You can set a default search provider in the preferences window (Tools/Options/picNiche). This determines which agency is searched when hitting the Enter key from the search query textbox.

Clicking the toolbar buttons, or selecting an agency from the drop-down-button to the right of the search query textbox will then search that agency using the term you entered.

The Primary group searches Fotolia, Dreamstime, iStockphoto and Shutterstock by default. The All group searches all Enabled agencies.

Clicking either the toolbar buttons or a drop-down-button item whilst the search query textbox is entered will set a temporary default provider. This agency will be searched only the next time you hit the Enter key from the search query textbox, the default provider will then be reset to your normal default.

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You can setup which search provider to query in the preferences window (Tools/Options/picNiche). Enabling/Disabling the check next to agency will determine whether it is searched when you search the Primary or All groups. You can still search disabled agencies by clicking them from the drop-down-button to the right of the search query textbox.

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The Photo/Illustration/Vector checkboxes allow you to filter the results from all agencies being searched. Each agency site deals with the options differently though so you may see various results, they are intended as a guide, and you will find many advanced options to filter further on each agency site.

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The Image-Requests feature submits your request to Microstock Contributors (using the Contributor version of this Toolbar). They can then each respond by sending a single link to an image or light box of their images which may be a suitable image or collection of images for your request.

Enter a brief title of the key-words describing the image you require, along with a detailed description. This should be focused on image-content and/or concept. The more accurate and complete your description, the more appropriate the results will be. Describe both hard and soft requirements, subjects/objects, lighting, mood, etc.

Contributors will receive your request in the next few minutes, and responses will be received (no more than 5 at a time) every 15 minutes if any links are available. To avoid potential spam or other privacy concerns, Please do not include personal details such as email addresses or other information, all results will be returned to you (anonymously) directly through the toolbar.

Image requests are continually tracked until you remove them. This can be done by right-clicking on the requests you’d like to close and confirming via the popup. Ensure you save any image-links to your project manager, agency light boxes, or your favourites as all links will be removed when request closes.

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The announcements features is intended to allow you to discover the latest work as it becomes available. Many image-buyers want new and otherwise un-used images, this is a handy way to keep up-to-date.

When new images are approved by the agency’s staff, and become available in microstock contributor’s portfolios, they can choose to announce those to the Search Bar. You can enable/disable this functionality in the preferences (Tools/Options/picNiche) or change how often it polls to get the latest announcements.

You will receive no more than 5 links per announcement and each shows a set of keywords describing those new images.

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The Project Manager tool allows you to store links to images, light boxes and search results pages. It’s a bit like your favourites list, but you can also store a comment/description to allow you to keep notes about the pages you add to it.

You can create Project pages (by clicking the Add button at top-right) so you can easily review images, light boxes, search results or other pages you’ve seen previously and come back later to purchase, while seeing which project each image applies to.

When you’ve finished with a link or an entire project, right-click the title to remove it.

I’d like to incorporate image previews in future, though there are a lot of issues to be worked out with the searched agencies before I can cache or hotlink their images for display.

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The Upcoming Events log is a simple list of world-wide holidays and events. It displays events for the next two months to act as a reminder/planner for future designs or work to be produced.

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To configure earnings tracking for the various sites you submit to, you should first visit each site you’d like to track and login.

You should save your login for each site to the Firefox secure password manager as normal. The picNiche toolbar asks the password manager for your username and password using the normal Auto-complete system. Your data is never passed to any third-party other than the appropriate site when logging in, and it’s never stored anywhere other than the Firefox system (It's never sent to the picNiche server either). Do NOT install add-ons you do not trust, find more info online to make up your own mind.

Then open the preferences (Tools/Options/picNiche) and enable which agencies earning data you’d like to track. Enter the username for each tracked agency and save. Then either click the blue Refresh icon on the toolbar or restart your browser. This will check for updated sales and approvals at the intervals you specify for each agency.

This functionality is designed to help you get over F5-itis and to keep a quick-view of all your outstanding balances. It was contributing to my own poor workflow, and now I never think about it. :D

If you don’t want to save your password to Firefox, then sorry but the toolbar cannot track your earnings. See the Security tab in the About box for more information (Tools/picNiche/About).

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When the toolbar checks on the current earnings, it also checks the number of images in your portfolio for new approved images. This is included on the button tooltip for each agency (viewable by holding your mouse over the button).

A special notification is launched to your notifications panel which allows you to enter a few keywords to describe the latest images. If you then click the Announce button a link to your portfolio will be stored in the picNiche system and queued for announcement to potential image-buyers.

The keywords are intended as a guide, so do not need to be exhaustive, simply enter a few descriptive words or the image title.

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The keywording tool retrieves a list of keywords associated with the entered search phrase. Entering any word or phrase will display those images. You can then click the keywords you’d like and hit the ‘Copy to Clipboard’ button to get a comma-separated list of all selected words.

If you refine the list by searching for a second word or phrase, the keywords which are associated with both phrases will be automatically selected. This is useful to setup a list by ‘subject’ and ‘concept’ for example.

The ability to copy-all has been requested. This however will not be implemented to discourage keyword-spamming. Keywords must accurately represent your image/images.

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The FTP Upload functionality works as a drop-box. Select the agencies from the panel which you’d like to upload to (the agencies you choose must be configured as earnings-tracked sites so the toolbar can login to the FTP using those credentials), then drag-drop the files from windows explorer (or whatever file-manager is in your OS) onto the main drop-box area. Click start to begin the transfer. You can also right-click to remove an item or left-click to move a file to the top of the list.

Uploading files can take a long time, and Firefox though solid, still has some stability issues. The FTP Upload tool is not meant as a replacement for a full ftp client for sending hundreds of files, but if you want to upload a few images to a few agencies, this is achievable with minimal fuss.

You can close the side-panel (as long as the browser is still running) and your files will continue to upload, you can check the status by opening the side-bar and ftp panel again.

There are some very good Firefox add-ons from other developers which can be used to limit your upload speed if desired (I like to play WoW and don’t like high pings while uploading ;)). I use Firefox Throttle.

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The workflow tools allow you to set preferences for automatically checking or un-checking submission fields, or add other utilities to the agency submission pages (currently Fotolia, Dreamstime and Shutterstock) to speed up the workflow-process. Each preferences field maps directly to the setting to apply to the corresponding submission page field.

Workflow preferences help to speed up the submission process. It does not aim for complete automation as you should still take the time check for accurate keywords, terms, and settings as required by each site.

To best see how these work, visit the agency submission page for an unsubmitted image to see which fields are checked or unchecked. You can then change the preferences as desired and refresh the page to see the change.

Although the functionality is built to fail-safe, if the agencies change their layout, terms or field names these settings may not be applied. You should always check these fields change as required when you submit; we take no responsibility for you not doing so. Do not enable this feature unless you are happy with these terms.

I plan on developing these features further as the possibilities are virtually endless, the potential for improvement with categorising and organising are great. If you have any other workflow improvements you'd like to see or encounter any problems, please contact us using the 'About' box (Tools/picNiche/About).

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The Upcoming Events log is a simple list of world-wide holidays and events. It displays events for the next two months to act as a reminder/planner for future designs or work to be produced.

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