IMatch 2018 Release Notes Now Online

[Mario]

You can now read about all the new features, enhancements, changes and bug fixed in the release notes:

https://www.photools.com/release-notes/

This is truly the best IMatch version ever. And it includes technologies I will utilize over the next couple of months to add more exciting stuff...

I hope you all have followed by advice and saved up a few dollars every month for the past months.
If you did, you should have the money ready for the upgrade...

[Carlo Didier]

"Service Apps"! BIG Thank You!

[Mario]

"Service Apps"! BIG Thank You!

You're welcome.

The IMatch 2018 developer documentation is already online: https://www.photools.com/dev-center/doc/imatch/

[mastodon]

I like the Metadata Mechanic App and the Map panel the best. (Support is always on MAX!)

[pmbvw]

I can't wait  to see the implementation of:
Map Panel: Display of 'Location Shown' and Field of View (FOV) #00585   

[Mario]

I think the faster and improved search engine / File Window Search bar is worth the upgrade alone.
And there are tons of small things, which may not look much in the release notes, but can make a tremendous difference in typical DAM workflows.
And many things are faster, which is always a good thing. Especially considering that people manage more images and databases get bigger.
Plus some critical bug fixes 

(Support is always on MAX!)

Yes. Thank you. Support for IMatch 2017 will discontinue six months after IMatch 2018 has been released.

[thrinn]

If you did, you should have the money ready for the upgrade..

I have
Just say the word  - I am prepared to upgrade immediately.

[sinus]

I think the faster and improved search engine / File Window Search bar is worth the upgrade alone.

Has the new search something to do with this statement of you (2014)?

https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=2657.msg17276#msg17276

We had a full-text high-speed index in the early Beta version of IMatch which would reduce such search times down to maybe one seconds. The problem was that keeping the index up-to-date in the database was very "expensive" and interfered with the user interface. Every time a user made a change to data, rating, label etc. the index had to be updated. And this could take a second or two per file on large databases (100K files or more). Setting a rating for 100 files takes maybe 2 seconds. Updating the index with the new data takes 20 or more...

I still have the code and the entire business on my to-do list for a later release.
Maybe some on-demand update (update the index when the user uses the search bar. But then we could run into situations where the user has to wait a minute for the index to rebuild.
Another option would be to use the index only on a few, very limited tags (like the most frequent tags). This may will reduce the size of the index and may reduce the update speed. It's complicated and currently there are more pressing matters.

What about the problem, you stated 2014, that every time a user make a change, the index has to be updated?
Do you have solved this problem? I think so. 

I ask, because if I use use to many "data-driven categories", it is hard to work.
Because I don't know when IMatch will update the categories in the background.
And sometimes it's exactly when I write a text in the metas and that's very unpleasant.
That's why I deactivated the "auto-update" at DD-categories.

I hope (and think you checked this all) that this updating in the background does not interfere with the user-input.

[Mario]

I ask, because if I use use to many "data-driven categories", it is hard to work.
Because I don't know when IMatch will update the categories in the background.

IMatch delays updates of outdated data-driven categories until they are 'needed' => calculate on demand.

If you 'use' your data-driven categories somewhere, e.g. in the File Window or you have the Category Panel visible, or the category filter, or the Keyword Panel, IMatch may need the results of the category in order to update the display. And if multiple 'slow' data-driven categories have to be calculated to update the screen, you may notice a short delay.

It's hard, algorithmically speaking, to always just rely on 'old' contents, then calculate in the background, and refresh the user interface once the calculation is complete. This cannot work with all features.

For IMatch 2018 I have a new concept for such special operations. I have first implemented it for less important ops like UI updates, the new "Associated Application" icon in the FW toolbar (which could otherwise block for several seconds, due to the stupid way Windows gets the icon for an application) etc.
If this works flawlessly I may be able to use that also to make background collection and category updates smoother and less interfering with UI updates. We'll see. I need to learn from user feedback in this case.

What about the problem, you stated 2014, that every time a user make a change, the index has to be updated?
Do you have solved this problem? I think so. 

Well remembered!

Two problems at that time:

a) Updating the index after the user changed metadata took a long time and interfered with the rest of IMatch.

b) Even worse, the built-in full-text index in the database supported only prefix searches. It always searches from the front of the word.
For example, searching for "tender" will find "tender" or "tenderness", but not "Bartender" - because here tender starts in the middle of the word.
This was a NO GO for most test users, including myself.

After giving this another BIG THINK, I've came up with a pretty neat solution for IMatch 2018. A marketing department would squeeze several magazine articles and news coverage out of this alone. Since I don't have a marketing department, it's just a "neat solution"...

What's new in IMatch 2018 is that I was able to speed up the index update process a lot, and that the index is updated only on-demand. Also, for my own index technology I've implemented all the advanced search features in IMatch, including contains (finds "Bartender" when you search for tender"), regular expressions, exact matches, Boolean logic etc.

The index update is performed in the background as needed. If you work with small scopes (a few thousand files in the file window) the index is updated (if needed) in the time it takes you to click in to the search bar, type something and then press <Enter> to run the search. You won't notice this, the search is just super-fast.

If you work with large scopes, like 100,000+ files in the scope, you will notice a short delay of maybe 1 or 2 seconds after pressing <Return> in the search bar, before the result is shown. But only the first time, when the index needs updating. If the index is up-to-date, the search will be immediate. This means repeated searches without metadata updates in-between will all be immediate.

This is actually something I've invented for IMWS 2018, and then re-integrated into IMatch itself. It needs some extra memory (maybe even a few hundred MB for very large search scopes) but it's really fast.

But IMatch 2018 saves hundreds of Megabytes thanks to the new browser helper process which allows IMatch to run Chromium with a lot less memory overhead. It's also faster and more secure.

[sinus]

Thanks, Mario

for this very good and understandable answer. 
Very good, that are great news. If I even have to wait 10 seconds for the first time (building the index, if necessary), would be great.
We will see, how quick IMatch is, I have no doubt, it will be a very good enhancement!

And worth alone the money. 

[Mario]

On my system, building the index from scratch for keywords, titles+descriptions and file names takes ~5 seconds for 500,000 files!.
Unless you always search this massive number of images, you probably won't notice it at all.

The File Window updates the index (if needed) when you click into the search bar (because you are going to search), and even if you type real fast, the index should be ready when you press <Enter>.

[Jingo]

Greatly looking forward to it... :-)

[Kucera]

You can now read about all the new features, enhancements, changes and bug fixed in the release notes:

https://www.photools.com/release-notes/

This is truly the best IMatch version ever...

It is too bad that here you are preaching to the converted, as it were. Most of us are already chomping on the bit to get to the new version, I am sure. IMatch deserve the WORLD know how great it is.
Writing only a little review here and there (which I did, at least) does not really cut it. Would someone on this forum have an in with somebody at PC Magazine or such, or one of the big the photographer sites? That could help ...
Regards  Emil

[Mario]

It is too bad that here you are preaching to the converted, as it were. Most of us are already chomping on the bit to get to the new version, I am sure.

The problem is always that I spend a year of work on a new release, and then I somehow need to find enough users who pay for the upgrade. To finance the cost for the next year of support, community, server rent, tools, license fees and the time I spend with the development.

Every upgrade counts!

[jch2103]

I believe this is a typo:

Reverse Geocoding: Automatic Keywords #00552
Under Edit > Preferences > Geo & Maps you can now configure an option to automatically create one or more keywords after a file has been reverse geo-coded. This enables you to create keywords from data like country, city or location automatically.

For example, if you use a variable like {File.MD.citry} IMatch adds the city name as a keyword.

Should be a quick fix!

[Mario]

Spelling corrected, thanks.

[Jingo]

You can now read about all the new features, enhancements, changes and bug fixed in the release notes:

https://www.photools.com/release-notes/

This is truly the best IMatch version ever...

It is too bad that here you are preaching to the converted, as it were. Most of us are already chomping on the bit to get to the new version, I am sure. IMatch deserve the WORLD know how great it is.
Writing only a little review here and there (which I did, at least) does not really cut it. Would someone on this forum have an in with somebody at PC Magazine or such, or one of the big the photographer sites? That could help ...
Regards  Emil

I've been saying this for the awhile now.. but I understand Mario is just one man team and can only do so much.  However, the power of Youtube and other social media items can be a huge boon for small businesses to help grow their product and attract new users.  I would recommend taking a month off development once the new version is stabilized and spending that time in full on marketing mode... or hire a small firm to do it for you.  Yes - time or money is an issue.. but if you can get the right publicity... you can sell a whole bunch of software!

In my book design business, I work with clients to market their books once we have finished designing them... local radio spots, public radio, small newspapers or magazines, advertisements, etc...  you just never know when something clicks and off goes your product!

[Mario]

I've been saying this for the awhile now.. but I understand Mario is just one man team and can only do so much.  However, the power of Youtube and other social media items can be a huge boon for small businesses to help grow their product and attract new users.  I would recommend taking a month off development once the new version is stabilized and spending that time in full on marketing mode... or hire a small firm to do it for you.  Yes - time or money is an issue.. but if you can get the right publicity... you can sell a whole bunch of software!

In my book design business, I work with clients to market their books once we have finished designing them... local radio spots, public radio, small newspapers or magazines, advertisements, etc...  you just never know when something clicks and off goes your product!

Marketing is complicated. And I do have a YouTube channel already.

Sending out press releases is expensive, and has a lousy ROI. Journalists in the IT / photo business are flooded with hundreds of press releases each day.
Unless you have a capable (aka expensive) PR firm with personal and carefully maintained relations with journalists, it's very hard to get useful coverage.

Probably a more efficient way are Google ads, but I need to carefully choose the keywords and other parameters. Keywords related to DAM , image management, digital asset management are very expensive, because so many large players bid for them. This means bidding for ad placements becomes expensive, and I don't have the money to pay a dollar or more per click in the hope to make a sale for every 100 clicks...you can burn hundreds of dollars per day that way!

There days I cannot even send out emails using 'normal' channels (aka my photools.com mail server) anymore.
The big email providers (GMail, Hotmail, Hotmail, comcast, Telekom, ...) reject emails from unknown sources (like, a small company like me trying to reach their customers via email). Probably 90% of the emails I would send that way is filtered and deleted. They have exceptions for big established companies, but not for small ISVs with their own mail server.

I've settled to use a dedicated news letter service with a good reputation to send my emails. I carefully pay attention to the option "allow newsletter" my users can enable in the customer portal. I manage "unsubscribes" carefully and I 'm very low-profile when sending emails. All in the hope that I can reach at least 50% of the user base. Unfortunately, this also means that I have now to pay for each email I send. But at least a larger share of emails actually reaches the inbox of my users.

Only a small fraction of the IMatch user base participates in this community. And even less follow my Facebook or Twitter accounts.
Most users buy IMatch and then use it with very little problems. I often get emails like "I've used IMatch for years, but today I've ran into a problem for the first time. Which is why I contact you...".

Hiring a PR/marketing firm (even a small one) is outside my budget. Even the small ones cost thousands of dollars, without any guarantee for success...

Word of mouth is my best marketing. If a user posts on dpreview or other photography forums that he/she is using IMatch, maybe with a link to my web site, that's good marketing. Everything else is really complicated and expensive.

The large competitors pay PR companies or have PR departments. They generate "buzz" to improve their SEO and to move links to their sites up in the Googler results. This alone is more than one man can do. Not considering development and support time.

Many of today's market mechanisms work in favor of the big players (and bigger they get all the time). Very hard for small vendors to get heard.

As always, I'm open to suggestions and advice. I'm fully aware of the fact that I'm quite good at tech and support but suck at marketing.

[sinus]

In my book design business, I work with clients to market their books once we have finished designing them... local radio spots, public radio, small newspapers or magazines, advertisements, etc...  you just never know when something clicks and off goes your product!

Would you mind to give the link for your website (book design)? Would simply interest me.

[Jingo]

In my book design business, I work with clients to market their books once we have finished designing them... local radio spots, public radio, small newspapers or magazines, advertisements, etc...  you just never know when something clicks and off goes your product!

Would you mind to give the link for your website (book design)? Would simply interest me.

Hi Markus - I just sent you a PM with the info.. but the site is just like my username here   

[sinus]

OH, thanks a lot. I will have a look a bit later ... work is calling.

[Jingo]

work is calling.

I hear ya.. me too!