Bug in Filter: When nothing selected to filter then all photos are shown

There is a bug in the Filter where if nothing is selected to show then ALL images are shown. As soon as you select at least one item then the filter works as expected and shows those items.

It also appears that when nothing is selected in each section then it behaves like everything is selected in that section. As an example if you deselect Picked, Unpicked and Rejected items then the filter behaves as if all three of those items are ticked.

If this is expected behaviour then I believe it is wrong. Only items that match the ticked filter criteria should be displayed.

See screenshot:

This is expected behavior and is how many filter interfaces work. For example, shopping web sites.

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I have to admit that I have never come across this sort of behaviour before! Certainly not logical :thinking:

I have to agree with @Egregius. That is the way filtering generally works When nothing is selected everything is visible. Selecting one or more filters limits what is visible based upon those selections.

Is it your assumption is that when everything is displayed all the filters should be checked and you need to uncheck the filters for those files you do not want to see? If I am misinterpreting your expectations, can you explain in more detail how you think the filters should work?

Mark

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As already noted by @Egregius and @mwsilvers, this is how filtering works. You start with everything then apply search criteria to limit what you see. To me, it would illogical for it to work any other way. When I’m browsing photos I want to see them all, then filter down to the particular subset of interest. I would not want to start with a blank screen and then reveal what I’m looking for.

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The best way to think of it so it seems logical is that if no filters are selected, then filtering itself is turned off.

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I hear all your arguments but to have the filtering mechanism change to the exact opposite when one condition exists (no option selected) is open to confusing and specially for new users.

The way filtering currently works is: if there is a tick mark next to an option then photos with those criteria are displayed. If you remove ALL tick marks them I would expect NOTHING to be displayed but this is not how it works because now suddenly EVERYTHING is displayed.

Matters are made worse by having the same behaviour for each section.

In my opinion, filtering should be consistent and not change to an exact opposite behaviour when a certain condition exists. Can you imagine the confusion of new users? I sympathize with many people who complain that they are confused by the interface of PL at times.

You are looking at it backwards. Adding a checkmark sets a filter. When there are no checkmarks then no filters are set and as a result you see everything. If you only want to see raw files you check the raw images filter and all that will be displayed are raw files.

Mark

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No, a check mark means show photos with that criteria. This changed from PL4 where it worked the way you describe.

In PL4 a check mark means enable that filter and do NOT show photos with that criteria.

Yes. That is what I said. Checking raw images files sets that filter and nothing else shows but raw files. Setting a filter means that you will only see images based on the criteria you have selected. A filter will filter out everything but that item. You seem to want the opposite, that a filter should remove the items checked from view. Again, checking an option indicates you will see files that meet that criteria. I don’t recall exactly how PL4 handled filters at this point, but I do recall there were significant issues with PL4 filtering and there were a number of corrections implemented during PL 5 testing.

Mark

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@mwsilvers I agree with what you are saying completely BUT what I am pointing out is if you have NO filters selected then it is the same as having ALL filters selected, i.e. ALL photos will be shown! This is contrary to selecting filters to SHOW images. If ALL filters are OFF then you should NOT see ANY photos.

Can you see how everyone is getting confused because things work backwards when NO filters are selected!

I believe you are still missing the concept. Setting a filter means that everything that does not meet the criteria of the filter is hidden. If no filter is set then everything is displayed. Nothing checked means there is no filter criteria selected. If there isn’t any filtering then by default everything will be visible.

Mark

The bug is in your thinking, not in PL5 and long ago we had this discussion about the very stupid and time consuming way to set up the filter the way it was before. In fact, PL4 is the only app I know in which I needed to set 4 filters checked just to show all 3 ★ ratings. Maybe you need to see for yourself f you can find any other app working the way you consider as logical - or do you screw red, blue, green filters in front of your lens to see all colours? If you filter a text document to find the word “bug”, you don’t need to list all other words except “bug” to find the word, right?

There’s only one confused person in this thread. And another one who forbid you to use the word “everyone”, as I’m part of the group “everyone”, and I’m not confused to see a filter working the way all other (known by me) apps are working. Most other people replying to your “bug report” see it not the way you’re seeing it. If I were you, I would reconsider.

As long as I don’t want to filter, it’s logical to see all images, though maybe not for you. Else you need to put all sliders to 100 % to see an image. Filtering is a function which is only active when needed, so, no added processor calculation needed.

OK, so why when I select the filter for 1 star I see all photos with 1 star. You are saying I should NOT see my photos with 1 star.

When I select all the other star rating EXCEPT 1 star then it shows my images except those with 1 star!

Now when I deselect ALL the star ratings I see everything instead of NOTHING! Now tell me that this is not opposite to the previous 2 examples!

Finally, if I select all the star rating I get the exact same result as if I selected none!

This is simple logic and if nobody else sees the difference then I give up as then I am sorry to say that I will have to conclude that nobody in this discussion has done any programming which relies so much on simple logic!

No, you were not reading what @mwsilvers actually wrote!

Setting the filter to 1★ ratings, you’ll only see pictures belonging to this group, no matter if they are also processed/unprocessed, RAW/RGB or whatever you could additionally want to filter or not.
As I said before, the logical problem is your concept of thinking, not the way filtering is handled in PL5 (and is different to the highly unlogical way it was handled in PL4).

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But this is exactly the same as e-commerce sites where you get things like this page for tripods, without filtering



 all models are shown. But, as soon as I select one of the price ranges



 the only items shown are those that match the selected filter.

This is standard behaviour in most software and web sites. But you are right in saying that, prior to PL5, the inverse was true. It is not a bug, but it is an intentional change in design. Instead of having to maintain all options checked, and then having to uncheck some to hide them, which can be quite tricky, it was decided to follow the more universally accepted design you now see.

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Thanks Joanna, I will accept your argument as how a lot of web sites behave and is accepted by most, but I still maintain that having nothing selected resulting in the same as everything selected may confuse people. If you follow logic then your first screenshot should result in no items being displayed because you have not selected what you do want to display.

Sorry, I did misread this :upside_down_face:

I will withdraw from the discussion and accept that this is the way that most people would like this feature to behave.

The results you are getting are correct but you are still having difficulty understanding the concept, I’m afraid. You are continuing to get things backwards. When 1 star is selected you should be seeing all images with 1 star and nothing else. When you select all the star ratings, except for 1 star, you should correctly see all the images with star ratings other than for 1 star. When no stars are checked there is no filter set so you see all the images
 That is 100% correct. That is how filters work. When a select a filter is turned on. everything but that filtered item is not viewable. When multiple filters are selected it may seem confusing to you, but the results should meet the criteria of all the filters turned on. Checked a filter is on, unchecked a filter is off. Nothing checked means no filters and everything is viewable. By the way, if there are no star rated images in the folder, then selecting any of the start ratings, individually or in combination, should display no images

Mark

@mwsilvers I fully understand how filtering works but what I am trying to explain is if ALL filters are off then you should see nothing! I know that is NOT how it works because turning off ALL filters disabled filtering completely as if there are no filters, in others words it INFERS no filters set. It is this inference that I am complaining about and would most likely confuse new users because there is nothing that I have seen that says " If nothing is ticked then everything will be shown".

Would it not be clearer to have an on/off switch for each group of filters in the same way you can turn individual adjustments on our off? Additionally this would allow you to disable a filter groups to see everything and then with one click go back to the filtering you previously had.

I hope that makes things clearer.

No. When all the filters are off you should see everything and you do. When all the filters are off there are no filters engaged. if there are no filters then you see everything. Filters limit what you see. If there are no filters set on then there are no limitations.

Mark

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