Say, for instance, I have 50 folders on my HD, each corresponding to photos of 1 of 50 separate friends. Of these 50 folders, there are 3 that correspond to friends from an aviation club of which I was a member, back in 1980 in my 7th-Grade. What I want to do is assign these 3 folders to an "Aviation" category. I know I could just assign the images, but is there a way to click on the "Aviation" category, and right away, see the three folders on my HD (instead of just the images) that are relevant to the category?
I'm traveling right now and away from my IMatch computer but I believe you can do this with a formula category.
You cannot use categories to 'group' folders directly that way. Categories are a feature designed to group files, independent from their physical location (aka folders).
However, you can create categories which refer to a folder (or multiple) via a @Folder* formula. This allows you to combine all files in one or more folders into a category, and to keep the category automatically in synh with the folder contents. Or to create a virtual hierarchy of folders from multiple sources in form of categories.
This is how I would do it:
1. Create one 'Aviation' category as the root.
2. Switch to Media & Folders, select the folders you want to be in that category.
3. Left-click and drag them to the Categories tab at the top and hold for a few seconds. IMatch switches to the Category View.
4. Now move the mouse to 'Aviation' and release the left mouse button.
5.In the dialog, choose Create category with a folder formula.
IMatch creates categories with the same name as the folders as a child categories of 'Aviation' and automatically adds @Folder formula for you. This should give you exactly what you want.
PS.: You can also do this by using Ctrl+C on a folder in the Media & Folders View, switch to the Category View and then press Ctrl+V. But that works only for one folder at a time (a glitch I have fixed for the next release). Drag and drop allows you to do this for multiple folders (when on the same level).