CE4 search...

Kris · 2014-07-19 22:55:48

Is it possible to manipulate CE4 search such that...

1. it returns null if an exact search criteria is not found?
2. it only searches certain galleries and excludes others?
3. search on keywords and tags from LR, as well as from filename matches?
4. search on part keywords - e.g., I might have a keyword (or a filename) of WP14-D01-123456-001, and I want all images with 123456 (somewhere in the keyword or filename) to return and no others?
6. search on multiple criteria, e.g. in the above, include WP14 AND 123456?
Edit - the above is useful as the keyword 123456 will likely appear in more than one database (it's a pupil ID, if you're interested)
5. is fully compatible with ce4 cart?

Thanks,

Kris.

Last edited by Kris (2014-07-19 23:31:41)

rod barbee · 2014-07-20 04:57:40

on #2, in the Album Setup, under Features, you can hide the Album from search

Ben · 2014-07-20 07:34:49

Hi Kris,

1. Add a + before any required term, e.g. +scenery. For quoted text, insert the + inside the quote, e.g. "+Rocky Mountains"
2. As Rod said
3. The search operates on keywords, title, caption and filename. The best matches based on keywords are returned first.
4. Search already operates this way
6. Search with +WP14 +123456
5. Search will only operate in the realm of published albums. It's not aware of anything cart-specific. How do you see it working with the cart?

Please let us know if you find search isn't working as described above.

Kris · 2014-07-20 18:25:48

Thanks both.

Maybe more of a background may be useful?

I shoot numerous schools, amongst other things. Each school has a SIMS database, where each pupil has a unique six digit pupilID. This is gathered at shoot time for the schools image importation.

Photographers (the larger school photography companies) uses pupilID for parents to search on. It's ideal because it follows the pupil through their school career, so can see all their photographs from previous years

However, it must return null if an exact match is not found. It can't allow parents to guess a code or worse search on a wild card type part code and have the dB return all matches

More questions...

1. With issue one above, is it possible to force the search to only use +criteria?
2. I don't want to hide an album, just search only one database. This might not be an issue though with multiple search criteria as long as they can choose the code for their school. (Wp14 above).

For those images that are returned from the dB, is it possible that they can be added to the cart and then click on continue browsing and be returned to their search criteria images? I'm assuming so.

I don't have ce4 yet, eagerly awaiting cart launch.

I realise this is way above the ce4 intended usage. I know tempest spent tens of thousands on their schoool photography dB.

Thanks,
Kris

Last edited by Kris (2014-07-20 18:33:01)

Ben · 2014-07-20 19:13:59

Hi Kris, you're right on the last point, that this is above the ce4 intended usage . Much of what you're looking for should be doable in a feature release.

Are the school ID and pupil IDs stored as keywords? If so, this would be more straightforward - the publisher code has provision for a keyword-only search. So with a form to match and some extra search settings (e.g. search type of full-text or keyword-only, all-matches-required to be yes and no, and partial-matches to be yes or no (no in your case)) that should cover most of it.

Last edited by Ben (2014-07-20 19:15:40)

Kris · 2014-07-20 20:17:26

I know, I appreciate that. Secondary schools don't like parents seeing other pupils photos; primary schools don't mind class based galleries.

The schoolID and pupilID could be stored as keywords in lightroom I'm sure.

That is excellent news ... and I'd fly to Oz and buy you a pint of Fosters!

I think the capabilities could be useful to other volume photographers.

Would the dB manage tens of thousands of images and new images each year?

Last edited by Kris (2014-07-20 20:21:11)

Ben · 2014-07-20 20:30:58

Sounds great! Except we don't drink Fosters in Australia

If not in keywords, what would be your preferred way of storing those fields? SQLite should be scalable to a large number of images. From what I've read, scalability issues arise from locks when multiple visitors are writing data to the database. The published galleries are effectively read-only for visitors, and only written to when you publish from Lightroom.

Kris · 2014-07-21 02:23:57

Hey? They lied to me in my local WalkAbout bar?!?!?!?

Hmm, I'm sure keywords could be made to work.

With my working method, I place the pupilID into Metadata >> caption because this allows the most flexible options for file renaming and filenaming upon export. The relevant head and shoulders images can be renamed upon export easily using Lightrooms {Caption>>} or {Title>>} as the export filename criteria.

Lightroom will export keywords as filenaming criteria, but it just dumps all keywords relevant to that image into the filename (separated with spaces !!!, which as we all know, is a right pain the arse on unix hosting).

If I'm honest, the best method for me would be to search only on filenames. Exact relevant intelligent filenames (such as WP14-D01-123456-001) are easy to sort later on even when just viewing them on the remote server, and can be easily matched back to the printing which always contains the filenames on the reverse of the print (called backprinting). Parents printed proof cards always get the image filenames too. I had a lab bill of over £11,000 last year, so you can imagine how easy it is for a random customer to simply turn the print over and I can match that to the Lightroom database in seconds and know exactly which school, year and even which pupil it is.

Also, at the moment all schools require images for the database importation to be named exactly as pupilID.jpg and nothing else

Is the database able to search on image filenames or other metadata apart form keyword?

Thanks for giving this some thought Ben, I know I must be a right pain in the arse, and understand if you tell me it's not possible.

kris.

Edit - I'm not very familiar with Publisher, is it possible to have different publisher examples on different sub-domains? For example, I might have scchoolname.schoolphotographerwebsite.com for each school. This might simplify the database administration somewhat.

Last edited by Kris (2014-07-21 04:30:04)

Ben · 2014-07-21 09:21:07

Hi Kris, Fosters is a strange one. It's promoted around the world as the beer of Australia, yet we don't drink it. I can't think of a single pub that has it on tap.
The search operates on captions, titles, keywords and filenames. I asked about keywords because by their nature they're better at finding exact matches. Keywords are discrete terms so it's straightforward to find an exact match between search terms and keywords. Other searches are based on partial matches, i.e. does the search term exist somewhere in the field. That's where things break down, as users will be able to search for partial matches such as the '34' of '123456', with results including photos from multiple pupils.
The algorithm could be changed to only return matches that are complete items, 'complete' being a series of characters with a separating character such as spaces, hyphens, underscores at each end of the found term. With that, a search for '123456' would match again photo_pupil_123456.jpg but not photo_pupil_12345678.jpg, and a search for '34' wouldn't match against either.

Kris · 2014-07-22 05:58:13

Keyword searches sounds just the ticket then!

We can always run with caption for file naming as well.

If you think it would be worth the time investment, then I'd be extremely grateful.

Last edited by Kris (2014-07-23 03:42:54)

Community @ The Turning Gate

#1 2014-07-19 22:55:48

CE4 search...

#2 2014-07-20 04:57:40

Re: CE4 search...

#3 2014-07-20 07:34:49

Re: CE4 search...

#4 2014-07-20 18:25:48

Re: CE4 search...

#5 2014-07-20 19:13:59

Re: CE4 search...

#6 2014-07-20 20:17:26

Re: CE4 search...

#7 2014-07-20 20:30:58

Re: CE4 search...

#8 2014-07-21 02:23:57

Re: CE4 search...

#9 2014-07-21 09:21:07

Re: CE4 search...

#10 2014-07-22 05:58:13

Re: CE4 search...

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