Thumbcat
Image Catalogue Application
4 Searches and Views
There are two types of view, a user defined view and a search result view. Both are identical in the way they behave in that they are both made of references to images in an album and/or catalogue.
4.1 Searches
Searches have to be defined before they can be run, this is done by selecting the "New Search" menu option from the search menu. The search menu is available from the Iconbar menu, catalogue menu and album menu. The search definition window looks like :
4.1.1 Identity
This area is used to define the name of the search, which must be unique and conform to a RISCOS filename convention.
The title can be anything and does not have to be unique...although it would be confusing if it wasn't!
4.1.2 Context
The context defines what is searched. For example if the context is set to "Current Album" then the search
can only be initiated from the Album menu and will be limited to the images for that album.
4.1.3 Criteria
Up to 4 criteria can be specified. The first column is the tag name and in order to make the drop down menu
more readable it is limited to the displayed tags only by default. The second column of values is the condition that is applied.
This consists of the usual list with the addition of string related condistions of "Begins with", "Contains" and "Ends With". The
last column is the value that is required. In addition string values can be limited to a case sensitive search if the "Case sensitive"
option is on.
Date Searching
This differs slightly from numeric and string searching in that parts of a date can be searched. For example you can
specify a search of "Date < 15-" which will return all images whose date is less than the 15th of the month of any year.
Since some numbers can
be ambiguous it is recommended that the following formats are used for part dates, note the colon and hyphen :
nn- | day of the month |
nn: | hours (24 hour format) |
:nn: | minutes |
:nn | seconds |
Years should be specified in the 4 digit format.
Match
The option "Match All" means that all the criteria must match for a succesful search result i.e. logical AND.
The option "Match Any" means that only one criteria has to match for a successful search result i.e. logical OR.
4.1.4 Saving the Result
A search can be "saved" by converting it to a user view. This is done from the search menu item "Save as a View".
4.2 User Views
A user view is created by selecting the iconbar menu item "Views > Create a View" and then the following dialog box will pop up :
The "Name" must conform to RiscOS filename rules since it is the name given to the file that stores the view definition. The "Title" is the name referred to within Thumncat and can be any text.
Views are populated with images by dragging them from an Album display to the View.