AIM update notes - **Updated Jan 2019**

[Martin P Wilson]

On 10/10/2018 at 16:58, Phil Crean said:

Future improvements includes this:

"Improvements to messaging throughout the AIM pages"

 

Messaging who? Other contributors? Alamy? Aliens?

 

Phil

 

I think this is probably a technical software engineering improvement and is about the messages that are passed internally around AIM between its components, and between client and server, to keep everything in sync. Better messaging means a more responsive UI so less waiting for it to do stuff in the background.

 

Still an important improvement.

[Phil Crean]

12 hours ago, Martin P Wilson said:

 

I think this is probably a technical software engineering improvement and is about the messages that are passed internally around AIM between its components, and between client and server, to keep everything in sync. Better messaging means a more responsive UI so less waiting for it to do stuff in the background.

 

Still an important improvement.

I never even knew such a thing existed!  notageek.com

Phil

[Martin P Wilson]

1 hour ago, Phil Crean said:

I never even knew such a thing existed!  notageek.com

Phil

I guess I was a geek (before the term was invented), then I managed geeks but I am no longer a geek!

[Elliott Bignell]

First post here, so firstly I'll say hello, world: Nice to meet you all.

 

These changes sound good. If I might submit a personal plea: Please allow us to get to and use original filenames whenever possible. I and I suspect a lot of other digital photographers are in IT, and you'd be amazed how many organisational tasks can be automated or otherwise made easier with a simple text list of file names. It's a real weak spot with all photo sites of which I'm aware.

 

I'd also go a bit geeky and mention "regular expressions". These won't mean a lot to anyone who's not in IT, but they are available with very little effort to your developers in web languages like PHP and they are REALLY powerful. Those who can use them can do a lot with them, and it could save you a lot of server load as complicated series of operations will become easy on the client side.

 

Okay, that's enough gibberish. Thanks for the improvements.

All the best...

Elliott in Switzerland

[Avpics]

I don't see it mentioned in the 'to do' list, but the location automation hasn't worked for three or four days now. Is it for the chop or is it an issue? @Alamy

[RichardNixon]

11 hours ago, Avpics said:

I don't see it mentioned in the 'to do' list, but the location automation hasn't worked for three or four days now. Is it for the chop or is it an issue? @Alamy

That's what I was wondering.  The predictive location was really useful.  Hopefully it'll come back... 

[Elliott Bignell]

Same here. Chromium on Ubuntu Linux - the map and suggestions no longer drop down when one starts typing a location.

[Reimar]

Although I can manage without the automatic location suggestor - it gave me more confidence I didn't end up with a typo.  The return of this feature would be most welcome.

[Cryptoprocta]

36 minutes ago, Reimar said:

Although I can manage without the automatic location suggestor - it gave me more confidence I didn't end up with a typo.  The return of this feature would be most welcome.

But please make it optional.

[Reimar]

1 minute ago, Cryptoprocta said:

But please make it optional.

I think it always was.  The suggestions provided can easily be ignored.

[Cryptoprocta]

1 minute ago, Reimar said:

I think it always was.  The suggestions provided can easily be ignored.

Oh, you're right.

I know what you mean about spelling.

[Avpics]

22 minutes ago, Reimar said:

I think it always was.  The suggestions provided can easily be ignored.

I kind of assumed that the fact it was there, like the categories, meant that at some point in the future it would be searchable or appear in the advanced search options, otherwise why is it there?

[Cryptoprocta]

2 hours ago, Avpics said:

I kind of assumed that the fact it was there, like the categories, meant that at some point in the future it would be searchable or appear in the advanced search options, otherwise why is it there?

The location used to be searchable, as did our name.

[Elliott Bignell]

I should have mentioned this before rather than making a second post, but most of my pictures are GPS-tagged. I don't think the location is picked up consistently, although of course I can't check now it's not working at all. Anything that can be automated is a big win, so this is important to me and, presumably, anyone who does GPS-tagging.

[gvallee]

8 hours ago, Cryptoprocta said:

The location used to be searchable, as did our name.

 

To add to the confusion, the location is searchable from AIM but not from the search bar on the main page. I got caught and confused a couple of times.

 

Gen

[Avpics]

I always add the location as a search term anyway, but I wondered whether the Google maps 'app' would allow someone to stick a pin in the area of interest and bring up images near that point.

[gvallee]

3 minutes ago, Avpics said:

I always add the location as a search term anyway, but I wondered whether the Google maps 'app' would allow someone to stick a pin in the area of interest and bring up images near that point.

 

So do I but there are situations where I do not want the location to be searchable, so I add it in the optional field as information for the buyer.

For example if it's a pic of a bird or a flower, I do not want them to appear if the buyer is searching for an image of the town itself. 

 

Gen

[CAROL SAUNDERS]

Hope they bring it back as I found it especially useful when typing names that were exceptionally long.

 

Carol

[Cryptoprocta]

6 hours ago, gvallee said:

 

To add to the confusion, the location is searchable from AIM but not from the search bar on the main page. I got caught and confused a couple of times.

 

Gen

 

15 hours ago, Cryptoprocta said:

The location used to be searchable, as did our name.

Ooops, I was wrong. It just took me ages to work out why two of my files had shown up wrongly in a particular location search. But that was because I was only checking the 'Mandatory' tab, where the incorrect location didn't appear. Just before I was going to post a question, I discovered that I had wrongly put the wrong location (I guess I must have done a mass location and included these files incorrectly).

Anyway, bottom line is that the location in AIM's optional tab is now searchable again.

[gvallee]

14 hours ago, Cryptoprocta said:

Anyway, bottom line is that the location in AIM's optional tab is now searchable again.

 

No, this is incorrect. The location in AIM option tab has always been searchable IN AIM search tab since its inception.

 

However, as I said, if you perform a search on location from the search bar in the home page (i.e. like a client), it won't be picked up. This is the scenario where location is only entered in the AIM location field and is not in tags or caption.

 

For example, my PTYDDK. 

Location Millmerran is only in the option tab. Nowhere else.

Do a search for say 'red hat millmerran'. My pic won't appear.

 

I e-mailed Alamy twice about it (because I had forgotten this quirk first time round) and they confirmed that it's how it works.

 

Hope it's clear, I'm not very good at explaining.

 

Gen

 

Edited October 25, 2018 by gvallee

[RichardNixon]

16 hours ago, gvallee said:

 

No, this is incorrect. The location in AIM option tab has always been searchable IN AIM search tab since its inception.

 

However, as I said, if you perform a search on location from the search bar in the home page (i.e. like a client), it won't be picked up. This is the scenario where location is only entered in the AIM location field and is not in tags or caption.

 

For example, my PTYDDK. 

Location Millmerran is only in the option tab. Nowhere else.

Do a search for say 'red hat millmerran'. My pic won't appear.

 

I e-mailed Alamy twice about it (because I had forgotten this quirk first time round) and they confirmed that it's how it works.

 

Hope it's clear, I'm not very good at explaining.

 

Gen

 

So basically if you want a location to be searchable you need to put it in as a tag?  If this is so, why bother putting it in the "Optional" location at all?

 

[Avpics]

3 hours ago, RichardNixon said:

If this is so, why bother putting it in the "Optional" location at all?

 

The way it was set up appeared to have a distinct use. Rather than a searchable word, it was a geographical location, a point on a map. Like most, I have a map app on my phone where I can ask for 'pubs near me', so maybe the idea was to have 'photos near me', or more likely at or around a specified location? Also it takes away the false positive errors for similar place names around the world.

[gvallee]

8 hours ago, RichardNixon said:

So basically if you want a location to be searchable you need to put it in as a tag?  If this is so, why bother putting it in the "Optional" location at all?

 

 

Yes, either tag and/or caption.

 

Valid point, why bother putting it in the optional field? Personally, I can think of two reasons, but it's only me:

 

1. things change quite a lot every so often with Alamy. Maybe one day this field will be searchable. It costs me very little, I copy and paste it from the caption in a batch. To my mind, the fact that location is searchable in AIM is a bug.

 

2. this is a situation specific to me but for my macro work, I do not want false positives on the town. So for an insect, I put 'Queensland' in the caption and tags as it's relevant to its distribution, but since Queensland is probably as big as the UK, I would specify the town in the optional field for the buyer's information. 

 

Only my 2 cents (that's all I can afford with all those PUs) 

 

Gen

[Cryptoprocta]

On 24/10/2018 at 22:49, gvallee said:

 

No, this is incorrect. The location in AIM option tab has always been searchable IN AIM search tab since its inception.

 

However, as I said, if you perform a search on location from the search bar in the home page (i.e. like a client), it won't be picked up. This is the scenario where location is only entered in the AIM location field and is not in tags or caption.

 

For example, my PTYDDK. 

Location Millmerran is only in the option tab. Nowhere else.

Do a search for say 'red hat millmerran'. My pic won't appear.

 

I e-mailed Alamy twice about it (because I had forgotten this quirk first time round) and they confirmed that it's how it works.

 

Hope it's clear, I'm not very good at explaining.

 

Gen

 

You're absolutely right, and you explained it perfectly. I was in a fug about something else in search, so was completely fuddled.

[gvallee]

22 minutes ago, Cryptoprocta said:

You're absolutely right, and you explained it perfectly. I was in a fug about something else in search, so was completely fuddled.

 

It's confusing to me even with the right info! Got caught several times. I wish Alamy disabled it in AIM.