Questions: editing attributes and clearing collections

[Ferdinand]

1. If I want to edit one attribute for a set of files that don't have identical data in all the other attributes, is there a way to do this?  I can't do it in the attributes panel, and metadata templates don't deal with attributes.  At the moment, the only way I can see to do this is to write a script.

2.  Is there a fast way to clear all files from a collection, e.g.  blue pin?   Say I have 20,000 files with the blue pin set and I want to unassign them all, the only way I could see in the UI or help file would be to select that collection in the collections view, unpause it, select them all and unclick the blue pin.  Have I missed something?  Surely.

[sinus]

2.  Is there a fast way to clear all files from a collection, e.g.  blue pin?   Say I have 20,000 files with the blue pin set and I want to unassign them all, the only way I could see in the UI or help file would be to select that collection in the collections view, unpause it, select them all and unclick the blue pin.  Have I missed something?  Surely.

At the moment I cannot see a quicker way ... but to be honest, why is this not enough for you?
I would say, you could find the quickest way with a script ... specially because for you it would be an easy "finger-script-exercise" to create one 

[Mario]

1. I think there was a posting/FR recently about this and I explained things.


2. There is no faster way to do this.
I just tried this: ~ 25,000 files with a blue pin. Switch to collection view, click on blue pin. Click on pause button. <Ctrl>+<A> to select all files. <E> to remove pin. About 5 seconds. Can't be faster than that.

[Ferdinand]

1. I think there was a posting/FR recently about this and I explained things.

I try to read all the threads, although sometimes I fall behind.  Like you, I can't remember everything.  I assume you mean this thread:
https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=2106.msg13350#msg13350
I also re-read the help file, again.

I asked because I'm about to write a script to do something that we can do in 3.6 but not it seems in 5.0.  I wanted to double check my understanding before I went to the trouble.

I recall the wonder we alpha testers had nearly  3½ years ago (is it really that long ago?) when we first saw V5.  We were gobsmacked, and that was only a shell of what it is now.  I have migrated my production collection to 5.0 and I have rediscovered the wonder and amazement.  I am like a child in a toy shop.  It's only when you start to use IMatch 5 fully that you can really appreciate it's power and how much cleverness has gone into it.

But sometimes the power comes at a cost.  And with attributes, it seems that we can no longer edit them for multiple files where some attributes in a set have different values for different files.  That's a shame.  So I write a script.

[Mario]

I have already put that Attribute shortcoming on my to-do list.
In single mode I basically would need to introduce a "multiple values" state (similar to the Metadata Panel) and when the user clicks on that column and fills in a value, that value is written to all selected files. Not too hard to do, but I will save this for after the first version has shipped.

[ubacher]

About removing all blue pins: That is easy as Mario mentioned.
More difficult is removing a flag (and worse yet are dots). If you click on a flag it changes to a red flag.
You then have to select all the red flags and repeat.

Because of this I wrote a script to remove all flags. It works except the flags don't visually disappear from
the display. (I think I reported this as a bug a while back).

[Mario]

Because of this I wrote a script to remove all flags.

Alternatively you can use the

Reset Flag command (Shift+F)
Reset Dot command (Shift+D)
Reset Pin command (Shift+P)

there is no need to write extra scripts for these tasks. Check out the Collections sub-menu in the file window context menu for these and other useful commands.