Searching for pictures by name or number

Go to picture name

Introduction

You may have some favourite pictures in your picture collection that you know by name. By using the "go to picture name" option you can find a nominated picture name in a sequence.

Enter Command-F to bring up the "Find picture by name" dialogue box.

Searching methods

QuickSlideshow supports three different ways of finding pictures:

1. Type the name into the dialog box (if you know the name, or partial name, of the picture you want)
2. Use the "Folders" pop-up menu. This lists the names of all the folders that pictures were in when your disk/CDROM was scanned. Next to each folder name is a number showing how many pictures were in that folder. By using this menu you can jump to the start of a "category" of pictures (e.g. LANDSCAPES, CARS, PETS). Once you have selected a folder name the first picture in that folder will automatically be placed in the "picture name" part of the dialog box. The currently selected folder name will be indicated by a tick next to its name.
3. Use the "Picture names" pop-up menu (this menu is indicated by a downwards-pointing triangle next to the "picture name" part of the dialog box. This menu will list all the pictures in the currently selected folder. Once you have selected one, its name will automatically be placed in the "picture name" part of the dialog box. The currently selected picture will be indicated by a bullet character, [namely *] next to its name. When you change folders a new picture names pop-up menu must be built. If there are more than 20 pictures in that folder a progress bar window will open indicating how long this will take (it might take a few seconds if you have hundreds of pictures in one folder).

In order to see all of the pictures in a certain category, first select the appropriate folder (e.g. LANDSCAPES) using the folders pop-up menu, and then use the picture names pop-up menu to see the names of all the pictures in that folder. If you have used either or both of the pop-up menus, click OK when the appropriate picture name has been copied into the "name" part of the dialog box, and the program will then jump to that picture.

Entering a picture name

You can search for pictures that:

• Start with a string of characters (e.g. starting with DOG)
• Contain a string of characters (e.g. containing FISH)

Note that searching for file names that contain a string is slower than searching for file names that start with a string. Therefore only search for names that contain a string if you need to.

Searching from the start

You can either search from the start of the list of pictures you are viewing, or from the current picture that you are viewing. Search from the start if you are not sure where in the picture sequence the file that you are searching for is. Search from the current picture if you want to find the next picture that has a certain name (or partial name), not necessarily the first one.

Finding a picture that does not match a name

By checking the "does not match" box (you can press Command-N to toggle this option) you will search for a picture that does not match the specified name. This is useful if you are viewing (say) a whole batch of pictures of dogs (called DOG1, DOG2, DOG3 and so on). If you want to advance past the dogs (to the cats maybe?), then searching for a picture that does not start with "DOG" will advance past the dog pictures.

Searching only applies to files in the current viewing sequence

The "Find picture by name" command does not search your disks or CDROMs for a given picture. It searches the current sequence of pictures that you have loaded into memory.

If you want to find pictures by name on a CDROM, the fastest method would be:

• Use QuickSlideshow to scan the entire CDROM, thus loading all the picture names into memory
• Make a tag file for future reference (use "Make tag file" or Command-T)
• Then use "Find picture by name" (Command-F) to find pictures by name in memory

Cancelling a search

During a search for a picture name a "progress" window will open. If you click on the "cancel" button (or press Command-Period, or "esc") the search will be cancelled.

Finding a picture by number

Introduction

Even though QuickSlideshow makes viewing thousands of images on a CDROM very convenient, you still have the practical problem that looking at each of, say, 6000 images takes quite a long time (over 8 hours at 5 seconds per image, not including coffee breaks!). By using the "go to picture number" command you can reposition yourself to a nominated picture in a sequence. Alternatively, you can use the "Find picture by name" command described above to find a given picture name.

• Note the current file number, if desired

  To do this, make a note of what picture number you are up to (press Command-N to see the current sequence number).

• Enter the new file number

  Then in a later session, after commencing viewing the same sequence of pictures (i.e. the same tag file, or folder) enter Command-N to bring up the "File number" dialogue box. Then enter the sequence number previously noted. Once you have entered a new sequence number you will then see a display indicating that QuickSlideshow is now loading the new picture that is at the sequence number that you selected.

Pictures must be viewed sequentially

It is important that you are viewing pictures sequentially (not randomly) for this option to work. Repositioning into the middle of a random sequence is not meaningful, as the random number generator is reseeded each time, and therefore a given picture in a random sequence will be different every time. If you are viewing pictures randomly then you will be asked if you want to switch to sequential viewing mode.

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