Hi,
if I get it right this sounds a lot like T10738: Improve media (image) search display and maybe T37701: Clustering (category facets) for image searches?
Or is there something that is not covered by these two tasks?
(T38159: For category search results, provide an image preview seems to be unrelated).

And "More useful" is rather subjective - if there is a specific request here, e.g. search images by categories, please describe that request by editing this task's summary so anybody looking at a list of task summaries would have a clearer idea what this request is actually about. Thank you :)

Hello Andre,

I feel like a bit of a klutz dealing with your quick and informed
response. I have spent quite a bit of time since then exploring how to
answer your questions. My suugestion is NOT like the two others you
cite, not covered by them, not related, but i am at a loss to explain
precisely what i meant because the search results i did get when i first
looked at this are not findable by me any more. Either i am lost or the
version of wikimedia/mediawiki used in the wiki i frequent (do not own
or administer, just a frequent editor) has changed. I will nevertheless
try to explain.

Formerly (two or so weeks ago) i got results that showed (the first)
fifty images, who uploaded and when, size, etc, and somewhere on that
page there was the option to restrict search by user, size and/or date
uploaded. But no varieties of search i have tried today have produced
anything resembling what i found then. The only page i have found this
time resembling that is a Special Page, "title=Special:ListFiles", but
the only relevant option left for restricting the search (and so far
it's not a search, just a file list) is user. What i would like to see
is a way to list, with thumbnails, all the images (along with their
info) that are used in all the pages in a given category. Then the
thumbnails provide an easy way to find a specific image or compare
various images that is not text-based. So no tags are needed, words in a
description, caption, no "image categories", nothing verbal.

To give you an idea of proportion, let's say there are about 10,000
images in the wiki, but only 1,000 in the category i am interested in
searching. At 50 per page of search results, this could go fairly easily
if restricted to images used in my category, but fairly tediously
otherwise. Does that make sense?

Thanks, Sarlo

I'd like to edit off the redundant repetition of Aklapper's comments but it seems editing is not enabled here once something is posted. (I had replied via email without being aware of this "comments" section.)

Anyway, i have sorted things out a bit and now realize that what i had done was not a search per se but the same as what i found in the Special Page, "title=Special:ListFiles", that i went to today also. So this Special Page is not actually a search but can function as one in a primitive way. It has the option of limiting returns according to user name plus the options, via sortable columns, of PRIORITIZING returns by file name, size and date uploaded.

So what i would like to see, failing a viable image search, is an option added to this Special Page whereby one could specify / limit returns to only those images used in a specified category. Such an option would make searching for images within a category doable, if one knows to go there.

I will look later at editing the task. If it can be done, including changing the title, i'll do it; otherwise, this task is better scrapped and a new one started.

Thanks, Sarlo

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