Stacking and colours

[stephock]

I have many versioned pictures. I also have many stacked pictures.
When I stacked the pictures, I didn't worry about the colour.
Now I want to change the colour on around 1500 stacked pictures.
Is there any way I can do it in bulk? If I select many groups (CTRL+A) and then go in and change the colour of the stack, only the last stack is actually changed.
The idea of changing all of them individually is too daunting!
Can anyone help?

[Mario]

What do you mean by "changing colour"?
Which color do you want to change?

Label color?
Color-coded category color?
The color used by the version stack icon?`
...?

[stephock]

The colour used by the version-stack icon.

[sinus]

Hmm, I do not know.
I set the color of a stack manually, but to change them at once, I do not know, how.

There are some variables for stacking, like see the color {File.Stack.Color}, but how to change them all, no idea.

[Mario]

The colour used by the version-stack icon.

You can set the color of the version stack icon border in the preferences for your version rule:



This allows you to differentiate between stacks created by different version rules. If you have more than one.

Corresponding Help Topic

[stephock]

I cannot work out how to stack automatically. The stacks are random in content, the name of each file is different, as is the timestamp.

It seems there is no way to batch-change the colour of a bunch of stacks.

[sinus]

What for stacks???

Versions stacks, real stacks?

[Mario]

I cannot work out how to stack automatically. The stacks are random in content, the name of each file is different, as is the timestamp.

You are not giving us the information we need.
Do you use use file versioning or auto-stacking or do create stacks manually.
File Relations: Versioning
File Relations: Stacking
Auto-Stacking

It seems there is no way to batch-change the colour of a bunch of stacks.

Stacks have no color.

If you use versioning, the version rule used to create the stack also determines the border color used for the stack icon.
Only when you use very different file formats you need more than one version rule (typically), so all your stacks have the same color anyway (typically).

If you give us more information about what you actually do, what you see (screen shots) we may provide information which actually helps you. Currently, it's all a bit of guesswork.

[sinus]

Stacks have no color.

Hmm, Maybe we are not talking from the same stuff.
I work with stacks and I add a colored frame (unfortunately quite thin),
a green for business and pink for private, see attachement 1.

And I work with version stacks, the colored frame is yellow, see attachement 2 (also quite "decent" to see it).

Like Mario wrote, a screenshot or so would help.

[Mario]

As I wrote above:

If you use versioning, the version rule used to create the stack also determines the border color used for the stack icon.

I work with stacks and I add a colored frame (unfortunately quite thin),

If the version color is very important to you, you can tell your File window layout to use the version color to tint the thumbnail panel.
By the looks of your quite colorful screen shot, you are using the label color to tint the background?

[sinus]

By the looks of your quite colorful screen shot, you are using the label color to tint the background?

Exactly! I do so.
You know your program very well! 

[stephock]

Thank you for all your replies, but my initial post explained the situation very well:

"When I stacked the pictures, I didn't worry about the colour."
"Now I want to change the colour of around 1500 stacked pictures."

- I am talking about manually stacked pictures (not versions).
- The colour is white (default).
- I now need to clasify the stacks, and would like to change the colour from white to something more relevant.
- This is easily done on a stack-by-stack basis. I wanted to know whether I can do this on a batch of stacks.

I repeat, I'm talking about manual stacking, not versions.
The stacking criteria vary considerably, and it is not possible to use auto-stacking.

The attached file shows three manual stacks, two with the default white colour, and one with a red colour.

[Mario]

You cannot assign any colors to manual stacks. The icon is fixed.
Manual stacks are designed to reduce the clutter in File Windows by hiding all but the "best" shot in a series of images.

I recommend using labels, if you need colors.
Or assigning stacked files also to categories so you can color-code them. See Category Color Bar

[stephock]

I agree that I cannot assign a colour to manual stacks. I can however, then go into a stack and change its colour. See the attached screen shot.

This is getting out of hand. I only wanted to know whether I can manually assign a colour to more than one stack at a time...

[Mario]

Aahhh,...you mean the option to set a color for manual stacks.
Geez, I'd totally forgotten about that feature. Amazing.
I don't think many users use this, if anybody is using this at all.

This command allows you to change the color of the stack for which you open the menu. You cannot change the color for more than one stack at a time.

What is your use-case?
Why do you need to create so many individual stacks and also color them individually?

[stephock]

I need to colour-code some client displays. I find the over-use of colour to be distracting, and like to keep colour to a minimum for normal viewing.
The thin outline of a 'coloured stack' is ideal: enough colour to give the required information without being too intrusive.
The problem here is that the client needed to change his colour-coding, and I needed to accomodate him...

I managed to sort it out with judicious use of auto-stacking, including a temporary variable.

[Mario]

Maybe use a color-coded category hierarchy?
This gives you a fairly small color bar at the bottom of the thumbnail panel. And you can change the colors centrally.
Category Color Bar

[stephock]

Thanks for the reminder, Mario.

I have used the category bar in the past, but it's still too intrusive for a display my customer will see (it's too thick).

But that gave an idea, and I've come up with the attached display, based on labels.

Thanks to all who took the time to respond!

[Mario]

Very nice. Custom template and markup I guess? You can do a lot with that, from custom icons to custom color bars.
The variable {File.Stack.Color} allows you to access the stack color - just in case.

[stephock]

The reason I chose labels over stack colour was that I can assign a group of labels in one go, whereas stack colours must be assigned individually.

Full circle. This is where I started the post!

[Mario]

Different purposes.
The ability to color stacks is basically just a gimmick. It makes sense for version stacks, to see which version rule was used.
But for regular stacks, I doubt many users even know that they can assign a color manually to a stack.
I've added this in IMatch 5 many years ago, and had totally forgotten about it.

I think your choice of using labels instead of stack colors works well.