Browser Filter supports matching in file or folder(s) above

[porg]

When browsing in flat view it would be very practical if you could not only match in the filename but in the entire path.
• I propose to have 4 icons next to the filter fields: folder, slash, file, glasses/sunglasses
• They could take the following states as depicted in their tooltips:

GraphicConverter Browser - Filter supports matching in file or folder-s above.png (39.52 KiB) Viewed 288 times

Use Cases Solution with the new filter toggles

1) You want to exclude all files and sub-files residing in folders entitled "_" "Match in any folder above" not matching "_"

2) You want to only show files in folders entitled "_production" "Match in any folder above" matching "_production"

3) You want to only show files containing "final" or files being in a parent folder "final" "Match in parent folder" ON + "Match in file name" ON + Matching "final". Note: "Match in parent folder" and "Match in file name" are combined with a logical OR. Matches a file which contains "final" or whose parent folder contains "final". Not necessarily both!

[forum_adm]

I checked your suggestion. This filename filter can only filter the content of the current display.

Please use the search at the top for searching the complete file system - or anything below the current folder.

[porg]

1) Your proposed solution with search field on top and filter field on the bottom

a) Search field seems to use Spotlight in the backend, right?
a1) As it is now it is the broadest possible search.
a2) You cannot pass on any of the typical Spotlight autocompletion arguments such as "Name: xyz" or negation operators such as "does not contain '_'" and also not a raw Spotlight query such as (kMDItemFSName="*.*").
a3) Besides this: Spotlight itself cannot search in the path of a file, only in its name or contents or metadata. This is a known restriction. Hence path filtering is added as a filter later in the funnel by some 3rd party apps, such as HoudahSpot's refinement filter.

b) GC's filter (on the bottom) only searches the filename, not the whole filepath.

If it could filter filepath then with this capability you could:
- Set scope with the Spotlight bar on top ("in this folder" or "in whole Mac")
- Then search for a single filetype with GC's browser.
-- Sadly GC's type filter has no broader filters such as "All image files" or "All video files" or "All bitmap images" and "All vector images".
-- But this you could do in the search field with a complex raw Spotlight query.
- And last use the filter to search for paths contains "/_/" or does not contains "/_/".

But as it is now none of my stated use cases can be realized. I tried and failed.


2) But no worries, practically I already solved that for a while:

I achieve the flat file view of my complex project structure via Spotlight in Finder or in case I need filepath filtering then with a 3rd party app.
HoudahSpot has a very sophisticated filtering system for getting a flat file view
It has the full power of Spotlight plus some extra filtering based on the filepath.

I can realize all the stated browsing use cases in HoudahSpot
Browsing and QuickViewing happens in HoudahSpot.
For editing I can drag'n'drop files over to GraphicConverter.


3) But GraphicConverter has a shortcoming in that regard: There's no way to batch process a set of dropped files



a) Quick conversion: Only works from GC's own browser. It makes sense as-is.

b) Convert & Modify: Can only take a concrete file or folder as the input and only a concrete folder as the destination.

c) No drop area as the input for a batch process. And no destination with a "Relative to source file" mode.

I do not know of this anywhere else in GraphicConverter. And also did not see a possibility for this in "Convert & Modify"

I took the whole day today and worked out this UX design proposal, various mockups presented in series as a sideshow video:
Convert and Modify: Gets input mode "Dropped Files" + output mode "Relative Filepath"