Can I search within an Adobe Bridge collection?

Question

I just created a manual collection in Bridge of various photos which live in various folders and subfolders. I would like to then search within this collection to find photos of a specific person. Is this possible? I am using CS5 on a mac.

Answer 1

If you want to search for something in the filenames in a collection the following script will do it...
#target bridge  
   if( BridgeTalk.appName == "bridge" ) { 
collectionFind = MenuElement.create("command", "Find in Collection", "at the end of Thumbnail");
collectionFind.onSelect = function () {
   findInCollections();
function findInCollections(){
var cols =app.getCollections();
if(!cols.length) {
    alert("There are no Collections to search!");
    return;
var win = new Window('dialog',"Collections");
win.orientation = "column";
win.pnl1 = win.add('panel', undefined, undefined, {borderStyle:"black"});
win.g1 = win.pnl1.add('group');
win.title = win.g1.add('statictext',undefined,'Find in Collection');
win.title.alignment="fill";
var g = win.title.graphics;
g.font = ScriptUI.newFont("Georgia","BOLDITALIC",22);
win.g5 = win.pnl1.add('group');
win.g5.orientation = "row";
win.g5.alignment="left";
win.g5.st1 = win.g5.add('statictext',undefined,'Select Collection...');
win.g5.dd1 = win.g5.add('dropdownlist');
for(var a in cols) { win.g5.dd1.add('item', cols[a].name);}
win.g5.dd1.selection=0;
win.g10 = win.pnl1.add('group');
win.g10.orientation = "row";
win.g10.alignment="left";
win.g10.st1 = win.g10.add('statictext',undefined,'Find ...');
win.g10.et1 = win.g10.add('edittext');
win.g10.et1.preferredSize=[200,20];
win.g100 = win.add('group');
win.g100.orientation = "row";
win.g100.alignment="center";
win.find = win.g100.add('button',undefined,'Find');
win.find.preferredSize=[100,30];
win.cancel= win.g100.add('button',undefined,'Cancel');
win.cancel.preferredSize=[100,30];
win.find.onClick=function(){
  if(win.g10.et1.text == ''){
      alert("You haven't entered anything to find!");
      return;
  win.close(1);
var collectionToSearch = app.getCollectionMembers(cols[Number(win.g5.dd1.selection.index)]);
var newCollection = [];
var REX = new RegExp(win.g10.et1.text,"gi");
for(var s in collectionToSearch){
     if(collectionToSearch[s].name.match(REX)) newCollection.push(collectionToSearch[s]);
if(!newCollection.length){
     alert("No match found");
     return;
var Name = "Found in " + win.g5.dd1.selection.text;
var foundFiles = app.createCollection(Name);
for(var c in newCollection){
     app.addCollectionMember(foundFiles,new Thumbnail(newCollection[c]));
app.document.thumbnail = foundFiles;
win.center();
win.show();