Re: [Tracker] Metadata search Tracker Gnome

[John Bestevaar <Josephus people net au>]

On 28/09/11 18:50, Martyn Russell wrote:
> On 28/09/11 00:36, John Bestevaar wrote:
> > Hi Martyn and Team :-)
>
> Hi,
>
> > Do i understand correctly that you propose to add to Tracker,
> > tracker:fulltextIndexed true; for each mlo class property, as a function
> > that indexes the texts and stores them in a database somewhere on the
> > users machine and that it is this which will make the information
> > retrievable via the Tracker GUI search? =-O
>
> Let me try to give some background first. Right now there is one 
> database with all information in it. There used to be 2. One for 
> metadata and one for FTS data. Now the FTS data is just some tables in 
> the same DB.
>
> Now, if you query for "foo" in particular ontology properties and 
> classes like mlo, then it will work *now* already. However, if you 
> want to find the word "foo" in *ANY* data related to a file, you have 
> to be clever in the query and use either search for "foo" against 
> EVERY metadata derivative in every class related to the file or you 
> can use fts:match (which will match on a class level and also allows 
> you to perform additional FTS based functions). The fts:match allows 
> you to do it per class generally, not per property. There would still 
> need to be some work to check mlo class information in the client 
> anyway as it isn't there now.
JB; OK my asking a lot of ignorant questions and reading your 
explanations is satisfying for me but wastes your time and does not 
really advance your work much. Is there somewhere other than the Meta 
Tracker home page where i can go to read more documentation? :-D
> Adding tracker:fulltextIndexed to particular mlo class properties 
> wouldn't be so much of a hit IMO (not like adding it to 
> nie:plainTextContent which is the content of files and much later in 
> general).
>
> >  From my point of view, having all/any image metadata available to a
> > Tracker Gui text search is very useful and very desirable. :-D
> > For example: mlo; city property: My photo collection ( early days ) has
> > several tens of images with about a dozen different "city " locations.
>
> Indeed, we are really just a test case to show how to use Tracker. We 
> would prefer applications are integrated with it than have one app for 
> every type of search. But we could add a panel with image metadata sure.
> It's just about finding the time to do it.
JB: Could you explain the advantages of integrating Tracker with desktop 
"Applications " as distinct from desktop "Operating Systems" and CMS on 
the web, as they are not immediately obvious to me? Why not as a 
standalone application?
> > Finding,...via Tracker Gui,... which photos were taken at which
> > location( Name in text form) would save me having to manually organize
> > my collection (which will get big) into extensive album trees. 8-)
>
> Indeed. You could also use tags which would work too once my 
> tracker-needle-tagging-improvements branch has been applied to master.
JB: Yes, Digikam has tags including tag trees and Nautilus among others, 
already has tagging .
But it seems to me neither of their search engines can find the other's 
tags. This is one of the reasons i went in search :-P of a search 
application independent of all. This is also one of my reasons for my 
supporting image metadata, as a way of giving images a handle or handles 
(better than filenames) that other engines and applications can use.
Yes.. i am also aware that "Applications " sometimes behave like naughty 
kids and strip all the metadata without telling you about it. 8-)