IDimager provides you with a mechanism to filter thumbnails with certain characteristics. A filter is a temporary additional condition which you can apply to a collection. By using filters you will be able to temporarily “hide” some of the thumbnails from the viewer.
The bar above the thumbnails contains the filter button. By clicking this button you can drop down the existing filtering options.
Select any of the filter conditions in the list by clicking it. The collection will instantly be filtered to show only the images that comply with the filter you have selected. The filter button (on top) will show which filter is active. Once a filter is applied, you can read in the Collection Viewer’s caption bar the number of images that comply with the filter and within brackets the total number of images in the collection (unfiltered).
To remove an applied filter, click the filter button and select "No Filter" or press [Esc]. You can also quickly re-apply the filter by selecting ... from the filter button or by pressing [Shift]+[Esc].
Inverted Filters
When you apply a filter, the filter button changes color to green with black text. That way you can easily recognize that a filter is active.
In the example above, a filter is applied to display all images with a rating. If you now need to see all images *without* a rating, then you can simply invert the filter. In that case click the filter button and then select "Invert Filter" or press [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[F5]. The text of the filter button changes to red to indicate that an inverted filter is active.
Combined Filters
So far we have seen how we can apply a single filter. But it is also possible to combine several filters together to get more advanced filtering options.
You can combine several filters and apply them to the same list. By holding the [Ctrl] key down and selecting a second filter, you can combine the newly selected filter with the earlier selected filter to have two filters applied. The fact that you have multiple filters active is recognizable by the caption of the filter button which now reads “combi filter”.
The filters are organized in different groups within the list: all ratings together, all color labels together, etc. When you combine multiple filters from within the same group, they will be interpreted as “OR” filters. For instance, if you select filter “Show 1 Star Rated Only” and combine this filter with “Show 5 Star Rated Only”, the resulting combi-filter will show all images with 1 OR 5 stars… it’s no use after all to present a filter with 1 AND 5 stars since this will exclude all images (an image can not have two different ratings simultaneously).
When you combine filters from several groups, these filters will be considered as “AND” filters. if you select filter “Show 1 Star Rated Only” and combine this filter with “Show Yellow Labeled Only”, the resulting combi-filter will show all images with 1 star AND yellow color label.
This way you can build combi filters that are very powerful; e.g “show all 1 or 2 star JPG files with a yellow label that are not cataloged”
As you can see in the screenshot, the filter drop down is organized in groups, each separated by a line. In a combination filter, constructed with the [Ctrl] key, the different groups are joined with "AND" style, meaning if you Ctrl+select 2, 3, 4 star rated and Ctrl+select Purple labeled, then that means "show all 2, 3, 4 star images and purple labeled". In addition you can also use Shift+Ctrl+select to use "OR" group joining. In that case you Ctrl+Shift+select 2, 3, 4 star rated and Ctrl+Shift+select Purple labeled and you'll get "show all 2, 3, 4 star images or purple labeled".
Filter Scripts
IDimager Professional also supports so-called "Filter Scripts". These are application scripts that are designed for the purpose of filtering a collection. By default some filter scripts are deployed with IDimager, and you can access them by clicking the filter button and then select "Filter Scripts" from the drop down menu. Filter scripts are intended to support more exotic filters that are not supported by default and may be very specific to your situation. Visit IDimager's support forum (http://forum.idimager.com ) to find out if a specific filter that you need is available.