Dear all, Welcome to the November newsletter! This month we're focusing on the new search engine, and how it helps with more advanced search requirements. All IMS sites now support the latest search system, including IMS Standard and Premium sites. We also have a few other improvements to mention. Improved search engine ---------------------- We have overhauled the search system significantly. The search page now consolidates all of the different variations on search that we offer, into a single search box. The search system is now able to determine whether you are searching for keywords, filenames, image reference numbers and so on - and returns results with a paginated set of thumbnails, just like an IMS gallery. In addition to the more powerful, simpler search interface, we have overhauled the advanced search page to provide more interfaces to IPTC and dates, as well as a flexible multiple search field system. Details on both systems are included here. General search -------------- The General Search tool is an intelligent search box, which can search many different parts of the image database in one click. The best way to use this search box is like a web search engine; simply type in as much as you can about what you're searching for. To get a lot of results, use quite broad terms. If you want to refine your search, keep specifying more keywords and click 'Search Again'. Note that searching is NOT case-sensitive so there is no need to worry about whether a description contains capital letters or not. What does the general search button look for? * The caption or description of the picture, including text stored in metadata * Any keywords stored in the picture's IPTC metadata * The image filename * The image reference number For example, you might search for 'Cambridge 2004' and get pictures that are described as 'King's College, Cambridge', or those that have a keyword 'Cambridge' in their metadata, or the single picture having the reference number 2004. The search engine returns the pictures to you in order of relevance. Tip: if you are looking for several keywords, just type them all. The search engine will return pictures which contain one of the keywords, or some or all of them. If you want to make a more complex search then you may wish to use the advanced search facility. Examples of searches: * "Waterski Bournemouth" - Likely to match a description * "Christmas" - Likely to match a keyword or description * "img_234893.tiff" - Likely to match a filename * "509532" - Likely to match an image reference number or telephone number in a description or keyword. Exact matches button To only show images which contain exactly the phrase you searched for, click the 'Only show exact matches' checkbox. This reduces the number of close, but inexact matches, and may help refine particularly difficult searches. Advanced Search --------------- The Advanced Search lets you specify exactly what you would like to search for, and against which fields. This is different from the General Search, which is very broad and guesses which kind of search you are running. The Advanced Search can be refined more precisely. The Advanced Search allows you to choose whether you are creating a combination of searches, where all terms you specify must match, or whether any single term that matches should return a result. Use the pulldown menu to choose which method suits your search best (ALL or ANY). Next, use the pulldown menu to choose which field you are searching: * Picture Description - the picture description - not necessarily IPTC * Picture Reference - the picture reference number * Picture Filename - the picture filename * IPTC Caption - the metadata description embedded in the image * IPTC Keywords - the metadata keywords embedded in the image * IPTC Graphic Name - the metadata graphic name embedded in the image * Picture Storage Date - the picture storage date You can choose which criteria to use: * CONTAINS * STARTS WITH * ENDS WITH * IS * IS NOT For date searches, the options are: * IS * IS NOT * IS BEFORE * IS AFTER These modify the search in the logical way. The last box contains the text you wish to search, or the date if you are searching by storage date. If you click 'Add another condition...', a new row will appear which allows you to add more search conditions. For example, your search may say: * IPTC Caption - CONTAINS - 'Cambridge' * Picture Storage Date - IS AFTER - 01/10/2004 This search would return pictures that contain 'Cambridge' in their IPTC Caption, and were uploaded to the library after 1 October 2004. If you need to remove a term from your search, click 'Remove' next to the row in question. Please be aware that for many broad searches, the General Search system is simpler to use and returns the widest range of results. Controlling Searches -------------------- There is a new page in the Tools menu, (Tools->Search Engine) which lets you control the scope of searches, how many results to return, and whether to use general or advanced searches by default. The Search Engine options page will also allow you to restrict the dates of pictures that the search engine looks for when your users enter keywords (eg. last day, week, month, year, or all time). How to put a search box on your own web site -------------------------------------------- If you wish to include a search box on your web site, there is a new JavaScript include file which you can use to do this easily. Simply insert the following code in your HTML, and a search box will be provided that is correctly integrated with IMS. The Integration Notes (available from http://www.thirdlight.com/support.htm) have been updated with this and other interfaces we provide. Show/hide Telephone Number option --------------------------------- You may be unwilling to publish a telephone number on your site. There is now an option on the Tools->Site Options page which allows you to specify whether or not to display your telephone number. Please remember that if you do not specify a phone number, you will still need to publish an email address which allows your customers to contact you readily. CYMK support ------------ As we now support a wide range of image formats, we have extended the IMS imaging engine to support CMYK images (including JPEG). This allows you to provide images in any format you wish, without experiencing problems when CMYK and RGB formats are mixed. This also helps with web browsers which do not know how to display CMYK images, since IMS now takes care of presenting all of your images in RGB to web viewers. Improved slideshow ------------------ We have slightly simplified the slideshow, such that it is now more difficult to become 'trapped' in the popup window. Lightbox settings ----------------- We are currently simplifying the process for configuring lightboxes, based on your valuable feedback. IMS Premium customers with lightboxes enabled will receive a separate message this month describing those changes. We are working hard to make it possible to configure large numbers of albums for lightboxes, and also to allow lightboxes to work with events as well as user accounts. Picture messaging and CD-ROM products via PhotoBox -------------------------------------------------- PhotoBox have full support for MMS (Multimedia, or picture messaging). This means you can send pictures to mobile phones. For £1.00, as a PrintButton vendor you can sell a PhotoBox product which allows a buyer to send a picture message to a mobile phone number of their choosing. To use this product, simply assign it to one of your price plans. PhotoBox also now support a 'burn images to CD-ROM' product, which results in the images in the basket being written to a CD which is then posted to the buyer. This is an excellent complement to the electronic download product, which allows a full high res copy to be sold for a fixed fee, and collected by the buyer. For more complex electronic sales we do however recommend using IMS's lightbox system, which is designed to manage usage rights and copyright. Your feedback helps ------------------- Please do keep sending your feedback about IMS. We keep a thorough record of all feedback and aim to implement the features that are most requested as part of our ongoing development plans. Simply reply to this email (support@thirdlight.com) to send us your comments. For support questions, please use the Help menu support tool, as this allows us to track your queries and answer questions more efficiently. With regards, Third Light Photography Ltd. http://www.thirdlight.com/