extended-search-20100315.6.zip
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This plugin fills in some gaps in Adobe Lightroom's image-search capabilities.
Lightroom offers a number of ways to search for images with its Library Grid filter; this plugin adds a few more. Invoking it via the File > Plugin Extras > Extended Search menu item, a dialog is brought up allowing various search criteria to be entered.
Text searching allows finding....
| images whose | filename
filename without extension leaf folder name copy name title caption scene |
+ | is exactly
starts with ends with contains is not does not start with does not end with does not contain |
+ | the text
any of the comma-separated items any of the space-separated items any of the line-separated items |
entered in the box |
Large amounts of text can be cut-n-pasted into the text-input box. In the example dialog screenshot above, I've pasted in the base filenames of 692 images (Lightroom's text-input box doesn't show a scrollbar, but you can use the arrow keys to move around inside.) I had used these images in the construction of a big photo book, and wanted to mark them as such in Lightroom, but until I wrote this plugin, I had no easy way to isolate just those images.
Other search criteria, which may be used along with (or instead of) the text search, include items related to cropping, virtual copies, and stacks.
How it Works
It would be nice if the plugin could just show you the images that matched, but Lightroom's plugin infrastructure doesn't allow for that, so like my proximity-search plugin, you have to jump through a few hoops.
First, before starting a search, you must be in the Library Mode (Grid Mode recommended) with no images selected. You can use the Control-D / Command-D keyboard shortcut to deselect all images. All images showing in the grid/filmstrip will be searched.
Bring up the extended-search dialog (File > Plugin Extras > Extended Search, or, enable plugin keyboard shortcuts to buy yourself some sanity), enter your search parameters, and start the search.
Finally, after the search completes, you'll need to use the “Extended Search” metadata item in the Library Grid filter to isolate the matched images, as illustrated here:
If you had been using the metadata filter for other things (e.g. to search only a range of dates), you can simply add “Extended Search” to a column at the end.
Select “Match” to par down the grid to just those images that matched. In the example above, selecting “Match” would isolate the matching 693 images in the grid.
However...
Nasty Lightroom Bug!
There is a most unfortunate bug that sometimes shows up such that even though the “Match” line is selected, the proper images won't show up in the grid or filmstrip. I haven't figured out what causes it, and I can go for a long time without ever hitting it, then suddenly I'll hit it often.
The search does work, and the filter header is updated (that is, the number of “Match” and “no match” items will be correct), but the bug is that something, sometimes, gets confused between there and the grid. One manifestation of this is that the number of photos identified in the filmstrip header (the red arrow in the screenshot below) differs from the “Match” items, even when “Match” is selected in the filter.
In this example the numbers match and there is no bug, but if they differ, you must restart Lightroom and suddenly the grid will be populated properly.
It's very frustrating; I've sent a note to Adobe, and hope this bug will be fixed in some future version of Lightroom.
Availability
This plugin is distributed as “donationware”. I have chosen to make it available for free — everyone can use it forever, without cost of any kind — but unless registered, its functionality is somewhat reduced after six weeks. Registration costs the minimum 1-cent PayPal fee; any additional donation you'd like to make in encouragement or thanks is optional and completely up to you. For details, see my blog post titled Lightroom Plugin Development: Now With Added Encouragement. If you're interested in how I picked up a plugin-development hobby like this, see My Long Path To Lightroom Plugin Development.
Lightroom 3 — Registrations in Lightroom 2.x will not carry over to Lightroom 3 when it is released, so plan that you'll have to re-register if you upgrade to Lightroom 3. (That's for the real Lightroom 3.... registration is not required in a Lightroom 3 beta, but be warned that plugin support can be spotty in a beta.)
( Update Log via RSS )| 20100315.6 | Completely changed how the one-click upgrade applies the newly-downloaded zip file, in the hopes that it'll work for more people. Rather than unzipping over the old copy, it now unzips to a temporary folder, then moves the old folder out of the way and the new folder into place. Prior versions' folders are now maintained (with the version number in the folder) in case you want to revert a version; you may want to clear them out from time to time. Of course, it won't take affect until you try to upgrade after having upgraded to or beyond this version. Wholesale changes that attempt to honor the user's locale settings for numeric display (e.g. Europeans writing 3,14156 for pi). I've probably missed some spots, so let me know if you find some. |
| 20091214.5 | Added the "image size" row, where you can search via file size on disk, or post-crop size in megapixels (the latter offering a fine-grained search complement to my megapixel-sort plugin. |
| 20091205.4 | Minor internal debugging tweaks. |
| 20091202.3 | Added an Exposure-Bias row, and fixed a bug that caused the search to fail if the text row was not included in the search. |
| 20091022.2 | Added a first draft of some rudimentary support for Lightroom 3 Beta. See this important note about plugin support in Lightroom 3 Beta and Lightroom 3, including future plans for features and my registration system. |
| 20091017.1 | Initial public release. |
Wonderfully useful plugin!
Any plans on expanding the searchable fields to EXIF data and adding support for numeric value operations (less than, greater than, between, etc.)?
Specifically, I would love to have the ability to search/filter by focal length ranges. Your Data Plot plugin is terrific, but a way to actually see what pics go with each range would be highly useful.
Judging by the posts on your Megapixel Sort Plugin page, as well as rumblings on various online forums, it seems I’m not alone in thinking the focal length range search to be a killer feature. It wouldn’t be quite as elegant as a dedicated plugin due to lack of multiple range support, but the versatility allowed by the general nature of the plugin would more than make up for it.
Thanks again for your efforts!
That’s a good idea… I’ll see what I can do. —Jeffrey
I’ve encountered a similar bug wherein images don’t show up in the grid. It usually happens when moving files around, and may have something to do with moving files while showing contents of sub-folders too. I wonder if the bug is related to this one.
Thanks Jeffrey for your nice plugins.
Is there a way you can incorporate into your “extended search” plugin the ability to search pictures uploaded to facebook via your facebook plugin?
I’m not sure what you mean… you can already pick “Uploaded to Facebook” in the grid filter… is there something else you’re looking for? —Jeffrey
Thanks so much.
I didn’t realize it was already in the grid filter. Simple and elegant.
Continue the good work.
Thanks so much for adding exposure-bias to the search. It’s a huge time-saver tracking down un-tagged HDR or bracketed images.
I gave it a quick write-up on my blog.
Chris
Wow! Great! I actually arrived to your site, while looking for a database schema of the lrcat, as I needed it for something very similar to this: I want to be able to move Picasa’s “starred” marks over to Lightroom in some fashion (don’t ask, I have a twisted workflow, but I like it
) and was contemplating writing a python script for that. I might still do that sometime, but this really gets me there today (the other half was basically done – getting the list of starred files from Picasa). Thanks!