How can I do a simple Keyword-Search???

[sirfreejack]

Hi at all,

first to Mario: the search performance has improved a lot with the 5.x version. Thanks for that.
But one thing I really missing is a simple keyword search with AND/OR/NOT.

Currently I use the View "Media & Verzeichnisse" with the search bar in top. But this will
trigger the search engine that use all Metadata-Tags. The group-filters are useless for me, because one
group like XMP contains also multiple fields with data I don't want see in my search results.

Can I configure the search and set the default behavior? I want a search that everytime only searches in keyword-data.

Second: I was not able to negate keywords. If I insert multiple tokens, the search engine use an implicit AND.
According to other threads you suggest to use inverse-filter or and something like that. Isn't a simple "NOT" supported?

Regards
Stefan

[Mario]

The search bar at the top of the file window has been designed to work similar to a search engine, or the search bar you'll know from Windows Explorer. As you pointed out, it will search all metadata tags indexed by the search engine in IMatch, unless you limit the search to a specific group.

The search engine supports a certain syntax which is explained in the file window help topic. Just click in the search bar and then press <F1> to find the corresponding help. This syntax is fixed and cannot be changed by me, it's part of the database engine. The strict syntax is the reason why it can search 100,000 files in less than one second.


The best way to find files with specific keywords is to use the Filter Panel, and there the Category filter. Since IMatch 5 maps each keyword used in your files to a child category under the special @Keywords category, you can use the power of categories to filter by keyword or perform other things.

For example, assuming you want to find files containing the keyword "abc" but not the keyword "abstract":



You + the keyword you want to include, and - the keywords you don't want (NOT). You can combine any number of keywords that way.

To see all files with a combination of certain keywords, you can just <Ctrl>+clcik them in the Category View. IMatch shows the combined (OR'ed) set of files when you select multiple categories aka keywords.

You can also use the Category @Builder in the Category View to combine any number of categories via drag and drop, using OR, AND or NOT Boolean operators. This can be done ad-hoc, or you can create a new category from the result, for instance because you often need to check which keywords contain a certain combination of keywords.




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[sirfreejack]

Hi Mario many thanks for your detailed reply.
I tried it out and it works. But to be honest, it's not most intuitive or comfortable way to search.

Just as small hint for the long-term development of IMatch:
Where are much more powerful search engines out there. For example the opensource stack Apache Solr.
Much more powerful means:
- fuzzy fulltext or strict search of plenty of million records in a few hundred milliseconds an a normal laptop.
- stemming algorithms to find simular token with same root like 'Baum' <-> 'Bäume'
- flexible APIs to build views that use strict facets selections like the current panels or search fields for "free"
  search that can limited to concrete indexed fields
- network ready to build distributed data service (shared IMatch database for multiple IMatch clients)

I know Solr is build on Java Stack and IMatch not. This is not a technical problem. It can either integrated as
native part (JVM.dll) to run it in the same process of a C++/Net. application or placed standalone as distributed
service with access via REST interface.

[Mario]

I think the search engine used by the file window covers the typical searches very well. It is a comfort feature to quickly find some files in the file window. It is neither designed nor intended to handle complex searches with multi Boolean logic - although it supports a sub-set.

For all else, the Filter Panel is the way to go.

Linking IMatch with Java (shudder) or with an Apache stack would not only create an installation/security nightmare, but would also a bit overdose just to drive the search bar of the file window.