How index filtering works

By default, Index Manager attempts to include all files in the document folder attached to an index. However, you can use a file name or search filter to control precisely which files are included or excluded from the index.

There are two types of filtering available: 

• File name filters are used to include or exclude certain files based on their filename and/or extension
• Search filters are used to process metadata while the index is being built. While search filters let you fine-tune the content you want to include in an index, an index with a search filter also takes slightly longer to build due to the extra search processing.

Defining a file filter

You can choose to either include or exclude files based on the specified criteria, but you cannot make a combination query of include and exclude conditions.

Select Include matching files or Exclude matching files.

Use the dropdown lists to choose the criteria, and the Criteria field to specify the parts of the file name the filter must match.

File filter tip: When creating a file filter to exclude certain folders from indexing, use the Full path contains option and enter the individual folder names to exclude. A second option is to add a tilde to the names of folders that should be ignored. For more information, see How to prevent crawling of specific folders.

Defining a search filter

A search filter can replace an auto search archive in Fotostation or FotoWeb. Search filtering is more effective than an auto search when the number of files in the index is large (10.000–20.000 or more), since it means the client will not perform a search every time it accesses the archive. However, when specifying a search filter, the index will take longer to build because Index Manager must extract metadata and match it against the specified criteria for every file in the archive during index buildup.

Select a metadata field in the dropdown list to set your search criteria. Then choose whether the field Contains, Does not contain, Is empty , or Is not empty and specify an additional string if applicable. You can add additional search criteria by selecting Add new filter.