The Find Images tool lets you find images on you hard disk and save the result as a catalog. To use this tool select the Find Images... item from the Tools menu.
When the dialog pops up, you can specify a file name or a pattern in the File Name entry, for example :
"foo.jpg" : will search for files named foo.jpg
"*.png" : will search for files with the png extension.
"*.gif; *.jpg" : will search for files with the gif or jpg extension.
Start from : The directory the search will start from.
Include sub-directories : Whether to search even in the sub directories.
Comment : A list of phrases the comment of the image must contain, for example:
"paolo" : will search for images that have "paolo" in the comment.
"my birthday" : will search for images that have "my birthday" in the comment.
"holiday ; rome" : will search for images that have "holiday" OR "rome" in the comment.
"holiday in rome ; my birthday" : will search for images that have "holiday in rome" OR "my birthday" in the comment.
Place : A list of phrases the place field of the comment must contain, for example:
"rome" : will search for images that have "rome" in the place field.
"paris ; rome ; london" : will search for images that have "paris" OR "rome" OR "london" in the place field.
Date : The criteria the date field of the comment must respect:
any : the date field is ignored.
before, equal to, after : the date must be less recent, equal to or more recent than the date specified.
Keywords : The list of keywords an images must have, for example :
family : images must have "family" has one of their keywords.
me, family : images must have "family" OR "me" in the keywords list.
If you use more than one criteria images must respect all of them. The search is always case insensitive.
Pressing the Search button the search will start. Once the search has finished you will see the list of files that matches your search, if you want to see these files press the View button, if you want to make another search press the New Search... button.
If you choose to view the files, a catalog named Search Results will be created and visualized automatically. A catalog created in this way has a special icon, a magnifier, this is because on this type of catalog you can perform two more operations : Edit Search... and Redo Search .
These operations can be selected from the Edit Catalog submenu in the Edit menu, or from the menu that pops up when pressing the right mouse button on the catalog name.
The Edit Search... command lets you re-edit the search rules, while the Redo Search lets you redo the search, at the end of the search you can decide whether to save the result in the catalog or not.