Keyword Filtering & Search Via Parent Structure In Aperture Is Ugly - Help

Question

I'm very frustrated with the keyword assigning and filtering within Aperture.
I basically have my keywording down, but USING the keywords is a nightmare.   I try and create parent keywords by things like People (fred, john, harry, etc.), vacation (2011 - Cancun, etc.), or Wedding (2011 - Fred & Ginger).   
What I don't understand is how to easily and quickly search after I've created it.   When I pull up the "filter" it lists ALL keywords, alphabetically, but they are not organized into the nested groups that I created - why?   I can't "search" the keywords either.
The keyword HUD is equally useless to me.   It would be much better if I could easily move photos assigned to one keyword to another - but instead, I find myself needing to search for one keyword, select them all, then assign them to the new one, then delete the old one.   What a PITA.   The keyword HUD would SEEM to be the right place for it as - but all it does is seem to help you sort of organize your keywords.  You can MOVE keywords to a parent keyword, but you can't pull up the images associated with that keyword or move them.
I've googled arond on this for a while and never found a good answer.
I used to use a program called Bullstorm Keyword manager with iPhoto that I loved.   Then Apple ruined that, and destroyed iPhoto's way of managing keywords.....   So, I was semi-forced to move over to Aperture which is "ok" - fraught with problems as it doesn't work witih my e-mail programs, slower, etc. etc.   But, I'll take it if it could ONLY handle keyword management better.
Any ideas?

Answer 1

Hello Eric,
Ideally, I want to be able to view my searches at a parent level and then select the children features that are applicable - instead of having to search across all my keywords each time.   E.g. selection Vacation, and then select the vacations that I want to see or see an easy list of all the 'core people" or "all people" that I want to search on.
You can just do that - at least with Aperture 3.2.2, I never tried it with previous versions.
Even, if you do not set the parent "vacation" keyword and do not see it displayed, you can search for it, and if any of the keyword "vacation"'s children are set, then a search for "vacation" will return all images with children of "vacation" set.
If I select "Vacation" under search, it does properly shows ALL my vacation pics.   But how do I easily select three of the keywords under vacation without going through all the keywords to find them?   Same thing with "people"   I'm organizing all my people tagging so I can easily select me, my mother, my wife, etc., but when I go under search, it's an all or nothing situtation.
  It sounds like I might be able to do this by renaming "Bob" to "Bob Reynolds" and then putting them under the same parent, right?   That would be helpful.
Exactly, rename the keyword "Bob" outside the group of  "Bob Reynolds" to   "Bob Reynolds" and then drag the second  "Bob Reynolds" to the other group. You first will get a warning that some images carry the keyword, then you will be prompted if you want to merge the keywords.
Again, thanks for that - that helps.
The problem with the "search" is that I have keywords with people's name in them (as well as within the name of the file).   In other words, I have keywords like "Bob's Wedding" - if I search for Bob, I get that too.   I want to be able to quickly search for people, locations, etc. within that search.
It looks like you are using keywords for task that can be done in Aperture with other tools, like "Faces" or "Places" or "Project Names". To find people I search the "Faces", to find vacation pictures I search the locations, events I search by date. Maybe you can shorten your keyword list by looking at the other options.
Possibly. however, I think the reason I started doing that (back in the days that I was on a PC and use Adobe) was that I like to be able to easily find pictures of Me, with my brother and my mother.   I don't think you can do that with Faces, can you?   I do nee to start playing more with Places.   I like flagging separate events. 
I'm sitting here organizing keywords as we've been back and forth on this and the Keyword HUD could be perfect - if would only allow me to create a search - not just mess with the keywords.
Would be nice if there was an easier way to assign keywords with the keyboard.   Being limited to only 8 keywords at a time (via the option xyz key) along with "," and "." is awkward.
I wish Kirby Krieger would drop in - I remember he once wrote a nice post explaining how to use the textfield in the keyboard controls to assign keywords by typing, but I cannot find this post right now.
But the basic idea is, if you show the keyword controls (shift-D), there is a textfield with the message "add keyword" written into it. If you now start typing the name of a keyword, you will get a drop down list with possible completions and you can pick one of the suggestions to quickly assign the keyword to your selected images.
If you can find the post, that would be great - would love to read it.  Again, the problem is ease of use.   I hit "shift D", then I need to go to the mouse to click on the "add keyword", then type it and hit return.   If I accidentally assign the wrontg keyword, I need to go back to the mouse, click on "meta data", then highlight and delete the keyword I incorrectly assigned.  
Overall, the MAIN reason I use something like Aperture is for photo organization and keywording.   The editing is a nice to have - but I can use Adobe for that if needed.   I'd give up everything it would simply allow me to quickly add my images, assign keywords, and edit.
Thanks again!
HTH
Léonie