Introduction
iPhoto Library Manager's job is to enable people to use iPhoto with multiple photo library folders in any location they want on their hard drive, rather than being limited to the default library location. iPhoto Library Manager allows you to set up multiple photo libraries, switch between them easily, and copy photos from one library to another.
There are three main parts to the main iPhoto Library Manager window:
Library list:
This is a list of the iPhoto library folders that iPhoto Library Manager knows about. You can add existing library folders to this list by clicking the "Add Library" button, or by dragging and dropping a library folder from the Finder into the library list. You can rename the items in the list by double clicking (or option-clicking, if you have double clicking set in the preferences to open the library) the name and typing in a new name. By default, changing the name of a library in the list does not change the name of the actual folder that it represents. However, if you want the list name to always match the folder name, you can check the option to do so in the preferences.
Album list:
This displays the list of albums in the selected library. If you are using iPhoto 6 or later, you can also choose to view the rolls/events in the selected library instead of the albums. You can drag albums from this list and drop them on a row in the library list on the left to copy that album of photos to a different library. If a textual message is displayed in this area instead of your library's albums, that library may have a problem with its AlbumData.xml file. For libraries created with iPhoto 6 or later, you can also choose to view the library's list of rolls/events as well as its albums. The albums are initially displayed in the order they appear in iPhoto, and rolls/evenst are displayed in the order they were imported into iPhoto. You can sort the list using the sort menu located in the View menu.
Note: due to an iPhoto bug (as of iPhoto 7.0.2), if you have hidden photos in iPhoto, those photos will not be reflected in the photo counts in the album list even if you've chosen to temporarily show your hidden photos in iPhoto itself.
Library info:
This pane displays several bits of information about the selected library.
- Location: displays the path to the selected library. Clicking the "Reveal In Finder" button will open a Finder window with the library selected
- Size: the total size of the library. Note that this value can be different than the size for your library that is displayed within iPhoto itself, because this calculation takes into account all the other files in the library folder, not just the photos themselves. If you choose to store some photos outside the library folder, the size of those photos will not be included. Click the "Calculate size" button to perform the calculation, or you can use the preferences to have iPhoto Library Manager calculate this size automatically.
- Modification date: the date that the iPhoto library was last modified.
- Version: the version of iPhoto that last worked with the library.
The Options button also lets you configure how you want permissions set on your library, and whether you want to automatically mount a remote volume the library is on when trying to open it. In the lower right hand corner of the window, the version of iPhoto currenly installed on your machine is displayed.
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