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How to create a Pane Category to group by Date Imported

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Afrosheen:
I need some help in creating a view where I can set up a list of groups based on the date imported of the files.  Ideally I'd like to create the following groupings under the Date Imported category:

Imported Today;
Imported This Week;
Imported Last Week;
Imported This Month;
Imported Last Month;
Imported This Year;
Imported Last Year;

Thanks for the consideration.

blgentry:
You can definitely do this with a Categories or Panes view.  To me personally, it makes more sense to use a Panes view for this, because it's easier to switch back and forth, and easier to see your files immediately.  But Categories definitely works if you want that.

The key here, that isn't all that well documented, is to use a Search List as one of your Categories or Panes.  Marko's tutorial on views taught me how to use them:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=68960.0

Essentially, instead of just displaying a library field, you can display a pane (or category) that has selections for one or more saved searches.  These saved searches are called a Search List.  You select that as the type when creating your category or Pane.  So you can create a Pane (or category) called "Import Range" and then populate it with searches for Today, This week, This Month, etc.  The criteria for these searches are mostly pretty straight forward.  Something like:  [Date Imported] "is in the last" 7 days .

This is actually an extremely powerful feature that let's you do some pretty sophisticated things.  These Panes can be used as toggle switches, or multi-selects to turn on and off view features and searches.  They can be cascaded of course by using multiple panes of this type.  I sometimes add a Pane to the end of one that I use for tagging (or otherwise) that I want to sometimes view as random.  This last pane just has a saved search of "shuffle".  When I click the ON button, it shuffles.  When I click off of it, it's not shuffled.  Just a simple example.

If this isn't clear, or you need more help, please ask.  Good luck!

EDIT:  Added screen shot of example Panes view with Search List.

Brian.

Afrosheen:
This is very cool!!!! Thank you @bigentry for laying this out so nicely!!!!  I'm going to be spending the rest of this weekend developing better views.  Thank you!!

blgentry:
Glad I could help out.  Let us know how your View changes and tweaks go.  :)

Brian.

marko:
One of the beauties of the search list is that you can specify different sort parameters for each entry, if you want to.

Also, regarding "Imported today"...
If you use the simple approach of "in the last 24 hours" you will inevitably draw in files that were actually imported yesterday. If you use something like this instead though...
[=isequal([date imported],formatdate(now(),dd//MM//yyyy),8)]=1

it compares the current date against [date imported] and only includes those that match, resulting in a true "Imported Today" listing.

You can also use:
[=isequal([date imported],formatdate(math(now()-1),dd//MM//yyyy),8)]=1

to give you a true "Imported Yesterday" listing.
***Bear in mind that these two strings assume that your system displays dates the British (proper ;)) way. If your locale uses a different format, massage the "dd//MM//yyyy" bit to match the way your system displays dates.***

Happy New Year to you all,

-marko

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