Where are results of filters displayed (5.6.18)?

[Panther]

Ok, I hate being stupid, and especially publicly appearing to be stupid, but I cannot figure this out.  My needs with iMatch are pretty simple, and I've never really messed around with Filters, but I have a set of categories (a parent with a few children) that should have been assigned to all of my images, but I have about 200 images for which I have failed to assign those categories, and I need to fix that.  I read several sections of the Help file trying to figure out how this is supposed to work, but I still don't get it.

I started out by selecting the "all" category so all 2300-ish images were displayed in what I think is the File Window.  I found out how to make the Filter panel visible, how to make the category search sub-panel visible, how to select the categories that I'm interested in, and I see where the "apply the filter" button is lit up in the top left of the Filter panel.  In theory, it seemed like I should be able to hit the "apply the filter" button to find/display the 2100-ish images that do have those categories assigned, and then I could hit the "invert" button to find/display the 200-ish files that don't have those categories assigned yet.  Then I could go through easily and assign the categories to the files I missed before.

BUT, when I hit the "apply" button, nothing seems to happen (nothing in the File Window changes) and I can't find any place where the results of applying the filter are displayed, and the "invert" button never lights up or becomes clickable.

Obviously, I'm missing something, and it's probably really simple and I'm gonna feel stupid when somebody points it out, but I could use some help here, please.

[hluxem]

Make sure you expand the filter manager and set a check mark for the Filter Panel (first in box in orange), then you also need to put a check mark on the filter you are using. If you for example want to filter for rating 1, you need to make sure that you check the box next to Rating, Label & Collections as well as rating 1. I over looked that at the beginning too, but it's really handy because you can easily switch between filtering for ratings , categories or a combination of them

Heiner

[Mario]

1. Make sure that the filter you see in the filter panel is activated.
2. Make sure the Category Filter is activated:



IMatch by default automatically applies the filter. If you have enabled the Category Filter (the caption is blue and the box ticked) you should see the file window following your filter. Files show up and vanish when you tick or un-tick categories in your filter.


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[Panther]

Bingo! (I think) - I don't think I realized that those squares (like on the Category filter subpanel bar) were boxes that had to be checked.  I guess I thought opening up that subpanel and clicking on the categories inside the subpanel would be enough to tell iMatch that I wanted to use that filter, but I certainly see now how this makes sense this way.  I'll have to go in later tonight and try this again, but I don't remember those boxes being checked so that's bound to be it.

Thanks again for the great support!

[EDIT] Indeed, that was it.  Went back in and sure enough, checking that box was the key - everything worked perfectly, as expected

[Mario]

Usually when you open a panel for the first time in a session, IMatch makes the caption blink and displays a hint about the meaning of the check box. This is especially helpful for users who work with filters for the first time, or only occasionally.

The ability to quickly enable/disable individual filters is indeed useful and often even a requirement.
Like the option to disable the entire filter panel with a single mouse-click or to invert the filter panel result.
If you work with very large scopes (50,000 or maybe even 300,000 files) you'll welcome the button to switch the filter panel to manual apply.

Quite a bit of thinking went into the Filter panel. All the features may not be immediately obvious, but it you work with it for a couple of minutes and at least browse the corresponding help topic (<F1> is your friend) you should be able to master it quickly.