Upcoming release notes... A great read

[Aubrey]

Reading the release notes is great for a taster of what's in the pipeline. Worth the effort.

I came across
New Keyboard Shortcut for Write-back All

This will be useful. There was a shortcut for selected files. I wonder why nobody asked for this new shortcut before?

Looking forward to 2019.3.2

Thanks
Aubrey

[Carlo Didier]

...I wonder why nobody asked for this new shortcut before? ...

Maybe not many people write-back to their files?

Marios statistics could shed some light on that, maybe?

[Mario]

I think the write-back all is just not that often needed. And its reachable easily enough via the menu, even by keyboard shortcuts.

That "new features" come up suddenly and then users go "Oh, why did we not request this before?" is not uncommon.
Users usually don't work with IMatch, thinking "Hm, could this be improved and how?" They just want to get the job done.

I once put it this way, in a talk: "Users don't want a DAM. They want to have their files organized properly".

I'm always trying to make things easier, remove unnecessary options, streamline things to make IMatch work better for its users.
This is quite hard with a complex product like IMatch.
But I was quite successful with this approach when creating IMatch Anywhere and IMatch WebViewer. Simplicity was the key from the beginning.
Although the IMA products gain more users every week, the support quota is nearly zero. This product works out of the box, for many different user types.
I have learned lots from this and apply it to IMatch too.

But I'm spoiled. My view on IMatch and IMatch Anywhere and WebViewer is totally different than a normal users perspective.
I'm fully aware of that and try to work against it where possible. When you work on a new dialog or feature for two weeks, its all perfectly clear to you. And then you show it to some real users and they don't understand a thing 

One thing I do is to actually use IMatch ("Eat your own dog food", as we say in the business).
Managing my own files and curating a large collection of files teaches me a lot about performance, workflow, where things could work better...

Another thing I do: I always work on new features and then leave them alone for a week or even a month.
Then I go back and immediately notice all the nonsense, mistakes, typos, usability issues I was not aware before. Its sometimes a bit spooky. But it helps to get new features out in a shape understandable and usable for the majority of users.

There are always some super-users who can handle everything (mostly because they work in IT the whole day).
And there are extremely casual users who use maybe 20% of IMatch and only every other week. And all the users who fall between these two extremes.

The heavy users represent the majority in this community, but the majority of the user base is silent.
I'm always pondering of ways to get them more involved. But so many things compete for our attention these days...

For example: before we had the Updater App (and this was the main reason for me to create it), many users did not bother to update IMatch. Or only every couple of months. Since the "Do you want to download and install now?" app is built-in, this has changed to 80% of the installations out there being current. Very good. New features and bug fixes are rolled out much quicker now.

My goal is always to make IMatch work better for its users. And, since we're now rolling over to a new generation of users without deep computer know.how, to simplify things, without sacrificing flexibility and power.

... and then users wonder why I charge for major upgrades 

[Jingo]

Hmmm ... will "write back all" do it for all images in focus or the entire database?  I hope it is just the focused items..

I'm a strong believer in always writing back the database contents to the images... that way, the info carries along with the image no matter the application or location of the image.  Case in point - I can drag/drop an image from explorer onto a gallery upload and know my keywords, location data, ratings, etc will show automatically in the gallery...  but - each user has their own specific needs in terms of privacy and data.

[dkorman]

1. on writeback

Every now and then I check to see if there are files pending writeback, and I am surprised at how many are pending.  As well, when I writeback all (through the menu), sometimes I am surprised with how many files need writeback.  It would be nice to see a list of files with pending writeback, and perhaps the type or action that triggered the writeback.  If this feature exists, I have not found it.  I have a case where even after I writeback all, there are 2 files that seem to remain requiring writeback - I can writeback all repeatedly, and 2 files are always awaiting.  The log file does not name these files, and instead seems to indicate that 2 files were written back (perhaps these are files that iMatch can not write back, but I thought in that case that iMatch would create buddy files - but still, I don't know which 2 files are problematic).

2. on iMatch usage

As always, Mario, thank you for your care in iMatch's continuous improvement.  I use iMatch almost every day, but I'm sure that I'm not using many, many features - instead, I have a workflow that, well, works, and works well.  Improving the "core" 20% is what's mostly on my wish list (though my "core" certainly does not overlap everyone's). 

Mario, do you have any more interesting observations from your data collection that you would like to share, such as what have you found out about the "core 20%"?

David

[David_H]

1. on writeback
It would be nice to see a list of files with pending writeback,

Collections -> Pending Metadata write-back.
The History panel might give you a hint as to what changed, but i think its just 'Metadata changed' (date).

David

[Mario]

Hmmm ... will "write back all" do it for all images in focus or the entire database?  I hope it is just the focused items..

If you open the menu you will see "For selected files.." For all pending files". Pick whatever you want.
IMatch gives you fill control over which files you write back.

The Collection "Pending Metadata write-back" shows you all files with pending write-back. These will be written when you run the "For all pending files" command.
If you point the mouse cursor at a pen icon in a File Window, the tooltip shows you which tags will be written back (at least the first 10 tags).

[Mario]

Collections -> Pending Metadata write-back.
The History panel might give you a hint as to what changed, but i think its just 'Metadata changed' (date).
David

The history panel does not include details about which tags were changed.
You can see the first 10 modified tags listed when you point the mouse cursor at the pen icon in the File Window panel. The popup shows you what has changed and what will be written back.

[dkorman]

Thank you. I had missed the collection (I haven't made use of collections, yet).  I have now located the problem files and fixed them, and the writeback then proceeded without a problem.