fields not present in Searchable Fields

[carlseibert]

I know you know this, but just documenting....

There are some fields missing from the Searchable fields dialog. Some seem to be missing, missing, and some seem to be active and searchable, but not listed in the dialog. (Subject to hidden weirdness in my metadata. Stuff in fields I'm not looking at sometimes bites me.)

A very non-exhaustive list:

Caption works, but isn't in the dialog. Description doesn't seem to work as a synonym for Caption. Who would want to type"description" instead of "caption"? Fair question. Youngsters, I guess :-)

Credit seems to be missing altogether

Headline seems to work, but is missing in the dialog.

Special Instructions doesn't seem to be searchable.

Copyright doesn't seem to be searchable. I don't know if that bothers me. As a practical matter, Credit is searched a lot. Copyright is more or less in the same semantic category. But I don't recall searching much if ever.

In the same vein, we have Category and Supp Cats, which are still used by some/many organizations, but are deprecated. (Good riddance, I say. But that's just me.)

I don't know whether the plan is to ultimately include all of the IPTC core schema fields or to settle on the ones that matter most. If it's the former, then this post is nothing more than a bookmark.

If it's the latter, then folks need to jump in this thread.

[Bill Kelly]

Thanks, fixed missing 'caption' and 'headline' in the Searchable Fields dialog. (Not sure about the rest, yet. Will discuss with team.)

[carlseibert]

Bill,

Is it easy/possible to have all fields accessible to search in the Quick Search window ("fieldname somesearchterm") whilst some fields are turned off in Searchable Fields? (Or don't even show in Searchable Fields) That might make some of this easier.

If I, say, needed to search against the Transref field, I could do it in the search box without needing to explicitly turn it on in Searchable Fields. Conversely, if you decided it wasn't a good idea to waste UI space on the Transref, you could just not have it show there. But it would still be available to those who really need it.

Not to pick on Transref. It was just what popped into my mind.

-Carl

[Bill Kelly]

Carl,

Is it easy/possible to have all fields accessible to search in the Quick Search window ("fieldname somesearchterm") whilst some fields are turned off in Searchable Fields? (Or don't even show in Searchable Fields) That might make some of this easier.

If I, say, needed to search against the Transref field, I could do it in the search box without needing to explicitly turn it on in Searchable Fields.

The checked fields represent those which are searched by default, when no fields are otherwise explicitly specified in the query. (It was intended this default set also be customizable, but that feature is not yet complete, thus the checkboxes are "stuck on" for now.)

But yes: Every supported field may be specified in the query, regardless of checked "defaults", in the manner of your example above.

That is:

  caption coney island keywords beach transref abcde

It is possible to apply multiple fields to a given term or phrase:

  caption keywords headline coney island

which is equivalent to:

  caption coney island or keywords coney island or headline coney island


-Bill

[carlseibert]

(It was intended this default set also be customizable, but that feature is not yet complete, thus the checkboxes are "stuck on" for now.)

Yeah, I figured that.

It is possible to apply multiple fields to a given term or phrase:

  caption keywords headline coney island

Nice.

But yes: Every supported field may be specified in the query, regardless of checked "defaults", in the manner of your example above.

Sweeet

You guys are good.

It did occur to me after I posted that the Searchable Fields dialog also serves to alert the searcher of the nomenclature for the fields. So, fields that are supported need to be in there, at least informationally, even if they can't made part of the default Quick Search. (Caption Writer, maybe?) Which is kind of how it is at the moment.

FWIW, My recommendation for supported fields would be the IPTC Core Schema fields + whatever fields your big customers (AP, Getty, et al.) need + a smattering of Exif fields.  Given that Exif information becomes less and less important as an asset ages in the workflow, thus not that freakin big a deal by the time a picture is committed to a DAM, even a desktop one, I'm sure choosing which Exif fields will be a lively debate. :-)