Events - need control over date range and files added

[hamishr]

As I understand it, if you define an event by date range, files are added based on their date and you have no control over this; and if you define an event to control which files you add to it, then you loose the ability to control the date range - it is based on the range of dates in the files added. I would like to have the best of both worlds and to control the date range and the files added. This is for a number of reasons: (1) I want to be able to define an event for a person where I don't have any photographs but I would like to have the event on the timeline - e.g. the person worked for a certain company from date a to date b; (2) If I go on an expedition, it has a beginning date and an end date but I might not have taken a photograph on the first day of the expedition or on the last day - nevertheless I would like the date range of the expedition to be accurate; (3) I would like to add an event with a date range and add files that are outside the date range but still concern that event - e.g. after an expedition you take photographs of items you collected on the expedition and you would like them to be represented as part of the expedition. I also archive documents using IMatch so if someone refers to a previous event in a letter (e.g. a couple's wedding), I would like to be able to link that letter to the event. Am I missing something, or is this a feature request?

[Mario]

Hi,

A tip: it helps a lot when you hit <Enter> occasionally to break your posts into paragraphs.
On a smart phone screen your post is more than one page or solid text, which makes it very hard to read.

You can create events based on folders, categories, date ranges and arbitrary selections of files. This usually covers all bases.
When I understand your post correctly you want a rather tricky even type which is made of a date range, but does not cover all files taken within that date range (and you cannot use the file mask filter to achieve this).
Or you want events based on files, but which also have a certain time offset before the beginning / ending of the date range covered by the files?

Events cover segments of time. If you need to create events which collect files from multiple non-consequtive date ranges, you can do so by selecting all the files and adding them to the event. The date range of the event will adjust to cover the dates of all files. A PDF file produced two weeks after a wedding may belong to the event, but since events are based on a start and end date, there is no way to link that PDF to the event without making the event covering the date of the PDF file as well. Otherwise the event like a wedding would show a date range of X, but actually contain files taken within X and within Y and maybe even within Z...

Maybe events are not the best tool for your purposes and IMatch categories would work better? A category has to time component and can collect files from any number of dates.

Not sure how many users would have a use for what you suggest in your post. Or how complex and time-consuming this would be to implement and visualize.

One of the key aspects of the entire Event and Timeline feature in IMatch was simplicity. I deliberately reduced the feature set to make this concept appealing even for causal users.

Feel free to copy your suggestion (with a few more paragraphs) to a feature request in the feature request board. Other users can comment and +1 this if they would like to have it.

[hamishr]

Hi Mario, thank-you for your reply - apologies for replying so late. I like the Events feature because it enables me to present timelines for particular people and I want to be able to represent those events, whether there are photographs associated with them or not. My work-around solution to my desires is:
(1) fix the beginning date for the event by making a file (e.g. txt file), change the Date Subject Created to the beginning date or the event and associate it with the event, and make another file for the end date I want; and
(2) for files that are dated after the event date range but which apply to that event (admittedly this does not happen often), change the Date Subject Created to within the date range, but leave Create Date, which provides useful information of when the photograph was taken.
I am so enjoying Imatch 2021 - it is immensely powerful and my limitation is not the software but the time it takes to enter metadata for the large number of files I have (over 178 000, including versions).

[Mario]

the time it takes to enter metadata for the large number of files I have (over 178 000, including versions).

Make sure you learn about time-saver features like Metadata Templates, the Thesaurus and Keyword Links, Favorites to tackle this task. Setting up a few metadata templates and Favorites can save you a lot of typing and manual data input. See Saving Time

If you're not adverse to spend 50 or 100 bucks to save days or weeks of time, the IMatch AutoTagger enables you to automatically add keywords to your file, utilizing AI technology provided by Google, Microsoft, Clarifai and imagga (your choice).

[hamishr]

Regarding metadata, I am working a lot with old photographs and much of my time is spent establishing where the photograph was taken and identifying people and organisms (plants and animals) in the photograph - this involves detective work. The mapping and face-recognition features of Imatch are immensely useful for doing this. The events feature is also incredibly useful - for instance some of these old photographs are jumbled up and I have started using events to simply group them into identifiable events (based on the people, the clothes they are wearing, features of the place, etc) and then working out the date and place after this. Adding known life events to the timeline also helps in dating photographs, hence my desire to create events even where there are no photographs. I can see the value of autotagger but, for the most part, it can't do what I need it to do right now. It would be worth using at a later date when this database will be used by others.

[Tveloso]

While working with Events recently, I remembered this post, and thinking when I read it, that it would in fact be useful to have control over an Event's Date Range (and to have it depart from the Date Range prescribed by the Files the Event contains).

I just posted a couple of other FRs related to Events, so I went ahead and posted this as an FR as well:

    https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=12519.msg88608#msg88608

...(I hope Mario doesn't think I'm out-of-control with all the FRs).

My FRs were really rather trivial, but I think this one would be pretty valuable to have...

[Mario]

You can create events based on a date range.
In the Event View, click on the + icon and then select the start and end date for your event.

[Tveloso]

Yes, but if we have an Event of a particular duration, yet there are files within that Time Window that don't belong in the Event, we can create a File-Based one to exclude the unwanted files from appearing in the Event.

If we now want to add a few other files, that fall outside of the Event's Date Range (perhaps significantly so), without having that change the Event's duration on the Timeline, it would be nice to have the ability to enter "override" Start and End Dates, so that the Event stays fixed on the Timeline, even if files added to it later "violate" its Date Range.

IMatch could maybe even indicate that the Event contains files that fall outside of its Date Range with some type of visual indicator at the start and/or end of the Event Tile...