Thank you for your report!
We have received your report and it is currently under investigation by a forum moderator.
Searching by medium
Welcome to the forum.
Here you can discuss all things art with like-minded artists, join regular painting challenges, ask questions, buy and sell art materials and much more.
Make sure you sign in or register to join the discussions.
Hang on Studio Wall
This is a Studio member-only feature!
Join our Studio membership and save your favourite Painters Online content, from gallery artwork to step-by-step guides, to your own online mood boards. Create your go-to place for inspiration and learning. Plus, members can also enjoy a range of exciting features including monthly art videos and a digital magazine library.
If you are already a Studio member, simply login to your account.
Not a Studio member? Why not try our free 30-day trial - no commitment, no credit card required
Message
Posted
Does any-one know if it is possible to search the gallery by medium? When uploading a painting, there is a choice of about 32 different media you can tick, but when it comes to searching the gallery there are only 6 media categories available - even if you do click on All Categories/Medium. A search that puts 'digital' or 'acrylic' in the search box, only brings up those painting that have the search term in the painting's title.
Posted
You can find those that are identified by the person posting them as drawings, or acrylics or whatever - which is a good reason for people to do so. But no software exists to identify a work just from the appearance of it - and sometimes it's not that easy to tell even with the human eye; or mine, anyway.
Posted
TonyAuffret (9/3/2018)I've just done a bit of experimenting. A search on "acrylic" or "pastel" from the category list will produce paintings that don't have the search term in the title or even in the description. However a search on "mixed media" as keyword did produce only paintings that had the term in the title, so presumably keyword searching searches only the titles?
Does any-one know if it is possible to search the gallery by medium? When uploading a painting, there is a choice of about 32 different media you can tick, but when it comes to searching the gallery there are only 6 media categories available - even if you do click on All Categories/Medium. A search that puts 'digital' or 'acrylic' in the search box, only brings up those painting that have the search term in the painting's title.
Edited
by SandraKennedy
Posted
I am beginning to wonder how much the properties of the site vary with platform. I know, for example on a macbook/safari browser combination I can go from the forum directly back to the gallery, but can't on an ipad/safari combination . When I followed Sandra's example and did a search for 'acrylic', I found only paintings with the word 'acrylic' in the title. Sandra (see above), however found other results when she did the same search, thought not reliably so as her 'mixed media' search showed.
Thanks for the tip Pat but the categories under the search box, even the drop down All Categories/medium only gives me access to the half a dozen 'top" categories. 32 difffernt categories might be a bit of a pain to explore, but perhaps the 'All categories' drop down box could be expanded,
Posted
It was actually two different searches Tony, one by category and the other by keyword. When you searched "acrylic" and got only paintings with "acrylic" in the title was it a category or a keyword search? They might work differently.
I think you have a point about the site properties varying with the platform. I use what Robert would describe as a "steam powered pc" with Chrome, and have no problem switching between forum and gallery and back again. It happily leaves me logged in too, which is convenient. I seem to remember it was the same with Explorer. And the Gallery layout is rather different on my tablet from what it is on the pc, still using Chrome. That tripped me up the first time I tried to show someone how to search the Gallery on his phone, the search box was right at the bottom of the screen instead of the top, and neither of us thought to scroll down.