Search or Quick search in Filenames

[CB-Crew]

I have a question:

Is it possible in the browse window to exclude certain files. In the sense of show all files except those that contain "thumbnail" in the filename?

Is there documentation that describes the search capabilities of XnView MP?

Here could I find documentation that describes the interface of XnView MP? I find a lot of text in the documentation, but hardly any ScreenShots. I often do not find names for various interface elements and then search documentation about them.

For example a description of the names/description and functionality of the Interface elements in this area:

For example how does the area with the magnification glass work (Syntax etc) and how is it called...

best Regards

[michel038]

For example how does the area with the magnification glass work (Syntax etc) and how is it called...

This field is called "Quick search"
It works on filenames , and on fields specified in "Settings > Browser > Quick search" tab
The quick search operates only on the files currently displayed in the browser. (but you can first use View > Show files in subfolder ... and wait for all files to be browsed )


In this field you can also use "regular expressions" syntax, (or regex or regexp)
I can't explain here whole regexp but here are some examples
John : contains John
^John : beginning by John
Kennedy$ : ending by Kennedy
. : the dot replaces one character (Ke.. will find Kennedy, Keylar, Key ... )
* : means any number of occurences
.* : any word
the caret ^ in a list is used to exclude : Ke[^v] will exclude Kevlar, but keeps Kennedy and Key

I think that in the particular regexp used by xnviewmp, some functions does not work
so [^(thumbnail)] does not work

[CB-Crew]

Hello @michel038
thank you much for your reply and the explanation of the regex expressions.

unfortunately it can not solve my problem...

I try to exclude certain files from the search result and a NOT function doesn't seem to work. Also in the search (Ctrl-F) I can't find a way to exclude files by the name with a NOT function.

... Show all files except these witch contain "thumbnail" in the filename.

Too bad, but looks like nothing can be done....

[michel038]

I'll think about it some more ...
What is the structure of the file names that contain thumbnail ?
Depending on the place where "thumbnail" is located, the answer can be easy


Another solution is to filter files containing the criteria, and "tag" them. (right click ... tag )
Then select all files, Invert tags
Then use "Categories filter" and select "Special item > tag"

[CB-Crew]

Is not so important.

I am evaluating Eagle, a software to organize digital assets (https://eagle.cool). Very fast and with browser plugins for screenshots.

I am checking what it does with the image files. XnView and Lightroom have a database for metadata and links to the original files, eagle puts everything into a file structure. Every image is copied into the file structure, every image there has its own subdirectory, which contains the image file, a thumbnail file along with a .JSON file with metadata. The thumbnail file just gets the text "_Thumbnail" appended to its name.

like this:
- familyphoto.jpg
- familyphoto_thumbnail.jpg

With the show subdirectory function of XnView I wanted to look into these directories and quickly filter out the "Thumbnails". No way to manually tag the thumbnails. But I only wanted to have a quick and easy look into the directory structure.

Thanks for the help anyway. I also learned a lot of new things about XnView.

[michel038]

Maybe [^l]\.jpg
means : any string except those containing " [no l] followed by .jpg "
(the backslash neutralizes the special meaning of dot)
[^l]\. works as well
but it will also hide any photo name endind by l.jpg

For further information
I discovered that the caret works only if the position of the character is known in relation to the beginning or the end of the filename (without extension) .
Ex : two photos :
photocat.jpg and photodog.jpg

To eliminate photocat.jpg these regex are working :
.....[^c] (6th character must not be c)
^.....[^c] it's the same (first caret means begin of the string)

[^c]..\. ( check c followed by two characters and a dot
[^c]..\.jpg$ ( no c, two characters , and ending by .jpg )

Pierre, why doesn't [^c] work?