Allow an icon keyword to be assigned as primary keyword for selection, etc

[matgb]

Title:
Allow an icon keyword to be assigned as primary keyword for selection, etc

Area:
icons

Summary:
For icons that have multiple keywords, make it possible to have one only that appears on the drop down menu for posting and commenting.

Description:
Many of my icons have aquired more than one keyword over the years, some because they may have multiple usage contexts, others because I've given them the keyword of an old, deleted icon.

While I might like to merge the keywords together, in some cases I would like to keep both keywords extant, in order that I may change icons again in the future.

Example: I have an icon tagged both ORLY and YARLY. At one point, I had a different owl for both, but currently I have Daleks and Cybermen conversing--I may in the future want to split them up, but currently both keywords appear in every drop down menu, cluttering up my already long dropdown (and, presumably, mildly increasing server load, etc each time).

If the first listed keyword for each icon was allowed as an option to be the primary keyword, others could be retained but my selection menues would be a lot easier to navigate and less annoying.

If this isn't possible, a way of listing old keywords that have been renamed would be useful, as they can still then be resurrected.

(NB this would also help those crossposting who have more icons on one or other site, they can use the full keyword set on both sites but still have manageable selection menues)

Edit: To clarify, my suggestion is to allow people to choose, if they wish, a primary keyword, not to force all icons to only have one primary keyword, I want to supplement and improve current behaviour, not replace it.

Poll #1834 Allow an icon keyword to be assigned as primary keyword for selection, etc

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 25

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
9 (36.0%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
2 (8.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
5 (20.0%)

(I have no opinion)
8 (32.0%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (4.0%)

Comments

[cimorene]

Oh, YES. I've been dying for this functionality for years without knowing it! I have two alphabetized lists of keywords in my browser's notes sidebar, one for icon keywords I'm currently using, one for icon keywords I've used in the past and am not using right now. I've actually thought about making a third list for icon keywords that are the secondary keywords on icons, but it gets time-consuming and confusing so quickly.

[kaigou]

Now that we can edit icon-names to our heart's content without losing the connection between icon & name (that is, without seeing all instances of that icon suddenly pop back to the default), wouldn't that render this obsolete? Wouldn't you be able to go in and just edit as you like?

Because otherwise I'm not really sure quite what you're saying --- wouldn't "merge keywords together" consist of editing "keywordA, keywordB" into "keywordA & keywordB"?

[kerravonsen]

Maybe I'm confused, but I want to be able to use ALL my keywords, and it seems to me that this suggestion would prevent that. I have multiple keywords per icon for a reason: one icon can be used for multiple purposes, and I may wish to switch one of the keywords to a different icon in the future.

For example, the icon I'm using for this comment has two keywords: "Doc7-frown" and "frown". I'm using the "frown" keyword, because the relevant usage is that it's a frown, rather than that it's the 7th Doctor. In future, I might have a different "frown" icon, and I would want this icon to still be "frown", even though it's a different icon. But in some other post/comment, I might want to use the "Doc7-frown" keyword instead. But if this were implemented, I wouldn't be allowed to do that, since, so far as I can understand, I'd only be allowed to have one "active" keyword per icon, since only the "primary keyword" would appear in the drop-down selection list.

Do. Not. Want.

[miang]

If I'm reading this correctly, doesn't this suggestion completely defeat the purpose of allowing multiple keywords to a single icon?

For example, the icon I'm using has "angst" and "sad valkyrie in snow" as its keywords. If we implement your suggestion, and I make a post on Valkyrie Profile, you're going to force me to use the "angst" keyword to bring up this icon because it comes first. If I later switch angst to some other icon entirely, the post loses the icon it was intended to have.

The same problem exists in reverse, of course: if I instead put "sad valkyrie in snow" as the first keyword -- which is not currently possible, as keywords automatically alphabetize themselves -- and use that keyword on an unhappy post, and I later replace the icon with a happy-valkyrie picture, then I wind up with a happy icon on a sad post because the "angst" keyword was unselectable at the time I made the post.

At the very least this suggestion would require reworking the way icon identifiers work to respect a non-alphabetical order, but even then I think it destroys very useful functionality -- there are good reasons to have all possible keywords be selectable from those dropdown menus. Maybe there could be a better way to organize them than alphabetically, but this solution is not it.