I'm not trying to pick a fight, and I have not commented on your terminology, The fact is that appending tags (Keywords) is standard, and Directory Opus deviates from that norm. I have seen a few other posts about this, so clearly I am not the only one who would like to see this feature request implemented.
Hello! New to the forum but I've been using DOpus for a couple of years, primarily for photos and videos.
I'm another person that would really like to see the metadata panel append tags by default, instead of replacing existing tags. I, too, have accidentally forgotten the + and it's a lot of work to restore the correct tags after that mistake. Could a field be added, similar to the "Select operation" dropdown on some of the date fields? Ideally the default operation could be set somewhere in Preferences. It is pretty rare when I want to replace existing tags, much more often I'm adding an additional one.
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Have you tried the two scripts Jon mentioned, or the Properties dialog method I mentioned?
It's also possible to add a simple button that prompts for new tags and adds them to any selected files, if those don't do what you want.
Having the ability to append tags quickly without the time-consuming risk of a non-retractable missed character is essential to my workflow as well. When working with such large collections, the expediency of a sure-fire method is essential and would be invaluable. I really hope you’ll consider this request in your next drop.
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What's wrong with the solutions we've offered? It's difficult to improve on things without that information.
Please also link your account.
Leo, the Windows Properties dialog is a lot of extra clicks when I am working on tagging hundreds of photos. I do a lot of my other work right in the metadata panel
and would prefer to stay there. I have admittedly not tried the scripts. The Bulk Meta looks like it could work, but my preference is to keep things simple and stay in the metadata panel.
Edit: It's painful to be making other edits in the metadata panel and inadvertently wipe out tags previously added because of a typo.
I agree! While Bulk Meta does work, it requires several more clicks than any of the other methods.
The first time I used Dopus to add a Tag to some images - when some of those images already had tags - I was shocked that the previous tags were wiped out because I've never used an application with tagging capability that did not append the tags:
Adobe Bridge
Adobe Lightroom
Photo Mechanic
Windows File Explorer
Digikam
ACDSee Photo Studio
Tag That Photo
Apple Photos
Phototheca
If the scripts don't do what you want, you could make a button/hotkey that runs this command:
SetAttr META "tags:+{dlgstring|Enter Tag to add, separated by ';':}"
Be careful not to include any " characters in the tag names. (A more advanced script could filter those out, or split the existing tags into a list to let you add and remove things. But this keeps it very simple.)
In addition to the two scripts Jon mentioned, i can recommend Tagger3 by kundal.
We'll add an option for this in the future. I can't say when it'll be released but it's on the list.
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That's great news! More and more professional photo organizers/photo managers are starting to use DOpus, and they will be pleased.
If you want it to be optional, consider doing what Photo Mechanic does. There is a box next to the Keywords field. checking the box means you want to append keywords.
Today I have just tried the +newtag method on a selection of 127 files and it is a painfully slow process! I've used DOpus tagging via the metadata panel before (without the + method needed because there was nothing to retain) and it was very quick. I am working on files located on an SSD. Can anyone comment on whether the other methods suggested earlier in this post are much quicker?
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Just tried the various methods with 127 jpegs, 3 MB each, and every time it took maybe one second. How slow is "painfully slow"? Maybe other software is interfering?
I agree it's slow. One thing that makes it slow is that I need to be VERY careful because if I forget to add the + in front of the keyword I want to add, The mistake could be very costly, as I could wipe out the existing keywords.
Adding keywords is essential to my profession and every day work. The biggest problem is the risk of error.
I hope that Directory Opus will see that having keywords appended by default, as they are with every other application I have ever used is would be a logical change to make. The exception is Photo Mechanic which needs the 'append keywords' box to be checked.
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+newtag is the fastest of the methods. Are you concerned by the risk of error? I am. Have you used any other applications for which appending tags was not the default/standard?
Jon already said we're going to add an option to make adding tags the default. No need to go over it all again. 
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By painfully, I mean it was "go upstairs, make coffee, start folding laundry, come back and only 50% done" slow. I should have clarified that I was using an external SSD. I moved all of the files to my internal hard drive (not SSD, although my OS and programs are installed on an older SSD) and it was once again lightning fast.
I also rebooted in between attempts so perhaps something else was going on with my machine at that moment. I also display the Exif:DateTimeOriginal in a column when viewing photos so maybe that complicated things with an extra call needed to Exiftool?
Thanks for the quick follow-up.
Yep, that IS painfully slow 
Setting metadata is rather time-consuming, but not that slow. Exif columns delay the file display, but again, not by so much. If you see that happen again and can reproduce it, let me know so I can investigate. I'd say, you should only have time for an espresso shot while waiting for Opus to finish 
Hello! I've just finished working on a 7 TB digital photo collection (1.2 M photos) for a client and managed by deduplication to get it to a measly 120K. What complicated this endeavor was getting many quality photos that didn't contain the correct keywords that the ratty, smaller files contained--many times a subset or flat out incorrect keywords. I have to politely agree that having a faster way to append keywords directly and error-proof would have saved me hours of work, if not days. I look forward to seeing this change implement as I absolutely LOVE so many things about DOpus and have been telling many colleagues about it. Thank you!
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