Sometimes you need to see all metadata assigned to all files. For instance, you may wonder how many files are left to work on, or you may want to get some idea of the spread of dates.

>From the [M]etadata menu choose the 'Assigned [M]etadata...' action. This opens a new window called the All Metadata view. The view is dominated by a large table like the Metadata Table, with many columns. The first column shows file names; the remaining ones show metadata element names. Each row shows all metadata values assigned to that file.

The audit view itself is non-modal, which means that you can carry on using the Librarian Interface even while the audit window is open. In fact, any changes in the collection files selected will immediately update the table accordingly.

A lot of preparatory work must be done when creating the audit view's model, so drawing the table can take some time. If you select ten thousand files, the audit view may take thirty seconds to calculate and display.

Once you have finished reviewing the metadata, click [C]lose to hide the audit table.

You may view the metadata audit table at any time by selecting the files you wish to audit and opening the right click menu. Now click on the item [V]iew All Metadata. If a directory has been selected, all its child files will be included in the table.

The metadata audit table quickly becomes daunting to navigate, and so a filtering mechanism is included, modelled on Microsoft Excel's concept of 'Autofilter'. It allows a single filter to be applied to each column of the audit table. As new filters is added, only those rows that match the filters set on all columns remain visible. To set, modify or clear a filter, click on the grey area containing the metadata element name and an icon of a funnel, at the top of the column you wish to filter. A new prompt appears allowing you to control filtering. Once a filter is set, the column header, and the funnel within it, changes colour to indicate that the column is being filtered.

The prompt itself contains four main components. The top field reminds you of the name of the column, the second to bottom ComboBox control allows you to change the alphabetical order of the values in the column (move rows as necessary) and the bottom area offers you buttons to [S]et and [C]lear the filter. This leaves the middle area, where the filtering is actually controlled. Initially the Simple tab will be selected. This allows you to filter a column so that it only shows rows which contain a certain existing metadata value. Note that the * matches all values. Just choose the value you want to limit the column to, then set the filter.

There is also an 'advanced' tab. While the simple filter is essentially a 'must equal', the advanced tab allows several different matching operations such as: must start with, does not contain, alphabetically less than and is equal to. Furthermore, the value to be matched can be edited to be any string, not just values that already exist within that column (although by default these values are made available as the drop down list connected to the value ComboBox). You may also choose whether the matching should be case sensitive. Finally, the advanced filtering allows you to specify a second condition that must be matched. This allows you to specify ranges of values accepted (by selecting the AND checkbox then filling out the filter) or possibly alternate values accepted (by selecting the OR checkbox instead).

Once you have finished select the ordering, click [S]et Filter. The new filter will be applied to the column, and you should notice that fewer rows are now visible.

If at any time you wish to stop adding a new filter, or to remove a current filter, click the [C]lear Filter button. Note that the details of a certain filter are retained even when the filter is cleared.

A trick to quickly sort the table is to choose the column to sort by, select a simple filter of *, then choose ascending or descending ordering.