Help with importing picasa vs iphoto

Hi,
I recently moved from my PC to a macbook. On my PC I used Picasa for my fotos and now I'm trying to work with iPhoto. But I don't know how to get it to do what I want.
So my problem is: How can I make iPhoto import my pictures automatically? In Picasa I just copied them from wherever on my disk and as soon as I opened Picasa it imported them and if I added pictures to an existing folder it added them to what was in Picasa before. When I try to do that in iPhoto, I end up with duplicate Events where one has 13 and the other 24 fotos (example).
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks for any help

The two apps - though similar -are not the same. Picasa has a "watched folder" system, where it detects changes and imports the files on launch. iPhoto doesn't. There's a shareware application that will set this up for you called Hazel or you may prefer to configure Folder Actions and an Applescript. (tip: Hazel is easier )
iPhoto will not add photos to an existing Event. Each import is a separate thing and is auto-divided into Events based on date and time.
If you want to auto-configure things, try using Smart Albums. Using this you can automatically gather all the photos from a specific date or date range into an Album. The Album will draw all the files in the Library that match the specification irregardless of which import they are in.
Because Albums are virtual entities they use up no extra disk space. Events in the iPhoto Window correspond exactly with the Folders in the Originals Folder in the iPhoto Library package file (Right click on it in the Pictures Folder -> Show Package Contents).
You can move photos between Events, you can rename Events, edit them, create them, as long as you do it via the iPhoto Window. Check out the Info Pane (wee 'i', lower left) the name and date fields are editable. Edit a Event Name using the Info Pane, the Event Folder in iPhoto Library/Originals will also have the new name.
Regards
TD
Message was edited by: Terence Devlin

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