IMatch 2018 Sneak Peak: The All New File Window Search Bar

[Mario]

In a recent and fruitful discussion we discussed how to better control which tags the search bar searches. As promised I gave your comments, suggestions and requests a good thinking and decided to improve the whole thing a lot.

It took two days of tinkering but the search bar is now not only super-fast but also even more useful 
Remember that when the next paid upgrade is due  . Two days of work just for giving you better search options. And several days for thinking about and implementing the super index search...

Instead of the current "All tags" and "frequent tags" search scopes I decided to introduce multiple search sets. Each set consists of one or more tags. There is one set for Title, Headline, Description. Another set for keywords. And several others.

You can combine the sets freely, e.g. to search only in the file name (this was a request from a couple of months ago, when I recall correctly) or to search Title, Description and keywords. Much better than before.
There is still an "Search everywhere" mode and a "frequent tags" mode. Frequent tags is now just the combination of all tag sets.

I have also added an option to search for exact phrases so searching for "keeper" will find only "kepper", but not "barkeeper".

The search bar drop-down menu now looks like this:



This should make things more clear.

Also: The search speed has again bee improved. If you limit the search to, say, the keywords set, IMatch searches 500,000 files in less than 2 seconds if the search index is up-to-date. Yess!!
For more normal scopes of a few thousand files, search times are almost zero. I'm quite proud of my idea how to improve this 

And yes, the file window can load 500,000 files and search them. At least the 64-bit version of IMatch can!

[pajaro]

This is great news! Thanks, Mario. It seems we will have options I asked for in my feature request some time ago (https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=2668.msg17329#msg17329)  . Cannot wait for the release.

[Darius1968]

I posted some time ago, in the feature requests section of this board, about letting the search bar be also applicable to searches involving the native IMatch categories.  It was downplayed (understandably, so) on the basis that performance would suffer if these native categories were mapped into dedicated tags, just like the embedded image data are, because it would be essentially, duplicating the same information twice.  In this light, would there be a way to set up the search bar, such that it could look at the categories directly, without the need to copy the data for that search bar's use?  Then, there could be an option to include/disinclude categories from the search. 

P.S.
Just as you are giving more options on which tags can be searched, is it possible to allow the user, the opportunity to choose which tags he wants to include/disinclude, and better yet, allow for user definition of tag sets to be searched? 

[mastodon]

Sorry for the noobie question, is it possible to search in the results? (Mow I did not really use search, just filtering)

[Mario]

I posted some time ago, in the feature requests section of this board, about letting the search bar be also applicable to searches involving the native IMatch categories.  It was downplayed (understandably, so) on the basis that performance would suffer if these native categories were mapped into dedicated tags, just like the embedded image data are, because it would be essentially, duplicating the same information twice.  In this light, would there be a way to set up the search bar, such that it could look at the categories directly, without the need to copy the data for that search bar's use?  Then, there could be an option to include/disinclude categories from the search. 

P.S.
Just as you are giving more options on which tags can be searched, is it possible to allow the user, the opportunity to choose which tags he wants to include/disinclude, and better yet, allow for user definition of tag sets to be searched?

No categories, sorry. Duplicating the categories as metadata would not only ruin search performance but would also cause performance issues in nearly all category-related features.
There are so many features to search for categories and filter for categories, why making the simple search bar more complicated? Just use the Category View, the Category Panel, the Category Filter to do what you need. If you have not used these features yet, check out the IMatch help to see what IMatch already offers.

No configuration of the tags to search. We discussed this in the other thread (see link above in my post) at some length. In short: Too complicated. Complex UI. Only a handful users and you maybe will ever have a need for that. These features are already available in the Filter Panel. See the help if you have never used a Metadata Filter or the Metadata Search. You can combine up to four individual metadata filters with the Metadata Search and the search bar...nobody needs that much search complexity. Even if you want to find files by the most obscure tags (which?), a metadata filter will do the trick nicely.
Or just create a data-driven category based on that tag and avoid searching altogether.

[Mario]

Sorry for the noobie question, is it possible to search in the results? (Mow I did not really use search, just filtering)

No. Feel free to use the Filter Panel, which has been designed for precisely this kind of operations. We should not try to add more and more and more and more stuff to the simple file window search bar. We already have all the search and filter features we need in the Filter Panel. Just use it. You can also combine the search bar with the Filter Panel for even more complex searches. And maybe 5% of all users will ever need more than what is already offered by the new search bar. Experience tells us that most users have very simple search requirements.

[sinus]

Looks cool and powerful.

Do we have to open this every time for checking, what is choosen?
Because once choosen, we will often use the same search, but we will also be sure .

[Mario]

Looks cool and powerful.

Do we have to open this every time for checking, what is choosen?
Because once choosen, we will often use the same search, but we will also be sure .

As you might recall I have added a feature for IMatch 2018 which shows you the selected options when you hover the mouse over the cancel search button.
When I remember correctly, this was one of your feature requests:

[ubacher]

is it possible to search in the results?

I would just put the results of the search into a result window (Ctrl G,R) and then perform another search on the results. Is this
not the logical way to proceed?

[sinus]

Looks cool and powerful.

Do we have to open this every time for checking, what is choosen?
Because once choosen, we will often use the same search, but we will also be sure .

As you might recall I have added a feature for IMatch 2018 which shows you the selected options when you hover the mouse over the cancel search button.
When I remember correctly, this was one of your feature requests:

Exactly. It was me.
Looks great, gives more certainty for the search. Thanks for that!

[sinus]

is it possible to search in the results?

I would just put the results of the search into a result window (Ctrl G,R) and then perform another search on the results. Is this
not the logical way to proceed?

Wow, awesome! Somehow I forgot this. Thank you, ubacher.

(btw: I think that many users only use this search and not the filter tool, so I think this is so important here. )

[sinus]

is it possible to search in the results?

I would just put the results of the search into a result window (Ctrl G,R) and then perform another search on the results. Is this
not the logical way to proceed?

Played with this. Was not more aware of this! This is aso wesome and, yes, logical, that this possibility should be more prominent.
(imagine, a simple button would select all results and open a result window ... and there again, cool)

Mario, does it make sense to add a FR for the possibility, that after Ctrl G,R the result window would not call "Selection 1...", but would call the same like the search value (like in the File Finder - App)?