Formating Variables

[sinus]

Hello,
I am trying to format some variables in the File Window, so that under or above each thumb displays some interesting text.
The help-file give us a lot of informations and I am impressed, how much we can do with variables and formating.

But I want achieve this goal:
The extension of each file should have, depending on the value, different colors, for example
NEF
JPG
TXT
INDD

This example from the help-file give us a good result:

<Run FontSize='10pt' Background='AliceBlue' Foreground='#000000'>{File.Ext}</Run>
The extenstion of a file in 10 points, on a blue background and in black letters.

And this here also is fine:
{File.Ext|is:nef,NEF,?}
This displays a NEF and if the extenstion has not a nef-Extension, then a ?

I have tried different things, but was not able to do so.

If it is too complicated (because it gives a lot of extensions), it would help, if I could say, make the most common image-extensions (nef,crw,jpg,psd,tif) in one color and all other (txt,doc,indd...) in another color.

Thanks for any ideas.

[Mario]

That's quite easy, although may look messy when you do it for many formats. The general idea is (for NEF and JPG files in this case)

<Run Foreground='{File.Ext|is:NEF,#ff0000,}{File.Ext|is:JPG,#00ff00,}'>{File.Ext|to_upper}</Run>

Basically you open a Run

<Run Foreground='

then you set the color to use in the variables and the is: function

{File.Ext|is:NEF,Foreground='#ff0000',}
{File.Ext|is:JPG,Foreground='#00ff00',}

Note that you need to add an 'else' construction as the color variable, to catch all the extensions not explicitly in your list. Something like:

{File.Ext|contains:.,'#0000ff'}

because a file extension always contains a . and so this will always be true.

and close the first part of the run

'>

Now you add the file extension via variable (I used to_upper to force the display to upper case):

{File.Ext|to_upper}

and finally you close the Run:

</Run>

[sinus]

Hi Mario

Phew, heavy ... and you call this "That's quite easy" 

That seems to be very good, your variable worked like a charm. Now I try to use it in a nice layout.

If this works fine, I will try something in the same kind for Attributes, means if a file has Attributes, a word or so would be under a thumb, if there are no entries, then something else would written there, and I think, also in different colors.

IF this works, and the speed does not too much suffering from this extra-calculations, then I would add these as near as possible to the thumb (last header or first footer), so that would mean for me having "a kind of icons for the poor man"  in addition to all native icons.

Because then a short view on a thumb is enough to see all relevant things (Collections, versions, write-back, Annotations, ratings, categories ... and with your formatted variables I can also see the format and if a file has Attributes or not.

BTW: the format is quite nice to see, because I have a lot of different files like nef, jpg, psd, indd, txt, doc, mp3 and so on and I have also long filenames.
It is easy to display the extension, but it helps me a lot, if I can create different colors, so I can see much quicker, if a thumb is a nef, a jpg or a mov (as an example).

Thank for your help!!!

[Mario]

Phew, heavy ... and you call this "That's quite easy" 

Yes. From a programmer's perspective. And from someone who has invented and implemented the variables for IMatch    

You can use images in your custom XAML markup, if you like. For example:



The syntax is:

<Image Source='file://c:\images\checkbox.png'/>

(Replace the file name with an icon name (PNG  preferred) of your liking. Don't forget the file:// in front.

As long as you make sure that the image can be found, and set the Size property for the header/footer to the size of the image (or a bit larger), IMatch can also show custom icons in the file window.

If you combine that with a "is:" or "hasvalue" you can show icons when the file has attributes. Or other metadata. Or whatever you need.

Geez. This stuff is cool and can do a lot 

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[Ferdinand]

See also https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=1459.msg8978#msg8978

This is what I use, and if it makes you feel any better, I find it heavy too:

<Run Foreground='{File.Ext|is:arw,#ff80ff,#FFFFFF,false}'>{File.Ext|is:arw,.ARW, ,false}</Run><Run Foreground='{File.Ext|is:avi,#999999,#FFFFFF,false}'>{File.Ext|is:avi,.AVI, ,false}</Run><Run Foreground='{File.Ext|is:crw,#ff8080,#FFFFFF,false}'>{File.Ext|is:crw,.CRW, ,false}</Run><Run Foreground='{File.Ext|is:dng,#999999,#FFFFFF,false}'>{File.Ext|is:dng,.DNG, ,false}</Run><Run Foreground='{File.Ext|is:jpg,#80ff80,#FFFFFF,false}'>{File.Ext|is:jpg,.JPG, ,false}</Run><Run Foreground='{File.Ext|is:nef,#800040,#FFFFFF,false}'>{File.Ext|is:nef,.NEF, ,false}</Run><Run Foreground='{File.Ext|is:pef,#999999,#FFFFFF,false}'>{File.Ext|is:pef,.PEF, ,false}</Run><Run Foreground='{File.Ext|is:psd,#808080,#FFFFFF,false}'>{File.Ext|is:psd,.PSD, ,false}</Run><Run Foreground='{File.Ext|is:raf,#808000,#FFFFFF,false}'>{File.Ext|is:raf,.RAF, ,false}</Run><Run Foreground='{File.Ext|is:tif,#80ffff,#FFFFFF,false}'>{File.Ext|is:tif,.TIFF, ,false}</Run>

[sinus]

Geez. This stuff is cool and can do a lot 

I have not thought, that even such things with icons are possible.

Boah, REALLY cool!!!

Since we can put almost all metadata and even single fields from the Attributes, this gives a lot of possibilites. On one view, because (if we not overload it) these informations or icons are under or over each thumb.

This is so important (for me), because I can see it almost, when I twinkle my eyes. Like the red sentence here, you will see it very quickly, and if you want know more, you can read the smaller sentences.
That is why I like icons or SHORT words! 

Thanks a lot for your help.

[Richard]

Geez. This stuff is cool and can do a lot 

No doubt about it, IMatch 5 is powerful and can do a lot of cool things.

This is what I use, and if it makes you feel any better, I find it heavy too:

Knowing that you find it heavy does not make me feel better at all. It makes me feel about as smart as a box of rocks and thankful that there are IMatch 5 users willing to invest the time to learn how to make use of the awesome power of IMatch 5 and point the way for others.

[sinus]

See also https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=1459.msg8978#msg8978

This is what I use, and if it makes you feel any better, I find it heavy too:

Thank you, Ferdinand!
And yes, in contrary to Richard, I feel a little bit better   

[Mario]

Knowing that you find it heavy does not make me feel better at all. It makes me feel about as smart as a box of rocks and thankful that there are IMatch 5 users willing to invest the time to learn how to make use of the awesome power of IMatch 5 and point the way for others.

It thankfully looks a lot easier when you break it up:

<Run Foreground='{File.Ext|is:arw,#ff80ff,#FFFFFF,false}'>{File.Ext|is:arw,.ARW, ,false}</Run>
<Run Foreground='{File.Ext|is:avi,#999999,#FFFFFF,false}'>{File.Ext|is:avi,.AVI, ,false}</Run>
<Run Foreground='{File.Ext|is:crw,#ff8080,#FFFFFF,false}'>{File.Ext|is:crw,.CRW, ,false}</Run>
...

Just a <Run Foreground='color value'> for each file extension to control the color.

[Ferdinand]

This is what I use, and if it makes you feel any better, I find it heavy too:

Knowing that you find it heavy does not make me feel better at all. It makes me feel about as smart as a box of rocks and thankful that there are IMatch 5 users willing to invest the time to learn how to make use of the awesome power of IMatch 5 and point the way for others.

Wasn't my intent, sorry.  I agree about the other users - this is one of those things that I would have struggled to work out myself.

[mgm1965]

I'm also doing some color formatting in my panel.
There is a table in the help file with the "name / value" of the colors that can be used?
I haven't found it.

So, I've found this: http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colornames.asp

but a lot of color name here reported don't work.

Peraphs work only "The 17 standard colors are: aqua, black, blue, fuchsia, gray, green, lime, maroon, navy, olive, orange, purple, red, silver, teal, white, and yellow."?

Thanks

Marco

[Mario]

Always use hexadecimal colors:

#RRGGBB

http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colors.asp

[sinus]

sorry folks, I opened another thread for this:

https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=3298.msg21508#new

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[ColinIM]

I've added what I hope will be a helpful 'Tip' on the FAQ, Workflow, Tutorials, Tips & Tricks board, about a free utility program which streamlines the job of choosing 'workable' colour combinations.

Choosing and assessing colour combinations throughout IMatch

I cross-referred to this post in my 'Tip' because the dialogue here nicely illustrates how much fun we can have with colours 

But it was the ironic frustration of having "too much choice" with the colours here which reminded me about that little program I'd first used around 2008 ... so I searched it out ... and I'm glad I did.

It's called a Colour Contrast Analyser and happily it's been updated a few times since 2008! Most recently in 2012.

Colin P.

[sinus]

Thanks Colin,
very helpful!