IPhoto '11 - Photo Home Sharing (a la iTunes Home Sharing)

Question

So my wife and I use one Mac and we have our own logins. We have enabled simultaneous user logins to save us having to log off each time the other needs the computer.
However this means that we can't use a shared location for our iPhoto '09 library because it's not set up for multi-user access so at the moment, all my wife can do is view photos from my library, she can't copy them or edit them or create a new album or upload them to facebook etc.
I was hoping that the next iteration of iPhoto ('11) would have something along the lines of Home Sharing for iTunes where my wife could copy photos/albums into her own library for syncing to her phone, uploading to her own facebook account etc.
Can anyone tell me if such functionality exists in iPhoto '11?
Thanks,
Glyn

Answer 1

It exists since iPhoto 4 or 5. It's called Sharing:
For iPhoto 09 (version 8.0.2) and later:
What you mean by 'share'.
If you want the other user to be able to see the pics, but not add to, change or alter your library, then enable Sharing in your iPhoto (Preferences -> Sharing), leave iPhoto running and use Fast User Switching to open the other account. In that account, enable 'Look For Shared Libraries'. Your Library will appear in the other source pane.
Any user can drag a pic from the Shared Library to their own in the iPhoto Window. Once there they can do anything they want with them - edit, share, upload print etc
Remember iPhoto must be running in both accounts for this to work.
If you want the other user to have the same access to the library as you: to be able to add, edit, organise, keyword etc.
Quit iPhoto in both accounts. Move the Library to the Users / Shared Folder
(You can also use an external HD set to ignore permissions, a Disk Image or even partition your Hard Disk.)
In each account in turn: Double click on the Library to open it. (You may be asked to repair the Library Permissions.) From that point on, this will be the default library location. Both accounts will have full access to the library, in fact, both accounts will 'own' it.
However, there is a catch with this system and it is a significant one. iPhoto is not a multi-user app., it does not have the code to negotiate two users simultaneously writing to the database, and trying will cause db corruption. So only one user at a time, and back up, back up back up.
Regards
TD