Sharing Folders on machine with multi accounts

Question

As a new appler, I 'm having to learn computing all over again. My problem is my new iMac we set up with 4 users so everyone can have their own settings. I transfered all my digital photos over from my old pc, but now my family cant get at the folders from their accounts. I've tried to allow sharing from the settings but no matter what it wont share. Any hints or places that I can read up on this?
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

The folders inside each user's home folder are, for the most part, forbidden to other users--with the exception of the Public folder and the Sites folder. Items you want to share should go in the Shared folder, which should also be in the Users folder, along with the home folders for each person with an account on the machine. Thus, to share a batch of photos, create a folder inside the Shared folder, call it OurPix (or whatever appeals to you) and change the permissions on that folder so that all the users have read and write permissions, and put the photos in that folder. Do the same with anything else you want everyone to have access to.
There is one catch to this: while the folder allows everyone access to its contents, the contents themselves belong to whoever added the items to the folder. You can use the little action gear at the bottom of the GetInfo window on the folder to apply the same permissions to everything in the folder. WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS ON MOST FOLDERS IN MOST PLACES! You are more likely to cause problems by doing "apply to enclosed items" than solve them.
There is another catch, even if everyone has read and write permissions on the file: as soon as someone alters the file and saves it, that file then belongs to them.
Sharing an iPhoto Library can be done, but I would recommend against it. See Terence Devlin's excellent explanation here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7863558
One thing you might consider is, after you have transferred the photos to the folder in Shared, let each person launch iPhoto in their account, and in the Advanced pane of the iPhoto Preferences UNcheck the option to copy the photos to their Library. The photos will all remain in the one repository and each person can have whichever ones they want in their own iPhoto Library, and edit anything they want in their Library without doing anything to the originals. If they wish to share their altered version with the other users they can export it from iPhoto and put it in the shared pictures folder.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder