(very) Simple frontend for database

[VJBasil]

I would very much like an ability to create a very simple html like frontend for an Imatch database.

As I am scanning thousands of negatives from 1960's till 2005 as well as having more than 50k digital photo's, this is a lot.
Most of these photos are private, some work -related. So I would like my family members to be able to browse through te files in a structured, but simple way.

I put a lot of effort in the keywording of all this, but the learning curve of Imatch is way to long for others to learn.

As I put all these pictures on an external 2TB SSD drive, I would like some way to access the database ( that resides on the same SSD ) in a very simple way so that anyone can easily search through these photo's.

I tried Imatch anywhere but that seems not to work anymore with the latest Imatch version that I have.

Besides even Imatch anywhere is to complicated for most people.

Some stockphoto websides use very simple UI's that anyone can understand and use without any learning.

[Jingo]

Lots of options for this exist outside IMatch... I share my family photos with an online gallery... keywords, descriptions, etc are all available for them to see and edit if they wish.  I use my Gallery APP within IMatch to accomplish this quickly and easily.  Perhaps an online gallery is a clean and easy way for you share your photos as well.  Enjoy!

https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=9370.0

[mastodon]

Use Imatch Anywhere.
But, for my paretns even that is too difficult. Maybe if it would be possible to recreate the friontend of Imatch Anywhere, like a webpage.

[Mario]

There are so many online ways now to preset photos to others. Even most smart TVs now can display a slide show pulling images from an USB stick.
There are countless online tools to create web galleries. Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, etc. Amazon and Google photos (Mind privacy when using these).

These applications and apps have user interfaces designed to be super-simple by reducing functionality to a minimum.

All these tools can be fed by IMatch, usually by simply dragging images to a web site or stick.
Or maybe by running the Batch Processor to reduce size and add some information on each image, like dates and descriptions.

Another simple way to show photos to non-computer people / the elderly is using IMatch Design & Print to print a nice photo book and then send the PDF to the interested family members or create real prints.
Works a treat and on all platforms and devices, from computers to smart phones. And it cannot be simpler than opening a PDF file.

Questions like this come up occasionally. And implementing a simple browser based on the IMWS integrated in IMatch (or the full IMatch Anywhere) would be surely doable.
But there is way to little demand for justifying the cost for such a thing.

Old IMatch versions had a HTML gallery creator which just produced a HTML-based gallery you could run directly from the disk or stick.
I discontinued it because there was literally no demand. The generator had a bug which made it fails to finish. For over a year. No user ever reported this. So, I dropped it. Nobody used it.
I doubt there is more demand for this these days. Sending a PDF or uploading to FB or Insta is way easier.

[sinus]

Another simple way to show photos to non-computer people / the elderly is using IMatch Design & Print to print a nice photo book and then send the PDF to the interested family members or create real prints.
Works a treat and on all platforms and devices, from computers to smart phones. And it cannot be simpler than opening a PDF file.

Yep, I can stress this, that is a good way.

You can e.g. create a pdf with only one or more specific persons (for birthday-present a book with the important person/s in the last year...).
Or with specific events and so on....

My family like such pdfs very much.

[mastodon]

I do think Imatch Anywhere is perfect for this most of time.
But, there are pepole, how can't use even that. Too difficult to understand the terms and a the concept of filtering. They only want ot filter for words, persons, dates with AND/OR.

[Mario]

The IMA Admin can configure the look of the Web Viewer and control which filters are shown.
A common trick is to show only the categories filter (and maybe the stored filters), and control with groups which categories are visible (e.g. only a set of "Albums").
This simplifies the "filtering" to clicking an Album.

The IMA Admin controls this via the configuration file (see IMA documentation for details).

[VJBasil]

Thank you all for these tips and ideas.

However printing a book or exporting to pdf files does not solve the problem as I see it.

Those solutions came to mind of course, but that means that I myself have to select in advance what I want to show to these people.
The result would be static instead of flexible.
One cannot search on keywords in a book, in a pdf it is also very limited .

As said I have around 70.000 photos in the database now, starting in the 1950's up to 2022.

Furthermore I am planning to scan all the old ( pre-WW2 ) family albums and collect them in the same database as well.

For future generations like my children and grand children I would like to make these as accessible as possible in the most flexible, yet simple, way.

In fact in the way the keywords / catagories selection works here in Imatch.

And what this would mean in fact  would be a stripped down version of Imatch with only a selection screen in which one can select keywords and categories and a bit of AND OR etc.
All other menus out of the way.

That is what I mean by a front end....: a simple screen where one can enter some search criteria and be presented with pages of relevant photo's with the keywords under the picture.

[Mario]

I think I've understood your requirements.
But as I said, there are only 48 hours in a day (here in Germany) and while implementing such a solution is doable, there is literally no demand for this. And I don't have the time anyways.
You want AND/OR searches now. Probably, once you have it, you also want searching other metadata tags, or persons or...

And such a simple browser it would still require IMatch running. Or do you want to give people access to this remotely? From the Internet?
This creates security issues you would have to deal with...unless you run a VPN, which makes things complicated again on the end-user side.

You can strip down the IMatch Anywhere WebViewer to show only a keyword search box in the Navigator.
Or only Albums you have created based on categories.
This is a quite simple user interface already.

[VJBasil]

Just for your information:

I also own a copy of ACDsee, this is not in the league of Imatch in the database capabilities in any way, but I found that it can export a selection to some sort of ( static ) html pages.
I think Lightroom (of which I own a  version 6, before the CC versions ), can also do that, but as mentioned above, that is not exactly what I want.

Both Lightroom, Acdsee and Aftershot ( I tried them all) are more intended to edit / develop your shots, whereas my concern is the database aspect / dam function.

That is why I did choose Imatch, because its database capabilities are exeptionally good; the best in fact as far as I can see.

[VJBasil]

reply to Mario,

yes maybe a simpler version of IMA would do it, but I think The version of IMA I have does not work with my latest version of Imatch?

I do not intend to make it available over the internet.

In fact the  "app" that should do it could be on the drive together with the database and the pictures themselves, in this case a 2TB ssd samsung T7.

Of course I understand the fact that this is not doable for you; at this moment I am still scanning / keywording etcetera, and it is a long proces.

I understood that the database structure itself is open, so maybe I can try to create something myself ( I did do some programming long ago in PHP / mysql for websites )

I will see, thank you anyway for your reactions and for your fantastic software.

grtz from the Netherlands!

[Mario]

IMatch Anywhere 2019 and later is compatible with the current IMatch version.

[VJBasil]

Just installed Imatch Anywhere on the laptop I use for this.

This seems to be working fine indeed ( I mistakenly though my license for this would not work with the latest Imatch version..)

This indeed comes close to what I wouls like!

Is it possible for me to get rid of some of the Navigator items, i.e. is it possible to tweek the user interface a bit yourself?

Otherwise I can use it like it is.

thank you for this excellent software!

[Mario]

Is it possible for me to get rid of some of the Navigator items, i.e. is it possible to tweek the user interface a bit yourself?

Yes. See the WebViewer Configuration topic in the IMA help. Press <Help> in the IMA Controller app and then click on that topic at the top of the browser.

[Mario]

If you want to make this super-simple:

1. Enable only Categories
2. Create a number of categories resembling Albums
3. Define an ACL for these categories

Your folks now see only a set of Albums to select from.

[mastodon]

Nice ideas!

[Jingo]

Just installed Imatch Anywhere on the laptop I use for this.

This seems to be working fine indeed ( I mistakenly though my license for this would not work with the latest Imatch version..)

This indeed comes close to what I wouls like!

Is it possible for me to get rid of some of the Navigator items, i.e. is it possible to tweek the user interface a bit yourself?

Otherwise I can use it like it is.

thank you for this excellent software!

Keep in mind you will need to setup a VPN to your network in order to allow outside network access to your database via IMA.. and that does mean family members being savvy enough to connect via VPN to your network.

[Aubrey]

But as I said, there are only 48 hours in a day (here in Germany).

COOL, I'm going to relocate to Germany, I should get a lot more done each day (after I learn German)

Aubrey

[Mario]

But as I said, there are only 48 hours in a day (here in Germany).

COOL, I'm going to relocate to Germany, I should get a lot more done each day (after I learn German)

Aubrey

Sure thing!
Remember also that the typical German sleeps 2 times as fast, so we need only 3 to 4 hours of sleep every 48 hours to be totally refreshed and productive.
And we don't have any trace of humor

[Aubrey]