A label by any other name ...
Monday, January 4th 2010 @ 6:15 PM (not yet rated)
Could be a key-word or tag. I keep finding that "nomanclature" ... the names applied to things or tasks by software makers ... cause me no end of problems. I wonder: do they also cause problems for others as they do me? Is this why so many of us will struggle while learning or using a program that someone else thinks is a piece of cake?
In American vernacular use, a "label" is THE main descriptor you use for something. "To label" something is essentially to name it. Might as well get out the old DYMO label-gun, type in the label (or name) of the object or person, peel off that tape and stick it on.
But not in IDimager, a wonderful and powerful DAM program, used to sort, identify, tag, catalog, track, find and even work with your entire collection of images. It's an amazing program, really. Yet there are some things that I am struggling with.
I've built databases before, "from scratch", using programs like AlphaFive and Filemaker, and before that an old one I can't even remember! A DAM program like IDimager is essentially a powerful database program with a lot of image-specific tools built into it. But within IDimager he's changed the terms from some of the ones I'm familiar with, and uses other common English words in ways that either I've not been used to or, as with his use of "label", run exactly opposite the normal American conversational use of the word.
Rather than being THE descriptor of an item or thing or whatnot, a label in IDimager is simply A descriptor, one of many you would and will apply to an image. A key-word, a tag, just your basic adjective used for one or bunches of images.
I'm finding as I go through the learning process on this program, that I'm having to struggle to force my brain to grasp some of the tools and procedures simply because of his (to my experience) cross-standard use of "standard" English words. Things don't "stick" in my brain as easily or permanently as I'd expect, and as I've gone along, I realize in every case it's because my brain really isn't adapting to an "odd" or contrary use of terminology.
It's very much like when I'm reading Norwegian or German ... I have to mentally translate into English, which drastically slows down the reading and understanding process. In IDimager every time I see the word "label" I have to translate it back to something my brain accepts, like "key-word" or "tag". But then when a few minutes later I'm trying to read something further about that or another step in the program, or trying to work within the program, I'll hit that or other terms that stop me in my track as ... again ... I go through the translating process. Hoping, of course, I'm translating correctly each time!
Is mine such an old brain, after all? Sigh!
Neil