Source/Library organization question

Album songs listed on right side do not appear as albums under
"Library" on the left pane. How do i get iTunes to list it this way?
Thanks
Windows XP Pro

Individual Albums are not listed under the 'Source Pane' (the left most frame) within iTunes.
Within iTunes, try this:
- Edit=>Show Browser

Similar Messages

Another library organization question

Is there a way to configure itunes so that it would import files into the library exactly the same way as they are organized in folders on the hard drive (each folder is an album and would not use the id3 tags to organize the songs)?

No, you must put the music into the iTunes library to load it onto an iPod.
You can make iTunes just save the location of your music files rather than copying them into the iTunes Music folder.
Go to Edit>>Preferences>>Advanced>>general and uncheck "Copy to iTunes Music folder when adding to library".
If you also uncheck "Keep iTunes Music folder organised" as well, iTunes will not interfere at all with how you have your files organised.

I am trying to backup my Itunes onto my external hard drive. I am at the step where I on Itunes, click on File - Library - Organize library. I am suppose to check mark both boxes there, It won't allow me to check mark the second box, why? How to fix this.

I am trying to backup my Itunes onto my external hard drive. I am at the step where I on Itunes, click on File ->Library ->Organize library. I am suppose to check mark both boxes there, the first being "Consolidate Files" & the second being "Reorganize files in the folder 'Itunes Media'. I am able to checkmark the first box but It won't allow me to check mark the second box, why? How can i fix this? Please help!

Well you must have made a mistake somewhere. The last instruction of step four reads:
When you've found your iTunes library folder, drag that folder to your external hard drive. This will begin the iTunes backup. The amount of time the backup will take depends on the size of your library. When the transfer is done, your backup is complete and your external hard drive can be disconnected.
Normally dragging content from to a new location on a different drive will result in a copy action which is what you were supposed to do. At a guess you somehow managed to move the iTunes folder. Then when you started iTunes it created a new blank library for you assuming it had just been installed rather that raising a warning.
Close iTunes. Rename the iTunes folder on the internal drive as iTunes (Empty) then copy the iTunes folder from the external back into the User's Music folder. Start iTunes. All should be well.
When you've made sure it all works please read my User Tip and use that method to backup in future. Since you already have a folder with the backup in place you can skip the "Make New" operation in the fourth step and simply choose the external folder.
tt2

ITunes Library organization in one folder...

I have a Mac Mini which serves as the family Video Server to an AppleTV (and all the other Mac / iDevices we own). It is running Lion 10.7.4, with iTunes 10.6.1.
The iTunes library is set up on a connected Drobo via USB. iTunes runs on the Mac Mini's internal HD (of course), but the Library is located on the Drobo.
This is what I want: I want the iTunes folder (including the iTunes Media folder, and all the xml / library files) to all be on the Drobo, in one self contained folder, as though it was on the Mac Mini. For some reason, iTunes chooses to keep the library files etc, on the Mini itself, when the movie / TV files are on the Drobo. Everything works as it should, but I want a tidy iTunes folder on the Drobo itself, with nothing on the Mini (which will make moving the entire library easier in the future, if necessary).
Regardless of my Choosing to Consolidate library / Organize Libfary (which do nothing not even a progress bar), nothing happens.
Here is the current state of my iTunes:
This is on the Mac Mini: (contains no media files, they're all on the Drobo)
This is on the Drobo: (contains the actual movies and television show files)
This is what I want on the Drobo only, to contain everything in one folder, rather than split between two drives.
Is this possible? If so, how? Do I need to start from scratch? I will if that is the only way.
I currently have a little over 550GB of movies and TV shows.
Thanks,
Sal

Make a split library portable
Here are the typical layouts for the iTunes folders:
In the layout above, with the media folder (everything in the red box) inside the library folder, the library is considered to be portable. A portable library can be moved from one path to another without breaking the links between the library and the media and being self-contained is much easier to backup.
You can rearrange things to make a split library portable by taking a number of small steps which don't break the library.
Before you start any media files that are outside of the media folder will need to be consolidated. If the library is in the old style layout then it should ideally be be upgraded to iTunes Media Organisation (Library > Organise Library > Rearrange files in the folder <Media Folder>) to ensure that iPod Games, Mobile Applications etc. are brought inside the media folder.
The basic non-fatal manipulations are:
You can connect to an alternate set of library files by holding down Shift (Win) or Option (Mac) when starting iTunes.
You can move the library files to a new location as long as the media stays put.
You can move the library files and the media together if the media folder is a direct subfolder of the library folder.
If you have already moved/copied the media content from a subfolder of the library folder to a different location then you only need to copy the library files for it to appear as if you have moved the entire library in the way allowed above. I.e. just copy the library files into the parent folder of the media folder.
You can rename the media folder to iTunes Media (if it isn't already) if the media folder is inside the library folder.
iTunes uses the name of the folder holding the library files as the window title. Having made a library "portable" you may need to take a final step of renaming the library folder to iTunes or, if the library files have ended up at the root of a drive, moving all of the library files and content folders into a new folder called iTunes.
After each change you need to open, test and close the relevant library before attempting another change. If a change broke the library, undo it or revert to using the previous set of library files.
In essence all you need to do to make your library portable is copy the library files into the parent folder of the media folder on the external/secondary drive and use the hold-down-shift/option-when-starting-iTunes method to connect to it. Other manipulations may be required to normalize the library so that the library and media folders have standard names.
tt2

Where is the file button on itunes, i am trying to do this File LIbrary Organize Library Consolidate Files

I cannot find the file button to do this for the old ipod library and new library to work togetherFile > LIbrary > Organize Library > Consolidate Files

Press the CTRL+B keys and the top bar menu will appear. File/Library/... etc. is on that menu.

Do I need to pay anything to Adobe if I inject java script using some open source library?

Hello,
I want to restrict PDF reader to achieve Digital Rights Management (DRM).
Do I need to pay anything to Adobe if I inject java script to achieve so using some open source library?
Basically I want my PDF documents to be restricted such that I can:
Limit printing
Prevent screenshots
Restrict access by license expiry date
Restrict distribution of downloaded PDF (i.e. the document should run on specific machine only)
Restrict copy and paste within PDF document
I came across below links from which I suspect Adobe expects one to pay if he/she attempts to restrict reader functionality in some way?
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/reader/topic_drm.html
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/overview.html
Am I correct in my assumption?

I think it is a vain hope to imagine you could implement DRM via JavaScript. Remember it can be turned off.
Printing is either enabled or disabled according to document security.
Working with PDFs does not require permission from Adobe but
* adding functionality to Adobe Reader definitely does; a DRM development license is a major investment.
* if the file is Reader-enabled, all third party tools will disable that.

Multiple film rolls in source library

Belated thanks to those who helped me create new film rolls (in August!) Your advice was accurate, but my source library shows no film rolls except 'last roll'(although there are many rolls shown on the hard disk). When I create a new selection of photos in a new film roll it simply makes that selection 'last roll' and I can't rename it.

Yes, Film Rolls are very flexible. You can drag selected photo(s) into another roll. Don't release the mouse until the roll header is highlighted, and then the photos will drop into that roll. Command-click to add photos to your selection; that's the easiest way to select photos from different rolls at once. When they are selected, drag any one of them to the header of the roll to which you want them added. Or make your selection and do File > Create Film Roll to bring them into a new roll.
Film Rolls only list chronologically, in ascending or descending order. So if you'd like to tweak the order of your rolls a bit, you can edit the film roll date. It's independent from the dates of the photos, so it doesn't hurt anything to change it.
Have fun.

NI Sinks and Sources library in Simulink

Hi!
I need the 'NI Sinks and Sources' library in Simulink, but I don´t know how obtain it.
I have 'NI SIT Block' library but I don´t have 'NI Sinks and Sources' library.
How I can get it?
Thanks for all!
Igor García

Did you ever figure out how to solve this? I am having the same issue. Put the block in simulink for xpc with a scope, but no signal is showing. I tested the D/A functionality of the card, and it is fine. I am also using the 6052E.

Aperture 3 library file organization question

I tried searching for an answer to this question but I had no luck. Perhaps I was searching on the wrong keywords.
In the older version of Aperture, you could look in the "guts" of the library and see individual projects, but as far as I can tell with Aperture 3 you can only see files by date (i.e. by year, month etc).
My problem is that I don't currently have access to the entire library via Aperture, but I have access to all the files via the cloud (I am using Crash Plan). I need to find individual files but searching chronologically makes no sense and neither does downloading the (terabyte plus) library to use in a local copy of Aperture is not feasible.
Is there a way that I can identify specific projects within the Aperture3Lib file? Any help would be deeply appreciated.
Attached is a couple of screenshots of what Crashplan shows.

No sorry in Aperture 3 all that got turned into entries in database files. And even if you could find them it would do you no good because the only place an actual image file is located is in the Masters folder, where the files imported are kept and the Previews folder, where the previews are kept.
Also bear in mind that the Masters folder is organized by import date and time not image date and time.
As a side note you need to be very careful using an online backup service for Aperture (and iPhoto) libraries. Because of the way the # libraries there have been reports of some of the services causing libraries problems when restored.
regards

Organizational questions from a new iPhoto user

Hello,
I recently purchased iPhoto in hopes that it will help me view my photos easily. I have a large (about 3,000) existing photo collection. I keep this collection very organized, and all photos are in a folder hierarchy of the form 'Year->Month->Day'. The name of each photo begins with the date, such as '2007-01-17 Trees.jpg'. My questions about iPhoto in relation to my existing photos are as follows:
1) If I allow iPhoto to copy my photos, how does iPhoto organize the photos? Do I have any control over this organization or the file naming convention used? Will iPhoto recreate an intelligible directory structure with useful file names, or will all my subsequently imported photos be labeled as "PIC2315..." in a random directory structure?
2) Can I make it such that iPhoto imports my photos and takes the date from the first characters of the file name, and the picture title from the subsequent portion of the file name?
3) Not all of the dates in the metadata accurately reflect the date the photo was taken (some are old photos that were scanned in, some taken before digital cameras had extensive metadata), but the dates used at the beginning of the file names are accurate. Can I use iPhoto to update the date stamp on the photos in my library? Otherwise, the 'organize by date' option is not very useful.
4) Is there any way to move the iPhoto library folder? It looks like, as with iTunes, iPhoto locates its library folder in a conspicuous location, whereas I feel that these files should be relegated to a more discrete location, like the Library folder (in my opinion, the 'pictures' folder should be reserved for images; data files should be stored elsewhere). This is not a big issue, more of an annoyance that Apple imposes its organizational conventions on me without my consent.
Advice on any of these questions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much.
Adrian
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.1)

Hi Adrian
1) If I allow iPhoto to copy my photos, how does iPhoto organize the photos
Here's how the iPhoto Library Folder is organised:
In this folder there are various files, which are the Library itself and some ancillary files. Then you have three folders
Originals are the photos as they were downloaded from your camera or scanner.
(ii) Modified contains edited pics, shots that you have cropped, rotated or changed in any way.
This allows the Photos -> Revert to Original command - very useful if you don't like the changes you've made.
(iii) Data holds the thumbnails the the app needs to show you the photos in the iPhoto Window.
To your specific questions:
Do I have any control over this organization
No. The exception is if you take responsibility for the File Management (In the Preferences, Advanced Pane, Uncheck Copy Files to the iPhoto Library Folder...) That way you can leave your files untouched in your file structure. However, if you do this when you delete a file from iPhoto you will need to delete it from the Finder by hand. Not the case if you let iPhoto do the file management.
Will iPhoto recreate an intelligible directory structure with useful file names, or will all my subsequently imported photos be labeled as "PIC2315..." in a random directory structure?
Yes it will, the files will be in rolls that can be named via the iPhoto Window and which names will be reflected in the Finder. The Pictures will be named as per the file name.
I'm guessing that all of this is so that you can easily and quickly find a file if you need it. However, you're missing the point of iPhoto. It's a Photo Organiser. The idea is you import your pics into it, they are stored (in full view) in the Finder and then everything you need to do can be done via the iPhoto Window. Organise them, arrange them into albums (infinitely more flexible than your current folders - a single pic can be in any number of albums or slideshows, can be in Smart Albums, can be easily edited in external editors and exported easily.) Want to find a file? There are three ways (at least) to get files from the iPhoto Window.
1. Drag and Drop: Drag a photo from the iPhoto Window to the desktop, there iPhoto will make a full-sized copy of the pic.
2. File -> Export: Select the files in the iPhoto Window and go File -> Export. The dialogue will give you various options, including altering the format, naming the files and changing the size.
3. Show File: Right- (or Control-) Click on a pic and in the resulting dialogue choose 'Show File'. A Finder window will pop open with the file already selected.
2) Can I make it such that iPhoto imports my photos and takes the date from the first characters of the file name, and the picture title from the subsequent portion of the file name?
No, it will take the date from the EXIF data. However you can edit the date, title etc. from the Info window (the wee 'i' bottom left hand corner.) I think that answers your next question as well.
4. You can put the iPhoto Library Folder anywhere you like, on an external disk, in another place on your HD, whatever. Apple aren't forcing you to do anything. (You can do the same with iTunes too). However, remember the iPhoto Library Folder contains Data and images.
One thing to remember is the standard warning: It is strongly advised that you do not move, change or in anyway alter things in the iPhoto Library Folder as this can cause the application to fail and even lead to data loss.
iPhoto is a very good app, reliable and very flexible. But you do have to work with it. All the work you've done on your folders you can recreate in the iPhoto Window (just drag the folders to the Source Window where they will be imported into Albums). Think of it as a Front End to your photo collection. Up to now you've been using the Finder as a front end, iPhoto is a lot more flexible.
Feel free to ask more if you want further clarification or info.
Regards
TD

If i move my iphoto & iMovie source library / Events and Projects to an external hard disk, due to size, will my existing slideshows work ?

I need to move my photo library and Movies (Events and Projects) to an external hard disk as my 700gb drive on my iMac is now full (*see note below)
I have brought 2 Samsung External drives (3TB each) which I plan to partition each for Photos and Movies i.e 2 partitions on each drive, and will use one for use with iPhoto and iMovie, and the other drive for a dedicated backup. I will backup the remainder of my iMac hardisk to a seperate disk.
What has just occured to me is that after I have moved the libraries I cannot see how existing iMovie projects and iPhoto Slideshows will work, as each Application will be looking for the source files on the original iMac hardisc (I assume).
I am running Snow Leopard v10.6.8 ( I did not want to upgrade to Mountain Lion as I was told the iPhoto and iMovie changes were a 'backward' step. However I now want to upgrade to Mountain Lion, for security updates reasons mainly, and so need to free up my hard drive.
Can anyone advise on the best way to proceed ?
* - the iMac hard disk become full very suddenly, possibly due to duplicates, as I have noticed duplicate events and clips in my iMovies event library. I have noticed that some events are also now not showing, with message 'No video clips match the current selection' (I have not search criteria set).
Thanks

I was planning on manually backing up my external to the time capsule - but is there a way to set it up to back up automatically instead?
Time Machine will backup up automatically - you can not have your iPhoto library on the same volume as the TM backup (it will not work and it would not be a backup)
Dragging the iPhoto library to any external drive will backup it us also
I was also thinking about having the library copied to another external (I mean we're talking about irreplaceable photos here) - would i just drag a copy of the library to that drive as well?
Yes - that is a good idea - I run TM giving me hourly backups and a daily clone of my entire system giving me a bootable backup - plus do an occasional TM backup at our second home so I have one off site
is it possible to deal with my imovie library in the same way? so all my movies and photos are on my external?
Probably - but I use iMovie very little - better question for the iMovie forum
LN

Demlo - A dynamic and extensible music library organizer (in pure Lua)

Demlo organizes your music library automatically and dynamically. It runs a chain of user-defined scripts using variables such as tags and file properties. This way it yields virtually unlimited customization power to the user.
Use case
As an example, consider a music library that is a a perfect definition of chaos:
No folder structure.
Tags are not homogeneous, some entries are filled, other not, it varies from file to file.
Some files have bad audio quality.
Audio codecs are not always the same. Some file are CBR/VBR, lossless/lossy, ...
mp3's ID3 tags are a nightmare.
Covers are sometimes embedded in tags, others are of terrible quality.
Features
A few scripts are already provided and they give a good example of what you can do. You can choose to use them, to rewrite them, or to write a new script from scratch. You can preview changes, and once you are done you call the program over you music library, it will process everything in one single run!
Scripts can be chained: this feature makes Demlo extremely flexible and powerful!
Move all files according to a unique, yet dynamic folder hierarchy. For
instance, setting
output.filename = table.concat {library, '/', o.artist, '/',
not empty (o.album) and (empty (o.date) and o.album .. '/' or o.date .. ' - ' .. o.album .. '/') or '',
empty (track_padded) and '' or track_padded .. ' - ',
o.title}
will move "john doe - 1. intro.ogg" to
"/home/$USER/music/John Doe/2013 - Great Album/01 - Intro.ogg" if there is an album and a date,
"/home/$USER/music/John Doe/Great Album/01 - Intro.ogg" if there is an album and no date,
"/home/$USER/music/John Doe/01 - Intro.ogg" if there is no album.
Case checking: a powerful script that will turn everything to title case. It supports special cases such as Roman numerals, McDonald, etc. It also supports a list of exceptions (e.g. AC-DC, DJ, feat., etc.).
Encoding: you can conditionally re-encode you files, so you can choose to only re-encode files with some particular encoding settings. You can set the desired bitrate, etc.
Covers: automatically remove embedded covers, remove duplicates, remove files beyond/below a quality threshold, etc.
Different kinds of music: classical, OST, and band songs have usually different kinds of tags and folder structures. You can manage different audio libraries easily by setting the corresponding "library" variables.
Edit tags of a file set with your favorite text editor.
Support for cue sheets. (Both external and embedded.)
Demlo can be interfaced with any other program, both ways. (X calls Demlo or Demlo calls X.)
MusicBrainz support for online tagging and cover fetching.
Technical characteristics
This program is completely written in Lua. Its only major dependency is FFmpeg. A few Lua modules are required, which should not eat more than a few KiB on your drive. This leads to a lightweight codebase for a portable and extensible program.
Dependencies
ffmpeg
lua (>= 5.1)
lua-dkjson
lua-filesystem
lua-llthreads2
lua-penlight
lua-socket
slnunicode
chromaprint (optional)
History
This program is based on Musish by the same author.
The original program was written in POSIX shell but suffured from many limitations as well as performance issues. It was rewritten in Lua to circumvent all those issues while applying minor changes to the CLI options and to the variable names. The syntax of the script changed to Lua as well. Here follows a list of major changes:
Traversing folders recursively is no longer a security issue.
Overall performance got boosted by a factor of approx. 2.
Scripts and configuration files are sandboxed, which means they can no longer contain harmful code. However it is no longer possible to chain scripts.
All tags are processed dynamically, no more hard-coded tags.
Links
Official web page
Arch Wiki
AUR package
Issue tracker: Please file bug reports there thanks!
Last edited by Ambrevar (2015-02-20 09:22:22)

I hoped the structure I presented was clear enough. No, all/majority of tags would be a little too much, but genre, different release types, file types and some other basic distinctions, yes and tagsfs will probably help with that. There are special folders like [Compilation], [High Voltage SID Collection] and probably others in the future, maybe with help of tagsfs. Compilations and Artists are prepended by the leading letter of 'sorted artists/albums' level. Then albums/artists are sorted/presented in the manner visible in the Picard script:
$if($eq(%compilation%,1),
%COMPILATION%///%FIRSTLETTER%///$if2(%ALBUM%,%NONALBUMTRACKS%,[Other]) - $if(%DATE%,[%DATE%],),
%FIRSTLETTER%///$trim($if2(%ALBUMARTIST%,%ARTIST%),.)///$if(%DATE%,%DATE% - ,)$if2(%ALBUM%,%NONALBUMTRACKS%,[Other]) )
$if(%RELEASETYPE%,[%RELEASETYPE%],)%BARCODE%$if(%INCOMPLETE%,[%INCOMPLETE%],)[%EXT%]///
$if(%DISCNUMBER%,%DISCNUMBER%-,)%TRACKNUMBER%. %ARTIST% - %TITLE%
Picard has preview examples, so copying the whole script into file naming script under options should make this definitely clear.
Ambrevar wrote:Thinking about it, a similar feature is provided by most library managers where you can choose filters and tree structure and so on. It remains virtual though, it does not touch the filesystem. Is it really necessary to you to have that sort of view directly on your filesystem? The problem of the filesystem view seems very complex to me.
Not all devices provide that capability. It is more pleasant to work with that approach than previous structures I used, remember that I can restructure the whole library at any time and probably copy the local one elsewhere using the new structure, but I have not looked into that yet.
We probably have very different experiences, I see this as very comfortable and convenient. Before that I had been using folders for different file types in the main directory, but it ended up with so many entries for FLAC and MP3, that parsing that directories in a player or any maintenance using a file browser/terminal was too troublesome/slow. So I reduced the number of files, by using the alphabet and additional characters as sorting mechanism. And since that was one step away from separating compilations from albums/single releases, I did that also. Now I can access the whole library very quickly, even when one or two additional characters need to be typed.
Ambrevar wrote:Furthermore, would you consider this to be an automated task or a manual one? Using your example, how can a program know that Lauge & Baba Gnohm is both Lauge and Baba Gnohm if no tags says so?
Both, I want as always full control. MusicBrainz [database] relations.
Ambrevar wrote:Hard links do not work for folders.
Symlinks cause problems with most file browsers that do not follow them during copying.
I do not recall writing they should link folders, the directory structure would have to be [re]build and then files [hard/sym]linked, which might pose a maintenance issue, although deleting links and empty directories not really, but "leftovers" like covers could block cleaning. *The only file browser* I would recommend is Proto from a very friendly Polish programmer named Mieszko Lassota, but it is, or at least was last time I checked, Windows only and slowly further developed, although still kills every mc, mucommander and ranger on sight, that is how I remember it. SpaceFM is bearable, but I still only use rsync to copy files and see no point using anything else.
Ambrevar wrote:Can you elaborate on this? What are the limitations of Picard beyond symlinking? It could be interesting to know what feature you would like.
The recursive/linking aspect it the main point here. I hope this is not too big of a disappointment. Having too long names has also been a problem in few cases, classical music if I recall correctly, but those are limitations of the file system, however even that could be overcome with Picard, but the code would not be as easily readable as it is now. The question would be what should be abbreviated/priorities, what to do when after abbreviation the directory/file names are still too long and so on. I had to do it by hand these few times. Picard does not handle covers/images well in my experience, but I used something else for that, puddletag I think. I would have to continue to organize the library to remember.
Furthermore, not all media players/organizers do have the capability to get exactly this structure with formatting, leading letters and distinction between compilations and albums being two examples. Browsing this robust file structure with ncmpcpp is very efficient, I almost never use the library view. As long as a media player has the browsing capability, I have the same view/behavior. And other hardware also works without issues. Yes, it basically comes down to having the file system do, what media players should, however with a few exceptions I had only positive results for more than almost two years now. Do you now see benefits of having that file structure?
Again I will take a look at your tool, when I find some time and what progandy suggested also of course. How do you save your music on the file system?
Edit: Style. Clarification.
Last edited by emeres (2014-09-12 13:02:34)

Aperture 3 library syncing question

I want to move to Aperture, but I need some advice first. (I have considered Aperture in the past, but my expectations and demands were unrealistic. Now I am trying to be as realistic as possible about what I want from Aperture.)
I have learned that Aperture 3 in fact supports syncing libraries between computers. Before I attempt this however I want to find out from you people whether what I want to do will work.
First let me describe my situation.
I have Mac Pro which contains the following types of files dating from 1997:
RAW + JPEG pairs from my DSLR, mirrorless, and compact cameras
JPEG solo images from DSLR, mirrorless, and compact cameras
TIFFs, PSDs, and JPEGs from film scans
TIFFs, PSDs, and JPEGs that are saved, edited versions of the above (edited files have the same filename as the original, plus a few letters added to indicate which changes have been made; s = sharpened, a = converted with ACR, c = cropped, w = web resolution, etc.)
AVI, MOV, MP4, and MTS (AVCHD) movies shot with various digital cameras
There are 160,383 files in total, although the number of photographs is probably less than 100,000 due to RAW + JPEG pairs counting as two files. The total space used is ~1.2TB. The files are on an internal 2TB RAID volume, which is constantly backed up to an external Time Machine RAID.
The files are all organized into folders by year up to 2009, and inside each year's folder are sub-folders that organize the pictures by event. All photos taken after 2009 are organized either by event or by subject matter, depending on which seemed more relevant to the particular shoot. I have been using Adobe Bridge to sort them. After they are sorted, I use a wonderful gem called ChronoSync to sync the JPEGs only (but not the RAWs, TIFFs, PSDs, or movies) to my MacBook Pro. That way I have my photos with me in the field in case I want to make some prints, upload to Flickr/Facebook, etc.
However, I am feeling many limitations of this workflow -- hence why I am considering Aperture.
Here are the main things I want to do with Aperture. Please tell me if this will work, and what any gotcha's might be.
I want to have a "master" Aperture library on the Mac Pro. I will add all my existing files into the master library in a 'referenced' fashion -- they will remain where they are in the current directory structure on the 2TB RAID.
I want to also maintain a "satellite" Aperture library on the MacBook Pro that contains only the JPEG versions of these files. I would use ChronoSync to copy over all the referenced JPEGs such that they exist in the same places in the directory structure of the laptop as they do on the desktop (i.e. /Users/me/Pictures/etc.), so that hopefully when Aperture looks for them it can find them. (I am guessing that I would create the "satellite" library by simply copying the "master" library to the laptop, rather than creating a fresh library there.)
I want to use the "satellite" library on the MacBook Pro to perform tagging, adding location data, rating, further organizing, etc. and then sync those changes back to the "master" library on the Mac Pro.
I know that Aperture 3 has the ability to sync/merge libraries, but my questions are:
If the "satellite" library has only the JPEGs available on the local drive, then will any metadata changes made in the "satellite" library properly sync back to the JPEG+RAW pairs in the "master" library? I.e. will Aperture still apply changes in metadata to both the RAWs and JPEGs, even though the RAWs were not present on the "satellite"?
Will Aperture allow me to group other versions of the file besides the RAW and JPEG on the master library? Will metadata to just the JPEG also be applied to these other versions upon syncing, as described above?
Is it a "two-way sync" -- i.e. will changes made to the master library also sync back to the satellite library? (If not, that's OK with me, because presumably after merging the satellite into the master, I can delete the satellite library, then re-copy the master back to the laptop to make a new satellite library -- I am also going to have copy over any new JPEG files to the laptop as well, so I don't mind copying one extra file [the new satellite library].)
I'm sure I've forgotton something important here but, my time is limited so I'll leave it at this for now and post any other questions later. Thanks for any tips, I know this is a complicated issue.
-=DM=-

I still need to do some experimenting to see if the file references are volume-specific or if they are volume-blind -- i.e. if they just use paths starting with "/[path]" instead of paths starting with "/Volumes/SpecificDriveName/[path]".
I am not sure I understand you fully - what kind of file referencing are you speaking of?
If you use managed master image files, the master images are stored inside the Aperture library, and if you move the complete library to a new drive, then thereferences to files inside the package still work. So obviously Aperture uses relative pathes here.
If you use referenced master image files - let's for example assume the Aperture library is on Volume A, the referenced master image files are on Volume B, and you move your Aperture library now from A to Volume C: If you open the Library on Volume C, it will still find the master image files on Volume B, so the library stores the absolute path for referenced masters. This even works with referenced masters on network volumes, but I really cannot recommend to store the masters on remote volumes; you will have to make sure the volume is mounted, when you launch Aperture.
Is that what you were asking about? if not, please rephrase your question.
Regards
Léonie

Lightroom Library Organization

Hello all.
I have been a user of Aperture since its release, and have been absolutely in love with the type of workflow optimization software like this affords. When LR hit 1.0, I tried it out, and I have to say it'll be an easy switch. The development tools, coupled with minute details that I can't live without has made Lightroom a clear winner for me.
There is one catch for me however, and that's strategies for organizing my library. I understand the distinctions in LR's interface, of folders being a physical abstraction of the masters and collections being a logical abstraction of the masters, but what is the best strategy to use?
Currently in the demo, I have my photographs organized through hierarchical collections (and I'm getting around to keywording everything as well). The actual physical arrangement of the masters is really messy though (some in a high-level photo, some randomly dispersed through subfolders).
Finally my question(s): Is this approach the best organizational scheme? Also, is there a way to clean up the physical organization of the masters? Lastly, I can do an "or" relationship of keywords by clicking on several at a time, is there a more powerful approach to this available? (more boolean logic, conditions--essentially something to mirror the "smart album" functionality of Aperture).

I think it's very important to think very carefully about how you are going to organize your pictures before you start seriously with Lightroom (or any other cataloging program).
How you catalog clearly depends on who you are cataloging for (if you work for someone else or sell to someone else, you need to work by their rules) as well as the type(s) of photography you do and what you will want to do with the photos.
Important for me was that the information be (or be able to be written to) the files themselves or "sidecar" files. In other words, I didn't want to lose all my work if I switched to another program.
Because of this, even though I use foldering as an organizational structure, I do not want to rely on that. I want everything I need in the metadata.
Lightroom allows you to write to quite a number of metadata fields. I use the usual caption, keywords, and location fields. But I also am using another field (Job Identifier) as a higher level category of things I want to keep together. An example would be Egypt 2004, a category that includes all photos taken on our trip to Egypt in 2004. This field is not currently included in the metadata browser, but I am comfortable enough that it can be stored in the metadata in the file so the information is not lost. Until then, I also folder by this category.
I think it is also important to put some thought into your keyword hierarchy. Although the hierarchy itself is not saved in the file metadata, the keywords are. And there is a feature that shouldn't be overlooked, where a keyword can have its parent to be exported, so you need to pay attention to how you want that option set. I set it differently for different keywords.
Foldering is not supposed to be important in Lightroom -- and in fact it wasn't in the Beta 4 version. However, I am comfortable working with folders for day to day work so I'm happy that it is now included.
Collection information is not stored outside of lightroom's database. I use them only for selecting images from a large set, usually for exporting. That could be for web pages, for slide shows, etc.
You can re-folder from within Lightroom but I haven't done very much of that. Before I import an older folder structure, I do take a look and see if I want to do anything major with it before I import.

Organizational Question: Keyword vs. Description

I am planning to embark on (finally) labeling all my pictures (many thousands) so that I can easily find groupings and specific picutres. I am interested in any advice as to the best method to do this - it looks like the keyword feature may be the best way with keys assigned to both my kids, wife, dog - whoever might be in the picture; but this would not allow specific things like "Kate on bicycle" that descriptions would allow. Sorry if this is a very basic question but any advice would be appreciated!
-Bob

Bob:
Keywords are the easiest and most widely used field for categorizing photos. You can use albums to group by event, birthdays, anniversaries, Thanksgiving 07, etc. The keywords can identify individuals within photos and then Comments for more detailed descriptions. When these files are exported out of iPhoto for use by other apps you can have the keywords and comments embedded in the file. Also you can use the title for describing the photos as it doesn't change the file name. The title will also be embedded when the file is exported.
I use the events as containers for an individual shoot. I have the Events folder set to import from the finder in one batch per folder. That way I can upload to a folder, give the folder a title and date and then import it into iPhoto which gives me an Event whose title is the same as the folder.
Just figure out how you would organize photos if they were hard copy and translate that into iPhoto.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've written an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. It's compatible with iPhoto 08 libraries. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

Source/Library organization question

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