Categories for folders possible?

[Lord_Helmchen]

In my workflow I mainly work based on folder level for the following tasks

• Culling (FastRawViewer)
• Face detection (IMatch)
• Content detection (Excire)
• Raw Development (PhotoLab)

Currently I assign categories for these tasks to the photos, but this doesn't fit good into my workflow, as this is photo bases and not folder based.

Is there a way, I could assign a folder to a category or something similar? Labels etc. won't work, as I may vary the order of the workflow steps.

[akirot]

For this purpose I temporarily assign colors to folders (using the properties tab) - more exactly I change the font color but you can also change the background color.
Inheriting the color of the upper folder may help too.

[Mario]

You can create categories which contain all files in a folder using the @Folder[] and @RFolder[] formulas.
The category automatically updates when you add or remove files from the folder.

The easiest way to create a category from a folder is to copy the folder into the Windows clipboard (select the folder in the Media & Folders View and press <Ctrl>+<C>) and switch to the Category View, select a parent category and press <Ctrl>+<V>.
IMatch then asks what you want to do:

[ubacher]

Not sure I understand what you try to do?

Do you want to indicate on a folder that its content needs to be culled, face detected.....?

[Lord_Helmchen]

For this purpose I temporarily assign colors to folders (using the properties tab) - more exactly I change the font color but you can also change the background color.
Inheriting the color of the upper folder may help too.

Thanks for the hint. That could be a backup solution, as this sounds, I could only use one color at a time. So it would be difficult to map changes in workflow to a single color (like it would be to labels).

[Lord_Helmchen]

You can create categories which contain all files in a folder using the @Folder[] and @RFolder[] formulas.
The category automatically updates when you add or remove files from the folder.

I think that is simply file based. So each file gets assigned to a category. Same I could do by selecting all files of a folder and assign them to a category. No simple way to see which folders are in which category. Is this understanding is correct?

[Lord_Helmchen]

Not sure I understand what you try to do?

Do you want to indicate on a folder that its content needs to be culled, face detected.....?

Yes, that's correct. But as I may vary the order my my workflow tagging with a single color (or similar) won't work.

[Mario]

I think that is simply file based. So each file gets assigned to a category. Same I could do by selecting all files of a folder and assign them to a category. No simple way to see which folders are in which category. Is this understanding is correct?

That would be static. The formulas are dynamic, and automatically update the category when you add or remove files.

Frankly, I still don't know what you want to do.

[Lord_Helmchen]

That would be static. The formulas are dynamic, and automatically update the category when you add or remove files.

Frankly, I still don't know what you want to do.

I have the following two options in mind:

Something like color codes of categories, where multiple color tags (from assigned categories) are shown on a photo:


So show multiple color codes either in the "Medien & Verzeichnisse" tree or in a "Folder Window" (similar to "File Window", but showing folders).


A category structure that shows folders instead of photos. Like:

Workflow Folder Structure

Workflow | Culling

•    Folder 1
•    Folder 2

Workflow | Faces

• Folder 3
• Folder 4
• Folder 9

Workflow | Content

• Folder 5
• Folder 6
• Folder 7

Workflow | Raw Dev

• Folder 3
• Folder 7
• Folder 8

Again shown in a "Folder Window". 


Currently I use folder on hard drive to simulate something like Labels:

New Photos
New Photos \ Culling

• Folder 1
• Folder 2

New Photos \ Faces

• Folder 3
• Folder 4

New Photos \ Content

• Folder 5
• Folder 6

New Photos \ Raw Dev

• Folder 7
• Folder 8

But then I have a problem with Folders like Folders 3, 7, 9 - and would increase significantly the backup volume and create several versions on NAS and backup devices.

I hope the reason why I'm asking and what I'm looking for a now clearer.

[Mario]

So show multiple color codes either in the "Medien & Verzeichnisse" tree or in a "Folder Window" (similar to "File Window", but showing folders).

You can color-code categories and the colors of all categories show in File Windows: Category Color Bar
You can also color-code folders, but their colors show only in the File Window caption when the folder is selected.

If the standard labels don't work for you and categories neither (you can create quite cool auto-unassign workflow categories which keep track of your work), I don't know what else would.

[Lord_Helmchen]

So show multiple color codes either in the "Medien & Verzeichnisse" tree or in a "Folder Window" (similar to "File Window", but showing folders).

You can color-code categories and the colors of all categories show in File Windows: Category Color Bar
You can also color-code folders, but their colors show only in the File Window caption when the folder is selected.

If the standard labels don't work for you and categories neither (you can create quite cool auto-unassign workflow categories which keep track of your work), I don't know what else would.

The color coding for photos via categories I know (that was my example). But as I wrote in my initial post, my workflow is mainly folder wise. Therefore tags on photo level doesn't help very much. The color codes in my example is exactly that, but doesn't not really help me.

Therefore I currently work with the mentioned folder structure and move folder of a photo session from one workflow folder to the next.

I think I know the unassign workflow. But from my understanding that would also only work for "linear" workflows, where the order is always the same. But not when the order is changed for whatever reason.

[Mario]

I'm sorry to say that not even IMatch can handle all use-cases or workflows.
The classical label or color-coded category workflow works for most users. Assign a "Work to day" category during import, then move the files to the next workflow category when you are done. This does not enforce a specific order of processing or anything, shows color-codes on the files etc.

[Lord_Helmchen]

Ok, so I have to figure out a way that better works for me. Thanks for your time.

[ubacher]

What I don't understand in your workflow is how you know which files have been "processed"
Since you want to indicate what processing has been done only at the folder level
you must always deal with all files "in batch" so you don't have to worry about having missed a file in a folder.

[Lord_Helmchen]

What I don't understand in your workflow is how you know which files have been "processed"
Since you want to indicate what processing has been done only at the folder level
you must always deal with all files "in batch" so you don't have to worry about having missed a file in a folder.

That's correct. I process it folder wise. If not, I may set a marker (e.g. set a label) to remaining photos. Especially when I decide to take more care. e.g. on developing some photos, that takes more time. And for most other things the tasks are "nuclear": I do it for the whole folder, like culling, face detection or content detection.

[stefanjan2]

I process it folder wise. If not, I may set a marker (e.g. set a label) to remaining photos.

Similar to you, I set label for individual photos as I process them and then set a background colour (green) for the folder once all photos in the folder fully processed.

It would be useful to be able to easily switch colours but exceptionally find imatch not so user friendly in this one aspect.

Setting a colour for a folder requires a number of key strokes:

- Switch from Bookmarks tab to properties tab
- Scroll to colour coding
- Click drop down to select colour coding active
- Scroll to background colour
- Click ...
- Select Colour
- Click OK

It would be great if it were possible to select a colour with a single click or key shortcut like you can do with image labels.

[Lord_Helmchen]

Mario, as I' not the only one who's interested in more features of tagging on folder level, shall I raise a Feature Request with a more precise requirement of what I wish?

[Mario]

I'm not even sure that I understand what you want for your particular workflow.

Why duplicate what already exists in standardized (and cross-application compatible) form as XML labels?
These are designed to keep track of the "workflow state" of assets. Switching to the next label is easy via the menu or the corresponding keyboard shortcut.

Or, the classic and proven "My Workflow" set of categories with automatic un-assign between siblings?
See Assignment Actions here: The Category Properties Tab

You let IMatch assign new images to a "Start" category via Edit > Preferences > Indexing.
This gives you a visual indicator in the File Window via the category color bar.

When you complete a step, you click on a Favorite that assigns the file(s) to next workflow category.
The files are automatically unassigned from the previous category and the color bar in the File Window changes to show the new workflow stage.This is so simple and yet flexible...

I see no other users requested the same you want here. I guess?
Feel free to post a detailed feature request so we can see what other users think about the enhancement you suggest. If a sufficiently large number of users shows interest, I will look into it.

In the mean time, consider using the standard XML label or workflow categories approach.

[Mario]

- Switch from Bookmarks tab to properties tab
- Scroll to colour coding
- Click drop down to select colour coding active
- Scroll to background colour
- Click ...
- Select Colour
- Click OK

Some tips:

Stay in Properties if you use them so often. Folder Bookmarks may be gone soon, Favorites are much better for that.
Make Properties large enough to avoid scrolling. You can make it auto-hide to save screen estate when not needed.
Double-click on the "Color Coding" entry to toggle between Off, On and Inherit.
If you find clicking the ... button to open the color selector cumbersome, just type in the color you want.
#ffff00<Tab><Tab>#ff0000

If you have different color sets, keep them in IMatch Notepad for a quick copy & paste.

[stefanjan2]

Folder Bookmarks may be gone soon, Favorites are much better for that.

Thanks for the helpful tips.

Just one question, I use folder bookmarks to navigate the folder tree. The functionality if I add a folder to favourites is different. It does not go to the folder in file window. Instead it copies files to the folder.

[ubacher]

You must right-click and select "Go-to" - somewhat cumbersome.
I think we had some time ago a discussion about this - did we have a feature request to allow ALT click for this?

[stefanjan2]

You must right-click and select "Go-to" - somewhat cumbersome.

Thanks, tried it and much prefer clicking on bookmarks to navigate! It's a shame not possible to undock the bookmarks panel and put it on a second monitor

[Mario]

You must right-click and select "Go-to" - somewhat cumbersome.
I think we had some time ago a discussion about this - did we have a feature request to allow ALT click for this?

<Alt>+left+click does work for Goto Folder. As does <Alt>+<Enter> or <G>.
Did you actually try it?

This change was included in 2021.16.2 and documented in release note #1675.
See here: https://www.photools.com/release-notes/?productId=490

[Mario]

You must right-click and select "Go-to" - somewhat cumbersome.

Thanks, tried it and much prefer clicking on bookmarks to navigate! It's a shame not possible to undock the bookmarks panel and put it on a second monitor

<Alt>+left-click to goto the folder.
You can place the Favorites panel on your second monitor.

[ubacher]

<Alt>+left+click does work for Goto Folder. As does <Alt>+<Enter> or <G>.
Did you actually try it?

I did not try it but I held ALT and moved the mouse to the favorite and the pop-up said (obviously wrong)
Copy to Folder.

ALT-Enter and G are not much use since one has to - normally - get to the favorite first.

[Mario]

<Alt>+left+click does work for Goto Folder. As does <Alt>+<Enter> or <G>.
Did you actually try it?

I did not try it but I held ALT and moved the mouse to the favorite and the pop-up said (obviously wrong)
Copy to Folder.

Favorite tooltips always show the primary action, not the secondary or tertiary. If you want me to spend time on making this more perfect, add a feature request.

So <Alt>+left-click does goto the folder on your system?

LT-Enter and G are not much use since one has to - normally - get to the favorite first.

This depends on how you work. Some prefer the keyboard, some use the mouse, some use touch.

[stefanjan2]

I think it would make more sense to make Goto the default action Goto when clicking folders in favourites and use ALT Click for copy to folder.

Same applies to categories.

Before reading the explanation above, caused myself grief by accidently copying loads of images to the wrong folder.
I also wonder why I'd want to duplicate / copy files to another folder. Move possibly but even then with a granular folder structure would I actually create a favourite to move images to a subfolder.

Also wonder if the hover over text could give the <ALT> command as well.

Saying above, I have learnt a lot from this thread and have changed the way I work as a result. imatch is so rich that it is easy to miss the obvious. I wonder how many other things I'm missing.

[Mario]

The main purpose of folder and category favorites since IMatch 5 back in 2015 is to copy/move files and to assign/un-assign files. Using them as a Goto command is a tertiary usage and I doubt many users use this at all.

IMatch is a very rich and mature application which frequently allows to do the same thing in different ways - because some users prefer the one or other way.

Using XMP labels as a workflow indicator is the initial idea of XMP labels. That's why IMatch has next/previous commands to move files along the initial/edit/review/final/archived labels, or whatever you or the other software you use in your workflow uses. Since XML labels are plain text, they can be used for totally different things.

XMP labels are stored in the XMP record of a file, which makes them ideal to communicate the workflow state between multiple applications and services.

Using a set of categories as a workflow indicator with color-coding to get visual feedback in the File Window is another way to setup a workflow pipeline. This is basically the original reason for the assignment action available for categories. To enforce that a file can be only in one of a set of sibling categories.

Using categories frees the XMP labels for other purposes.

imatch is so rich that it is easy to miss the obvious. I wonder how many other things I'm missing.

I recommend you keep the The 'Did You Know?'' App open and read a topic every day. This little app packs a ton of tips & tricks and explains features often overlooked by IMatch beginners. And there's the IMatch help system and the free video tutorials of course.

[stefanjan2]

I recommend you keep the 'Did You Know?' open and read a topic every day.

Good idea, I'll have to get a third screen for imatch.

[Lord_Helmchen]

I'm not even sure that I understand what you want for your particular workflow.

Why duplicate what already exists in standardized (and cross-application compatible) form as XML labels?
These are designed to keep track of the "workflow state" of assets. Switching to the next label is easy via the menu or the corresponding keyboard shortcut.

Let me describe differently how my workflow goes: I neither go process one folder completely with all steps (from Culling to Developing) nor to all similar tasks for all folders (e.g. Culling for all folders, then Rating for all Folders etc.). This may very by number of photos (process the Sunsets just between some other things, but for Family Holiday I need some more time) or urgency of finish development (e.g. Portrait for Company).

So virtually I have a table containing all "not fully processed" folders:


When I want to work in my workflow, look the the list of folders (not photos!) and decide where to start which task (depending on criteria I mentioned above). Then I process the whole folder for one or more tasks, maybe next folder again for some tasks.


When I could assign each task to a folder, it is easy to have the overview.

XMP and IMatch work an photo level. Yes, I could very granularity assign the workflow states and have color coding (that's what I do for I think 10y in IMatch).

The problem I have is the following: How can I easily see which folder (of course in reality all files) have which open workflow steps open?

• I have to click on each folder and see which categories / color code are set. So I have to clock through all folders.
• I select the category for Culling. But I don't to Culling in IMatch. So I have then to identify which files are in which folder. Same for Rating, Content Detection, Development etc.

So neither of the current ways are convenient. So I implemented a "folder based" workflow: I do this my moving the photos from one main folder to the next. But that leads to the situation, that I couldn't represent all different combination of the open workflow tasks. E.g. Geo Tagging won't become an own main folder, because that usually goes very quick. But perhaps I have to do the tagging manually, I decide to to this later. And then I may forget this...

Therefore a way to assign multiple stats at same time to a folder would be very helpful (as you see a logic like for labels won't work). Or possible "virtual main folders", where I see:
Workflow | Culling

• Zoo with Friends
• Family Holiday
• Sunset Hamburg
• Portrait for Company

Workflow | Geo Tagging

• Family Holiday
• Portrait for Company

etc.

I have no clue how many other users have the same problem, but I sometimes have many folders in my backlog and loose the overview about which tasks are still open, as my folder based workflow is not detailed enough.

I hope now my problem is better understandable.

[Mario]

I color-code unfinished folders yellow.
When I'm done, I double-click on the color-coding to set it to off.
This way I can see at a glance which folders contain files that need work.
Alternatives are using XMP labels, which is standard. Or to use workflow categories. Which is pretty neat, too.

Many ways to do it already.
I understand that You want to plug all this somehow into folders. But I doubt that many other users will see a need for this.
Post a feature request so we can see if and how many other users would need something like this.

[sinus]

I use workflows categories.
With them, maybe combined with collections (I do so), I can do at least do and see all, what I want. 

You can also very easy combine folders with catergories (I do this also).
I look through a folder mostly (not always) NOT in the folder view, but in the cat-view.
There you can say, for example, what images in this folder are not edited or are only for business and so on.

Combined with a clever folder-naming I have troubles, to find examples, what could not be solved.

But of course I understand, that you want do this by folders.

But I see "folders" as a kind of cabinet, which in turn can contain smaller containers. And even these smaller containers can contain even smaller containers.

That's why I find it tedious to always rummage through the whole cabinet and that's why I just tell the categories panel things like

"show the container from the 2018 cupboard with unedited images".

"show me all versions from cupboard 2022 with personal pictures".

"show me all the images from all the wardrobes with purely family photos that I have judged to be very good"

...

So since I don't work with coded folders, unfortunately I can't give any tips on this.

But I am sure, you will find somehow an answer, in this or that way.

[stefanjan2]

I color-code unfinished folders yellow.
When I'm done, I double-click on the color-coding to set it to off.
This way I can see at a glance which folders contain files that need work.

This sounds like an interesting option, I'll give it a try.
Is it possible to automate colour coding when you create the new folder or do you do it manually?
My current workflow is to drag all images from SD card into an import folder, where I tend to cull them. I then use renamer to move them into a new sub folder e.g. 2023>2023-01-11 where I process them.
 

[stefanjan2]

I look through a folder mostly (not always) NOT in the folder view, but in the cat-view.
There you can say, for example, what images in this folder are not edited or are only for business and so on.

That sounds interesting. Do you use the category builder for that? I've never used it but sounds like I should spend some time understanding it. Maybe you have a screen grab which could help me with an example.
I hardly use the categories view because find it very messy to navigate. I'm probably doing something wrong.

[Mario]

To create a category from a folder, copy the folder into the clipboard and then paste it into the Category View (not Category Panel). Or, drag the folder from the Media & Folders View into the Category View.

See: Dropping and Pasting Files and Folders

I hardly use the categories view because find it very messy to navigate. I'm probably doing something wrong.

Please elaborate. What do you consider to be messy?

The Category View is usually very clean, unless you intentionally expand all categories and @Keywords
If you do this, you will be presented with hundreds if not thousands of categories.
See Frequently Used Category Commands for useful commands to quickly expand and collapse entire category hierarchies, siblings, children etc.

This is the default state of the Category View:

[sinus]

I look through a folder mostly (not always) NOT in the folder view, but in the cat-view.
There you can say, for example, what images in this folder are not edited or are only for business and so on.

That sounds interesting. Do you use the category builder for that? I've never used it but sounds like I should spend some time understanding it. Maybe you have a screen grab which could help me with an example.
I hardly use the categories view because find it very messy to navigate. I'm probably doing something wrong.

No, I do this simply (for me) in the formula-editor, see attachement.
For example a folder with old pics, in a folder with a lot of subfolders, AND a red or blue dot (for private)

Or this formula gives me all new images, what I throw simply from my cam-card into always the same folder.
After renaming the new images, they will be moved (automatically by renaming) into another folder, hence the import - folder is mostly empty or has only a few images.

This formula e.g. shows me all new image, what are in my incoming - folder:
"@RFolder[file://D:/Archiv-SINUS-AKTUELL/00_timeline-aktuell/_neu von card/]" AND "@Collection[Added|Today]"

I think in my case is the key a good folder-system, and then in the category-view I can then create a good folder-system.

For example, if I have 2022 with 12 subfolders for each month.
I can create some categories, what refelects single monthes or the whole year.

I can then create a formula, where the whole year 2022 is there, with the exactly the same files like in the real folder.
BUT then I can add to this formula a lot stuff, like AND only with 5 stars.
Or AND only with a pin and so on.

But you can also create some cats, with, say the last 10 years AND with additional stuff like pins, bookmarks and so on.

Of course to create some categories, it takes some time, but this you must do usually only once and that's it.

From my point of view, all starts with a good folder system, and a good file-naming-system. 
I have e.g. a folder-per-year-system.

A folder 2022 has 12 subs for each month.
I put all files into these folders ...

except ... now I have say a lot of videos and blender-files and word-docs.

Then I think carefully, what should I do. Should I store them also in the month - folders?
Or should I create an own blender-folder? If yes, for each year or simply one big folder?

The same with docs. If I had 10 docs a year, I would throw them into the normal month-folders. Even if I have next year 50 docs, I would not create an own folder.

But if I have 5000 blender-files (formats like stl, blend ....), then I should think about it, where is the most clever place for me, to store them, to find them easy again.

Hence I think, a user should think carefully about folders and file-naming, to create a clever system.
Inside IMatch we can always change something.

Say, I create in the future 2000 docs per year, well, in this case, I think again about it, do I create a doc-folder or a text-folder (with also txt and so on) or what should I do.

BTW, to reflect only folders, I believe, there are several ways to do so, I just read, that Mario has given some hints, but I do not know this, because I do it in my formulas.

[stefanjan2]

To create a category from a folder, copy the folder into the clipboard and then paste it into the Category View (not Category Panel). Or, drag the folder from the Media & Folders View into the Category View.

Wonderful! So much to learn. I now see how with formulae I can use the Category view to come up with my own satisfactory solution.

What do you consider to be messy?

My created mess, I now understand how I need to clean up my categories and start again! By the way, I use a compact keyboard without a number pad (to avoid wrist strain). Do you have any plans to allow users to customise key shortcuts?

[Mario]

Do you have any plans to allow users to customise key shortcuts?

No. You can always use the right-click context menu or the regular number keys.

[stefanjan2]

Thanks Marcus for such a helpful post. Given me a lot to think about and how to work out the best system for me going forward.

Using formulae certainly sounds to me like the way forward to improve my workflow but I need to think about it to come up with something that works well for me.

Currently I drag files from both my cameras into a folder "Import Folder" where I cull before using renamer to move the files into new folders. Photos from my phone sync automatically into a folder "Redmi" where I also cull and then use renamer to move them into a new folder.

I have a folder for year, then sub folder for day e.g. 2023>2023-01-11 ¦

Once I have used renamer to create a folder I rename the folder e.g. 2023-01-11 ¦ Lake Meadows see example attached

I have recently started to add subfolders as appropriate e.g. Processed, Affinity, Web, Email. These are created automatically (Photolab or imatch image batch processor) or manually if I use Affinity.

Currently I am using labels - Red for all images within a folder which has been culled and Green for all images which have been processed. Using file relations to propagate labels from master to versions.

I have thousands of older images before I started using imatch (and started to get organised) which have not been culled or processed. My workflow needs to easily identify these so I can deal with them over time.

Up to now, I use keywords for a minority of photos, description / headline for some, location from gps track mainly when travelling. I find folder filter or global search pretty good for finding the files I'm interested in. But I should probably get more organised in this respect.

My photos are for personal use,  sharing with family (via Amazon Photos Albums or Whatsapp), Facebook, camera club competitions.

If anyone has any suggestions I'd welcome them

[Mario]

I have thousands of older images before I started using imatch (and started to get organised) which have not been culled or processed. My workflow needs to easily identify these so I can deal with them over time.

Some General Tips

Check out the standard IMatch Workflow Categories in the Category View.
These categories list files without description, title, keywords, GPS data etc. This should make it easy to identify images which you have to work on.

The Workflow categories use formulas to work their magic. If you consider other empty tags as important, e.g. if you consider files without a label as "not done", you can add your own categories in the same way.

The Quality Panel in the IMatch Dashboard provides a similar overview, with options to customize what is displayed and the things the Dashboard checks for you.

The Actions Panel in the Dashboard lists files with problems, e.g., trouble reading or writing metadata.

These two features offer excellent support when you start to organize a file collection for the first time. I use them all the time during projects.

Very Important: Consistency

Before you start, spend some time to figure out which metadata tags you consider important.
Date & Time? Headline? Title? Description? Keywords? Rating? GPS data? Location data?
Then fill these tags consistently.

If you plan to work with keywords, consider setting up, importing or purchasing a controlled keyword vocabulary for the Thesaurus.

It is much, much better to select keywords from the Thesaurus than typing them in manually.
Improves consistency, speed, avoids typos etc. Synonyms and IMatch's powerful Keyword Links make adding keywords super-efficient.

No thesaurus is perfect from the start. It will grow over time. But it's always good to start with a solid keyword base.
See Free Controlled Vocabularies for IMatch in the IMatch Knowledge Base for related info.

New users often overlook these powerful features and give themselves a hard time doing everything manually. Using different keywords to describe the same thing (over time). Typos, etc.

[ubacher]

Another idea:
Create FAVORITES tabs for each of your processing categories.
Then place folder favorites in the appropriate FAVORITES tab.

[stefanjan2]

Another idea:
Create FAVORITES tabs for each of your processing categories.
Then place folder favorites in the appropriate FAVORITES tab.

Thanks. Do you mean something like attached. (appreciate some of these can be derived by formula). Not quite sure how I would then add folders to these categories. Or would I just drag images to each of these categories? And then uncheck when complete?

[rolandgifford]

The Workflow categories use formulas to work their magic. If you consider other empty tags as important, e.g. if you consider files without a label as "not done", you can add your own categories in the same way.

Fascinating and useful stuff

Is there any way to 'turn off' a formula driven category in the same way that filters can be temporarily disabled or do they need to be deleted to disable them. I'm thinking of performance as these categories are presumably recalculated after all database updates.

Are there any other data driven totals which can be configured or disabled?

[sinus]

The Workflow categories use formulas to work their magic. If you consider other empty tags as important, e.g. if you consider files without a label as "not done", you can add your own categories in the same way.

Fascinating and useful stuff

Is there any way to 'turn off' a formula driven category in the same way that filters can be temporarily disabled or do they need to be deleted to disable them. I'm thinking of performance as these categories are presumably recalculated after all database updates.

Are there any other data driven totals which can be configured or disabled?

From the help: (https://www.photools.com/help/imatch/cat_data.htm)
Performance Tip:
IMatch has to update categories visible in the Category View or the Category Panel often. This may reduce performance if you create many complex data-driven categories.
Create all your data-driven categories under a common parent category. You can then collapse the parent category, hiding all data-driven categories to avoid unnecessary updates.

There you can also say to a data-driven cat, that it should not automatically update (then you can do this manual). But I can not say just now, is this in the preferences or where, but in the help you will for sure find it.

[rolandgifford]

There you can also say to a data-driven cat, that it should not automatically update (then you can do this manual). But I can not say just now, is this in the preferences or where, but in the help you will for sure find it.

Thanks for highlighting the tip from the help, my brain had skipped that part when reading it. Collapsing the tree makes sense and is a lovely/simple/should be obvious (but not to me) solution to this requirement.

I have now found that I can turn off updating data driven categories globally in preferences under background processing.

I have also found that for each category there is the option under Advanced Commands/Data driven properties to be able to toggle Automatic Update off but if I do that the OK button remains greyed out so I can't update that change. I'm clearly missing a step but can't think what that step is.

[Mario]

Modern computers are very fast. IMatch calculates categories on multiple processor cores in parallel, only when needed, caches results in memory etc. Very fast.

As sinus pointed out, IMatch calculates categories on-demand - when their results are needed.

If you have
a) a large database and you b) setup many 'expensive' data-driven or formula-based categories and you
b) perform tasks which invalidate the cached category results very often (adding/updating files, changing keywords or metadata, ...) while
c) IMatch needs the category results to be up-to-date all the time (e.g. because the category is visible in the Category Panel, Category View, Category Filter, used in a variable used for the File Window etc., this may become a bit of a performance drag.

This is why "hiding" expensive to calculate categories under a parent (like I did unter "IMatch Workflow Categories") is generally a good idea. If you even notice any performance issue depends mostly on the size of your database and the speed of your computer.

There is no free lunch, because - physics!
Calculating a data-driven category from 500,000 files will take slightly more than 5 times as long than calculating the same category for 100,000 files.

Regular categories to which files are directly assigned are super-fast, always.
The performance of data-driven categories mostly depends on the database size (number of files).
Formula-based categories can be super fast (when you just combine a couple of regular categories) or slow, when you max out the formula power and do crazy stuff with metadata values and regular expressions.
In that case, you should hide the formula-based categories under a parent category so you can collapse it and avoid IMatch having to calculate them 10 times a second.

Tip: The Performance Panel in the Performance Panel of the Dashboard lists 'slow' categories IMatch noticed during operation. This means categories which take an unusual amount of time to calculate.

[Mario]

I have now found that I can turn off updating data driven categories globally in preferences under background processing.

Don't. This will make things like @Keywords useless.
You can disable the automatic update of data-driven categories for each category individually. That's much better.

I have removed the other option for IMatch 2023.

[rolandgifford]

Don't. This will make things like @Keywords useless.
You can disable the automatic update of data-driven categories for each category individually. That's much better.

Thanks, I've turned it back on again

Any idea why I can't turn off automatic update for a specific category, because OK is greyed out?

Collapsing the tree is an excellent solution. I'm just wondering about the Performance panel tip if I choose to define my own categories in the future where I may want some to be calculated all the time and some on demand. Two separate trees would work but as there is an option to change the calculation one by one it may be good if I can remove the reason it doesn't work for me.

[thrinn]

Any idea why I can't turn off automatic update for a specific category, because OK is greyed out?

If you mean the properties of the category: the state is only displayed here. To change it, use the 3-dot-icon to got to the editor:

 

(Which, by intention, is also displayed in the description at the bottom of properties panel when you select the "Automatic update" row)

[rolandgifford]

I have found that but when I change Automatic Update from On to Off I can't click OK as it is greyed out