Attributes panel, category assignments, and scripts dockable?

[DavidOfMA]

Is there a way to dock the attributes panel so it can be placed in the same area as the Categories panel, and have the same look? I'd like to emulate the convenient way of viewing what used to be properties and categories by clicking from one tab to another that IMatch 3 used, rather than have a panel with a completely different UI fitted into some other part of the display area.

I'd also like to be able to put scripts and category quick-assignments there, as in the one-click bar. Is this possible and if so, how?

[JohnZeman]

If you mean like the attached screen shot where individual panels are combined and indicated with a red line around them, then yes.  It's all in how you drag and drop the panels into place.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[DavidOfMA]

That works. I'm primarily interested in viewing my IMatch 3.6 properties, which have been imported into Attributes. Is the data I'm looking at here newly entered or imported from an old database?

[JohnZeman]

You mean in my last screenshot?  Those are just panels stacked side by side with one panel being a container for the others.

For attributes I'm guessing you're talking about File Sets.  Each File Set you create in Preferences > Edit Attributes (see screen shots) shows up as a tab in the attributes panel.  In my attributes panel screen shot I have two File Sets, one called "!Last Exported" and one called "Notes."

[attachment deleted by admin]

[DavidOfMA]

No, I'm talking about what used to be called Properties in IMatch 3.6. The panel that displays them is called Attributes now, and I found that it can be docked. However, it's not very useful docked, because the Properties, which used to be arranged vertically, are now arranged horizontally, so unless the dock area is very wide, you can only see one or two at a time (I have 10 per image).

Hopefully, this will change or become configurable, because for people like me, with 100,000+ images with IMatch 3.6 Properties I'd still want to access in IMatch 5, the new arrangement is not very workable.

[Mario]

The Attribute Panel can be docked and even freely moved as a separate window, even to a secondary monitor.

The Attribute Panel grid is designed like common spread sheet applications (Excel) and the row / column orientation cannot be changed. IMatch 5 supports multiple per-file attribute sets so you can split the single 'Image' property set from IMatch 3 into multiple per-file Attribute Sets in IMatch if needed. This limits the amount of Attributes (aka columns) the panel has to display.

On a normal monitor, when I dock the Attribute panel at the bottom of the IMatch window it can use the full width of the screen, which allows quite a number of Attribute columns to show without the need to scroll horizontally.

[DavidOfMA]

IMatch 5 supports multiple per-file attribute sets so you can split the single 'Image' property set from IMatch 3 into multiple per-file Attribute Sets in IMatch if needed. This limits the amount of Attributes (aka columns) the panel has to display.

I have 17 properties, so even full-screen, I'd have to do a lot more scrolling. Is it possible to create a second, third, and fourth attribute set and move the fields from the first set into the second and third, etc., ones? If so, that would work as a way to retain, but also view, all the data currently in Properties within the same window I have docked other metadata, which is preferable for me to having it displayed at the bottom of the screen. If that's not possible (and I haven't been able to figure out how to do that), is there another way to move IMatch 3.6 Properties into multiple Attribute tables? I'd only have to do that once, but it seems necessary if I'm to update IMatch to IMatch 5 and keep easy access to my 17 Imatch 3.6 Properties.

Thanks,
David

[ColinIM]

I have 17 properties, so even full-screen, I'd have to do a lot more scrolling. ....
....
David

From your reply to DavidOfMa so far Mario, I admit that I can't yet imagine what I could reasonably ask for as a Feature Request to improve my own perception of this rigidly horizontal Attributes Panel, so until I've settled further into IMatch 5, please consider this late response to David's post as just a statement of my 'empathy' for him and for his plight ... which I share

EDIT - at 2014-01-09 03:12 UTC:
Ah! I've just seen DavidOfMA's own Feature Request on this same theme, here, plus a healthy follow-up discussion:
Make Attributes panel display Attributes vertically
https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=1501.0
If you (new reader) arrived at this topic first then I strongly recommend reading that thread also.
Colin P.


David has 17 Properties, but I'll only be transferring 8 IMatch 3 (IM3) Properties into equivalent IMatch 5 File Attributes.  However, most of my IM3 Properties hold long text strings - often more than 100 characters long.

One IM3 multi-line Property shows my entire KEYWORDS block from the currently selected image using a mapped IPTC field, giving me a speedy and much valued select-all-then-copy (read-only) access to the whole embedded keyword set for an image. In IMatch 5 I'm sure I can find a comparable scheme to this, for swift, per-image keywords access - read-only or not - and can therefore (probably) omit this keywords item from my IMatch 5 Attributes panel.

But the "most often referenced" of my IM3 Properties are those showing my long descriptive filenames, where they're shown blissfully unwrapped and un-abbreviated in the IM3 Properties pane.  Of most relevance here is that many of my images are assigned up to three filenames (not at the same time, of course), as they move from being "just edited" images to being "finally issued" images, depending on the eventual purpose of the image.

The names of my IM3 Property-fields might partly explain this progression:  They are (i) "Last_Edited_Filename", holding values typically of around 150 characters, (ii) "My_Assigned_Filename" and (iii) "Project_Specific_Filename", with each of the last two holding values of 40 characters or longer.  When I stretch just these three File Attributes into an unconstrained view on my full-width Attributes panel, there isn't much room - without scrolling - for the remaining Attributes.

The majority of my time in an IM3 session is spent with the Properties pane in view, and the ability to make quick character-by-character comparisons between these filenames for pairs of images (for example) is a vital part of my IM3 workflow.

But in IMatch 5, the requirement (sometimes) to scroll across the horizontal Attributes fields is my least comfortable issue so far, even when I set the panel to full-width.

But it's early days yet ... certainly for myself ... with IMatch 5, and who knows what new magic will be woven in months to come, as we all settle into it 

Colin P.

[Mario]

But the "most often referenced" of my IM3 Properties are those showing my long descriptive filenames, where they're shown blissfully unwrapped and un-abbreviated in the IM3 Properties pane.  Of most relevance here is that many of my images are assigned up to three filenames (not at the same time, of course), as they move from being "just edited" images to being "finally issued" images, depending on the eventual purpose of the image.

The names of my IM3 Property-fields might partly explain this progression:  They are (i) "Last_Edited_Filename", holding values typically of around 150 characters, (ii) "My_Assigned_Filename" and (iii) "Project_Specific_Filename", with each of the last two holding values of 40 characters or longer.  When I stretch just these three File Attributes into an unconstrained view on my full-width Attributes panel, there isn't much room - without scrolling - for the remaining Attributes.

The Attribute Panel automatically adapts row heights to display the entire contents of the text (to certain limtis). So you can see a lot of text usually, without scrolling. Basically the behavior is the same you know from standard applications like Excel.



I think the problem is that the file names have no natural 'break/line-wrap' place and so the grid displays them in one line.

If each \ has a blank in front or behind, the wrapping is performed automatically:



[attachment deleted by admin]

[ColinIM]

Thankyou Mario,

For my long, un-bendable filename values, I see that I can stretch and display all three of my filename columns comfortably across one Tab of the Attributes panel ...

... So I now plan to add a second File Attribute set (as was proposed earlier in a related thread on this theme - sorry I can't recall by whom it was proposed) - and eventually (once I've absorbed some scripting know-how) I aim to move the non-filename-related Attribute values from the "Image" set into which they were imported from IMatch 3, onto this new Attributes panel Tab - which I've tentatively named as "Supplementary" for now.

I've only had time to peep briefly at John Zeman's Collapsible Metadata Viewer II template, and I look forward to weighing its potential for making these longer fields readily viewable, against the ... shall we say ... "possible straightforwardness" of using the natively docked Attributes panel.

Blimey! There's sooooo much flexibility here  and so many paths on which to stretch our programming/scripting/creativity muscles 

(On another Forum I use this quip as my Profile signature ... "Staying busy is easy. Setting priorities is harder" ... and this certainly applies here too as I skip around inside IMatch 5's delicious depths!)

Colin P

[Mario]

Hi, Colin

The Attributes panel has been designed to 'look' like MS Excel. This is good for the corporate IMatch users, who often use Excel, and it's also good for the majority of IMatch users because it's such a vast improvement in functionality and comfort. Since the Attribute Panel is a standard IMatch panel, it can be un-docked and freely moved, resized to full screen size and even moved to a separate monitor. Of course there may be situations where even a full screen width is not sufficient to display all data (e.g. in the case of David) without scrolling.

Since IMatch 5 supports any number of per-file Attribute sets, even large data sets can be split into logical Attribute sets and displayed in separate tabs.

For the next build I've add a small change which causes Attributes of type hyperlink to wrap nicely (IMatch inserts blanks after each \ / & ? and = for display purposes, and this allows the URLs to wrap nicely. I recommend using hyperlink Attributes for all real hyperlinks, but also for file and folder names. Something that is easily overlooked (and has been added just recently) is the ability to link to files, folders and categories within the current IMatch database from hyperlink Attributes. This allows users to include information like "look in this folder" or "look at this file" in Attributes - and to open the corresponding folder, file or category with a mouse click.

On trick to split on large Attribute Set into multiple sets is the following:

Under Edit > Preferences > Edit Attributes you can export Attribute Sets to a disk file.
The resulting file is a XML file which can be edited in any text editor that supports UTF-8, e.g. Windows Notepad or the free and better NoteaPad++.

At the start of the file, all Attribute Sets (internal name: Domain) are declared. For the set in my screen shot this looks like:

<domain oid='5'>
	
<name>FileInfo</name>
	
<class>file</class>
	
<flags></flags>
	
<attribute oid='28'>
	
	
<name>Note</name>
	
	
<sort_order>0</sort_order>
	
	
<type>string</type>
	
</attribute>
	
<attribute oid='29'>
	
	
<name>Old file name</name>
	
	
<sort_order>1</sort_order>
	
	
<type>string</type>
	
</attribute>
	
<attribute oid='30'>
	
	
<name>Link</name>
	
	
<sort_order>2</sort_order>
	
	
<type>hyperlink</type>
	
</attribute></domain>?>



This declaration tells IMatch the name of the Attribute Set, and which Attributes it contains etc.


When you rename the domain, e.g. by changing

<name>FileInfo</name>

to

<name>Additional File Info</name>

and save the file, you can later import the file again under Edit > Preferences > Attributes.
This loads the same data into the database, but into a separate set. You can now delete Attributes from the old and new set to get exactly the info in each set you want.



[ColinIM]

Thankyou Mario,

I'll certainly be using that excellent ploy to 'export, modify, re-import then trim' the columns on my Attributes Sets!

It also answers a question I'd queued on my notes about that first name "Image", assigned to the first Attribute Set during import of my IMatch 3 Property Set.  (I could live with the label 'Image' for that Set, but I always hoped to change it to something more in tune with the flavour or the context of the particular Attributes it contained.)

So now I can use the steps you've described above.  I can skip the slightly uncertain (and hence unwise!) plan I had of editing the IMatch 3 exported .imps file, hoping to change that first-assigned name prior to import 

Colin P.

[Mario]

The one and only property set IMatch 3 maintains for files is named 'Image', hence the name of the resulting Attribute Set.

I'm not sure right now why there is no built-in way to rename Attribute Sets...may be an oversight or may have technical reasons (e.g. breaking all features which use variables referring to the old Attribute Set name). May be worth a feature request.

[ColinIM]

(....) May be worth a feature request.

Yes! I thought of that too  although I also guessed it wouldn't necessarily be straightforward (as you've mused).

I'll add a Feature Request later this evening (UK time).
Colin P.