sorts by "most recently added" and does NOT offer other options like sorting by file name for a user's photostream. Why not? Who cares which one was added most recently? I have a year's worth of postcard accumulation to scan and post, so time is NOT a relevant issue here.
Because you can't sort by the negation of a tag (i.e. show me everything that does NOT have the tag "stamps" on it) I pull everything in my photostream into a "Set" which I CAN arrange alphabetically by file name--apparently someone at flickr at some time acknowledged that that ability *might* be important, but they shortchanged themselves by failing to extend that flexibility to users across their account.
Another annoying problem--when I alphabetize in a "set" I can see that there are several duplicate images. I don't have a clue how that happened, and I'd like to delete them. But from the "Organizer" view, when I mouse over the duplicates, I get a 10 digit number that has nothing to do with my image as far as I can tell. It's not a file name, it's not a date stamp, and it's useles for helping me identify the duplicate. I have to go through EACH AND EVERY image in my photostream manually to look for a that image (if I can remember what it looks like after 350 images are displayed) and then try to find the duplicate as well. And from there, I should be able to determine which one needs to be deleted, and which one has already been contributed to the proper pool.
I like a lot of the things flickr does--the group pools are lots of fun for Postcrossing & stamps. I've enjoyed seeing postcards sent by other Postcrossers. I really enjoy being able to upload a huge list of images at once. I find flickr's tagging interface handy (except for the search for "not tagged X" option). But for being an image hosting site it sure has some major holes.
It shouldn't take hundreds of posts of people asking for the same feature over a couple of years for a site to implement an option this elementary. Or maybe I've been spoiled by using lots of sites that have listened to their users and improved their services based on what their customers say.
Doubting that I'll renew my "pro" status.
WHY CAN'T I SORT MY IMAGES AT FLICKR.COM BY FILE NAME????
Geez, people, talk about a basic option. I've read a ton of "Help" posts about other people asking for the same thing, and am totally lost.
Yes, I understand that I can create a "set" of images, and arrange that set alphabetically. Very nice and all that, but it's not very helpful for my mess.
Basically, I have two clumps of images I'm working with. Scans of postcards I've received through www.postcrossing.com, and scans of the stamps from those cards. I can contribute unlimited stamp pictures to the "Stamps of Postcrossing" pool, but there is a limit of 60 cards/month for "Postcrossing - Postcards Traveling The World" pool. (I don't know why there's a limit there, but that's a different issue)
I've added all of my stamps images to the stamps pool. I think.
I've added most of my postcard images to the postcard pool. I know some have been missed, and would like to be able to add them now that we're in a new month and I haven't used up my quota yet.
What I would like to do would be to sort the order of my photostream alphabetically by file name. My postcard scans have all been diligently given file names that match the Postcrossing.com ID numbers. Those ID numbers are important--they use the ISO 3166-1-alpha-2 code for the country of origin, followed by a number assigned in sequential order. It's amazing to know that Finland has sent out nearly 300,000 Postcrossing cards, but the card I recently received from Puerto Rico was only #360. So the file names I'm using are NOT random camera gibberish.
For some bizarre reason, though, flickr sorts by "most recently added" and does NOT offer other options like sorting by file name for a user's photostream. Why not? Who cares which one was added most recently? I have a year's worth of postcard accumulation to scan and post, so time is NOT a relevant issue here.
Because you can't sort by the negation of a tag (i.e. show me everything that does NOT have the tag "stamps" on it) I pull everything in my photostream into a "Set" which I CAN arrange alphabetically by file name--apparently someone at flickr at some time acknowledged that that ability *might* be important, but they shortchanged themselves by failing to extend that flexibility to users across their account.
Another annoying problem--when I alphabetize in a "set" I can see that there are several duplicate images. I don't have a clue how that happened, and I'd like to delete them. But from the "Organizer" view, when I mouse over the duplicates, I get a 10 digit number that has nothing to do with my image as far as I can tell. It's not a file name, it's not a date stamp, and it's useles for helping me identify the duplicate. I have to go through EACH AND EVERY image in my photostream manually to look for a that image (if I can remember what it looks like after 350 images are displayed) and then try to find the duplicate as well. And from there, I should be able to determine which one needs to be deleted, and which one has already been contributed to the proper pool.
I like a lot of the things flickr does--the group pools are lots of fun for Postcrossing & stamps. I've enjoyed seeing postcards sent by other Postcrossers. I really enjoy being able to upload a huge list of images at once. I find flickr's tagging interface handy (except for the search for "not tagged X" option). But for being an image hosting site it sure has some major holes.
It shouldn't take hundreds of posts of people asking for the same feature over a couple of years for a site to implement an option this elementary. Or maybe I've been spoiled by using lots of sites that have listened to their users and improved their services based on what their customers say.
Doubting that I'll renew my "pro" status.