Re: iPhoto question

In article
<Mencken-4D0003.08093613062008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Ockham's Razor <Mencken@xxxxxxx> wrote:

I had hoped that iPhoto would be able simply make directories of the
photos and then I could re-arrange the photos, sort of modifying the
directory.

Do you know of any other (reasonably priced) application that will do
this?

Answer: YES, absolutely -- but I get to rant a bit before I name it.

For whatever reason, Apple has not configured its new "Library-based"
applications iPhoto and iTunes to be at all easy to use in the fashion
you desire -- at least, not right out of the box.

In addition, for some reason there are many people on this group who
just do not, and will not, understand why you and I, and many others
like us, may want to manage and organize our audio and image media files
in our own ways.

You'll likely get, therefore, responses which focus on challenging what
it is you want to do, and insisting that you should do it Apple's way.

I've been debating this issue repeatedly on this group, to little avail
it seems. You can dig for my earlier posts, or I've appended my most
recent (and probably my last) rant on this topic below (warning: it's
somewhat lengthy).

The bottom line, however, is that there has long been a superb Mac app
for cataloging, managing, and organizing media files of all types that I
believe you would find more than meets your needs. It's called iView
MediaPro <http://www.iview-multimedia.com/>.

IVMP has been around in successive versions, and I've been a totally
satisfied user of it, for approaching a decade. It provides the
"existence proof" for demonstrating how much better iPhoto (and iTunes)
could and should have been. I also think it's reasonably priced; at
least I've been willing to pay it.

The one potentially serious downside is that Microsoft recently
purchased IVMP (see link above), and is now marketing it under the name
Microsoft Expression Media. Is this is good news or bad news? -- time
will tell. I would never have thought I'd be touting an Evil Empire
product over an Apple product --- but I'm prettu sure that when upgrade
time comes, I'll be acquiring the MS product, and not even looking at
iPhoto.

Latest and probably last generalized rant from me on iPhoto and iTunes
follows.

============================================
In article <1iifsvx.1vdi0xs18o5f6tN%nonesuch@xxxxxxxxxx>,
nonesuch@xxxxxxxxxx (Adrian) wrote:

Once the files have been copied into the iTunes folder structure there
are very few reasons why you would need to resort to the Finder. You
want to copy a bunch of tracks to another location ... select them in
the Library and simply drag them to wherever you want them. Much better
than the finder because using Library sorts and searches you can define
the track selection in many different ways and not be restricted by your
original hard-wired folder layout.

Look, for many people, their "tunes" are primarily _seminars_,
_lectures_, _class presentations_, _interviews_, _panel discussions_,
other _oral/audio_ presentations.

And universities, research institutes, and many other organizations are
today distributing large amounts of these kinds of audio files (which
are in "music" formats) _through the iTunes Store_ as a distribution
mechanisms (one of the names is "iTunes U"), which means you _have_ to
use iTunes to get at them.

And researchers, scholars, teachers, communicators -- including people
of this type in music oriented fields -- naturally want to keep these
audio (or music) files in _topic-oriented_ folder structures which
_they_ design and maintain, which also contain _in the same location_
all kinds of related files and documents (text files, articles,
biographies, reference lists, photographs, etc, etc).

And when you want to review all the materials you've got on Topic X in
_one_ view, you just open the top-level folder for Topic X, and expand
the folder contents in hierarchical (List or Column) Finder view, and
see everything you have, of all file types, the way God (and Xerox PARC)
intended!

And when you want to distribute this material to a student or colleague
(or back it up), you just zip up the Topic X folder, and you've got it.

And if you want to reorganize multiple topics, you do it quickly,
visibly and accurately by dragging things around between Topic folders
_in the Finder_, the way God (and Steve Jobs) intended for you to do it.

At the same time, you might want to catalog -- repeat, *catalog* -- all
the audio (or image) files you have in these Topic folders, for other
purposes. iTunes and iPhotos contain the elements of quite powerful and
sophisticated cataloging tools for this purpose. BUt, for whatever
reason, these Apple programs just do not make it easy to serve the
important and basic needs listed above.

iView is the _existence proof_ that catalog tools of this type _can_ be
made, and at the same time can serve the different and more limited
needs that iTunes is so focused on.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Apples monopolistic business practices
    ... Jolly Roger wrote: ... and I'm otherwise a hard-nosed folder ... realized iTunes stored tunes in its own opaque database rather than ... iPhoto, in the most recent incarnation, has decided to make the photo ...
    (comp.sys.mac.misc)
  • Re: Integrating data folders from an external drive.
    ... Since the iTunes, iPhoto, etc default to checking the local drive, how ... can I seamlessly add another folder? ... Then when you drag music files from any disk to iTunes, the files stay in their original locations, but their information is entered in one library. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.apps)
  • Re: My Documents
    ... you don't *have* to put them in iPhoto. ... Can I just copy them and then have iTunes see them? ... Copy the music files to a folder on the Mac desktop. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.misc)
  • Re: Article: iLife 06: Why Cant the PC Do This?
    ... Itunes = Itunes on the pc. ... iPhoto fails to impress me. ... Garageband = MusicMaker from magix or if you have more $$ reason. ... And iLife isn't a "diverse set" of tools? ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • Re: Integrating data folders from an external drive.
    ... Since the iTunes, iPhoto, etc default to checking the local drive, how ... can I seamlessly add another folder? ... Or moving photos to the ...
    (comp.sys.mac.apps)