The Celebrity Editor in AutoSort
The celebrity editor is used to edit celebrities or create new ones. It is invoked from various locations in the program.
Aside from the obvious identification information, that database maintains a wealth of data about each celebrity. While the basic identification information and properties are used by AutoSort to identify files, the remaining information is intended to assist the user in the tasks of manual identification and / or identity confirmation.
There is no point in maintaining information that does not help identifying a celebrity or information that can change anytime. For example, hair color, eye color and mesurements change constantly and cannot be relied upon for celebrity identification.
The Celebrity
Editor
BASIC IDENTIFICATION INFORMATION
First and Last Name Fields - These are the primary keywords that AutoSort uses in it's identification algorithms.
These two fields must be supplied for a celebrity to be considered valid. The strings must also be at least two characters long.
The two fields normally contain the celebrity's first and last name but can be any keywords you like. In the example above, using "Buffy" in both fields means that any file name that contains the string "Buffy" will be identified as "Sarah Michelle Gellar".
The database maintains capitalization of these fields for readability only. This is neither required not does it affect the identification algorithms.
Middle Name Field - Optionnal keyword that AutoSort uses in some identification algorithms.
Currently, only the first letter of this keyword is used in the algorighms that check for initials. This allowes AutoSort to suggest "Sarah Michelle Gellar" for a file named like "smg01.jpg".
The database maintains capitalization of this field for readability only. This is neither required not does it affect the identification algorithms.
Auto Folder Button - Automatically fills the Associate To Storage Folder field from the individual name keywords.
The logic used here is rather simple, the individual name parts are appended together to form the folder string.
In the process, extra spaces and invalid characters are filtered out and some capitalization rules are applied to all fields. If the capitalizations aren't to your likings, you may change them afterwards.
Associate To Storage Folder Field - This is the base string that is used to create the folder in which files related to this celebrity will be tossed.
The actual string used for creating the storage folder is a modified version of this field. AutoSort converts this string according to the file naming convention options selected in the Options window.
This field is required for a celebrity to be considered valid. The string must contain at least two space separated words. The two words limitation is imposed because a single word would break the rules of the folder naming conventions and it's accociated conversion tool. See Options for more information on folder naming conventions.
If you need to create a celebrity that uses a single name such as "Madonna", use "Madonna Madonna" in this field. This stutter is a small price to pay to have a viable folder naming conversion tool.
The capitalization of this field is important since this will affect the look of the storage folders created by AutoSort.
This field is also used to represent a celebrity in the identification results window. See Main Window.
Auto Name Button - Automatically fills the individual name fields from the Associate To Storage Folder field.
The logic works as follows:
In the process, extra spaces and invalid characters are filtered out and some capitalization rules are applied to all fields. If the capitalizations aren't to your likings, you may change them afterwards.
IDENTIFICATION PROPERTIES
Popular Flag - The celebrity is popular, this means that a lot of material about this celebrity can be found on the net.
This flag deeply affects the considerations made by the identification algorithms while attempting to match a celebrity to a file. In order to minimize the number of wrong suggestions AutoSort can make on a file, it automatically filters out unlikely suggestions when it's confidence level isn't very high about the identification results. Setting this flag bypasses the normal filtering for that celebrity.
This is why wrong suggestions are often 'popular' celebrities, after all, guessing a popular celebrity is better than nothing! :-)
For example, at the time of this writing, the database contained 109 occurences of the name "Lisa". AutoSort would be silly to suggest all 109 celebrities for a file named "Lisa01.jpg". In this case, only the "Lisa"s with the popular flag checked would get suggested.
Celebrities with the popular flag checked bear a little pink P to the left of their name in the identification results window. See Main Widow.
No Auto-Select - Prevents AutoSort from automatically marking a celebrity when positively identified in a file name.
AutoSort automatically marks positivily identified celebrities after running an identification session. While this is a great time saver, this method can cause files to end up sorted in the wrong folders. This flag is used to disable this behaviour for problematic celebrities.
Consider the following:
A celebrity called "Tina Le" positively matches the file named "christinaaguilera001.jpg" because all name parts are found in full in the file name. "christinaaguilera001.jpg".
In this particular case, "Tina Le" would automatically be rejected because the database also contains a celebrity named "Christina Aguilera" which is a far better match. However, if the database did not know about "Christina Aguilera"'s existance, the file would wrongfully end up in "Tina Le"'s folder.
When you hit the OK button after editing or creating a new celebrity, AutoSort runs an extensive check on the database to see if your celebrity should have this flag set. Although you have the freedom of setting the flag as you please, most of the time you should simply rely on the suggestion offered. Setting the flag when it's not relly needed doesn't hurt anything but, failure to set the flag when it *is* needed can result in some of your files getting tossed to the wrong folders.
Celebrities with the No Auto-Select flag checked bear a little red interdiction circle to the left of their name in the identification results window. See Main Window.
Auto Delete - Delete files related to this celebrity instead of copying or moving it to a folder.
Setting this flag causes AutoSort to send files positively identified as this celebrity to the Windows recycle bin(delete) instead of moving or copying the files to their own folder.
This is especially usefull if you blindly download tons of pictures and often end up with pictures of a celebrity for which you have no love!
I implemented this feature because I got sick of manually deleting undesired pictures of some tasteless porn stars.
Make sure you really don't like a celebrity before setting this flag.
Celebrities with the Auto Delete flag checked bear a little X to the left of their name in the identification results window. See Main Window.
NOTES AND/OR BIOGRAPHY
This section is completely optionnal and is used to enter special notes, filmography and biographical information.
The information entered in this field should be limited to things that might help the user identify the celebrity. For example, entering filmography information will help confirm the identity of an actor since most video captures mention the name of the movie they were captured from.
As a general rule, you should avoid using large amounts of text in this field because storing plain text is very un-efficient and can make the celebrity database significantly larger. I'm not saying you should avoid using this field, just use brief, precise, straight to the point text. This is no place to write about the celebrity's concerns about furry creatures or his(her) general political opinions.
RACIAL APPEARANCE AND GENDER
Keep in mind that these settings are there to help people confirm the identity of a celebrity, they do not need to reflect actual genetic heritage. For example, if a latina model 'looks' white, you should specify white for the racial appearance.
The information provided in this section is shown directly to the right of a celebrity name in the identification results window. See Main Window.
Since this information can easily be determined just by looking at a picture, it is strongly recommended that you specify that information when creating new celebrities. This is a great tool for confirming celebrity identity so do yourself and everyone a favor, specify something! That will also prevent the annoying message box from popping up. :-))
Racial Appearance - The appearance of the celebrity can be set to any of the following:
Gender - The gender(sex) appearance of the celebrity can be set to any of the following:
PRIMARY CAREER INFORMATION
The information in this section is optionnal but be can be of great help in confirming a celebrity's identity.
The information specified herein is displayed to the right of a celebrity name in the identification results window. See Main Window.
This section may have more than one of the following flags set:
- Model: The celebrity is primarily known as a photographic model
- Actor: The celebrity is primarily known as a movie or TV actor.
- Entertainer: The celebrity is primarily known as a singer, musician, dancer, commedian, TV / radio host or anything else in the entertainement business.
- Athlete: The celebrity is well known in the world of sports, not necessarily an olympic athlete.
SECONDARY CAREED IFORMATION
The information in this section is optionnal but be can be of great help in confirming a celebrity's identity.
The information specified herein is displayed to the right of a celebrity name in the identification results window. See Main Window.
This section is dedicated to telling the user what kind of material or pictures he can expect to find about a celebrity. The flags are fairly self-explanatory so I won't babble about every single one of them.
MAGAZINES
The information in this section is optionnal but be can be of great help in confirming a celebrity's identity.
The information specified herein is displayed to the right of a celebrity name in the identification results window. See Main Window.
This is just a list of popular magazines the celebrity has posed for. Pictures from certain magazines tend to be very caracteristic. For example, if you suspect a model on a Sports Illustrated picture to be "Laetitia Casta" and her flags say that she posed for SI, chances are it's her.
SEARCH ON IMDB
This performs the same action as the celebrity popup menu item 'Search on IMDb...', it the celebrity can be found on IMDb, please refrain from entering tons of biographical information in the editor. Doing so only clutters AutoSort's celebrity database.