Searching and Finding Photos

As mentioned in Section 24.4, “Managing Tags”, tags can be used as a means to find certain images. Another way to find images is to use the Timeline below the toolbar. By dragging the little frame along this time line, you can limit the images displayed in the thumbnail overview to those taken in a selected time frame. F-Spot starts with a default time line, but you can edit the time span by moving the sliders to the right and left of the time line.

You can also start a search by clicking Find+Show Find Bar. With the find bar displayed, you can drag tags from the tag view to the find bar.

Figure 24.4. Show Find Bar in F-Spot

To find photos that are tagged with more than one tag, select the first tag in the tag view (or drag the tag onto the Find bar), then drag the second tag and drop it on top of the first. You can also right-click the second tag in the tag view, or click Find+Find Selected Tag With, then select the first tag (or group of tags).

You can search for photos that don’t have a particular tag by double-clicking a tag in the Find bar. Photos that don’t have that tag (or any tag at all) are displayed. You can also right-click a tag in the Find bar, then select Exclude.

To remove a tag from the search, drag it away from the Find bar, or right-click the tag and select Remove.

By default, photos tagged Hidden will not be shown. You must explicitly include the Hidden tag in your search to show such photos.

There is also a type-to-find entry. Press the forward slash (/) to open it. It cannot be used at the same time as the Find bar. You can type queries such as “TagA and (TagB or (TagC and TagD))”. At any point, if F-Spot recognizes what you have typed as a valid query, it will update your search. The not operator is not yet supported.

Figure 24.5. Type-to-find Search