Looking through your collection: Browse Mode

Editing groups

Group view

Slideshows

Exporting

When you click the Browse button on the toolbar, ViewMinder enters Browse mode. Browsing is a simple way of looking through your whole collection of images.

If you can’t see pictures that you have imported, it is probably because you have not yet checked and accepted them. See Check mode.

In Browse mode you can place pictures in groups or view groups you have already created. Or you can browse your collection by the dates that each picture was created.

You can double-click any thumbnail to enlarge it.

And you can select a number of thumbnails and export them or create a slideshow.

Date view

Browse mode open in "Date view". This displays pictures in the order in which they were created.

Modern digital cameras store the creation date inside the digital picture file, and ViewMinder interprets this as it imports the picture.

If you are using an old image file, or scanner, the creation date may be missing. In that case, ViewMinder assumes that the import date is the creation date. You can use the data editor to change this, if you know the correct creation date.

You don't need to know the full creation date and time. You can write just as much as you know - for example, just the year, or the month and year.

To show pictures by creation date, select Date in the pull-down box at the top of the browsing pane.

Years / months

When you select Date view, ViewMinder initially shows you a list of the years your picture collection spans.

Next to each year is the number of pictures taken in that year.

If you click the year, the tray fills with thumbnails of pictures taken that year.

Or you can expand the year by clicking the triangle next to it. This will show a diagram of twelve bars, howing the number of pictures taken in each month.

You can then click any bar to see the pictures of that month.

Narrowing down browsing results

If you are looking for a certain picture, browse view may show far more than you need.

The Tray item in the Menu give you a way of narrowing down the number of pictures.

Either you can select unsuitable pictures and then choose Hide Selected, or you can select the suitable ones and then Hide Not Selected. In either way, you gradually reduce the number of pictures in the tray until you end up with just what you want.

If you change your mind, click Tray in the Menu and then choose Show All. All your pictures will reappear.

Tray commands can also be accessed by placing the cursor over the picture tray and clicking the alternate mouse button

Group view

Using the pull-down box at the top of the Browse pane, you can switch from Date view to Group view. This shows all the groups that you have already created, and the pictures in each.

Grouping is a simple way of sorting your pictures. A picture can be in any number of user-defined groups, or in none.

This is much more convenient than the old method of grouping pictures by moving their files into different folders.

To create a new group, click the button on the toolbar and type the group's name. When you click OK the new group name will appear in pane to the left of your picture tray.

Grouping pictures

It is easy to sort your pictures by putting them into groups.

If the group does not already exist, create it by clicking the button on the toolbar and typing  the new group's name.

Next, look for the pictures that belong in that group.

1. You could look at all your pictures, by selecting the radio button All images.
   

2. You could look within an existing group, by clicking the name of that group.
   

3. Or you could look within a certain year or month, by switching to Date view, selecting the date and then switching back to Group view.

Select the pictures you want in your new group by clicking their thumbnails in the tray.

Finally, click the checkbox next to the new group's name.

You do not have to do this to each picture one at a time. You can select all the pictures of the group and then click the checkbox once.

Showing group pictures

To show the pictures in a group, click the name of the group.

The tray will then show the group's thumbnails.

Any time you select a thumbnail in the tray, a check will appear in the checkbox of every group it belongs to.

To remove a picture from a certain group,  select its thumbnail and then click the group's checkbox.

The check sign will now disappear, showing that the picture is no longer in the group.

Editing groups

Existing groups can be deleted or edited in Settings. To change ViewMinder's settings, choose Edit from the menu and then Settings. The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl-G

Deleting a group does not delete the pictures in that group. It just changes the database to show that the group no longer exists.

Group deletion cannot be undone. If you later create a new group with the same name, it will initially be empty.

When to use groups

ViewMinder provides many other ways of sorting your pictures - the country they are from, the people they show, even the lighting conditions - but you cannot use these methods until you have written descriptions for your pictures (see Data editor).

In a large picture collection, pictures can be sorted automatically by saving search rules (see Galleries). Groups can't be automated.

But groups are useful for personal choices - good friends, great parties, dear pets, nice views - anything that contains preferences and opinions.

Groups can also be used in the rules that create galleries - for example My friends in Canada (Group: My friends & Creation country: Canada).

Showing slideshows

To create a slideshow, select the pictures that you want to see and click the button on the toolbar.

You can adjust speed and other aspects via the Slideshow tab of Settings (Menu -> Edit -> Settings or Ctrl+G).

Exporting pictures

Some times you'll want to make copies of some of the pictures in your collection, to share with others.

First search for the right pictures. Then select their pictures and click the Export button on the toolbar. The Export wizard will help you choose the right size for the copies.

If the pictures that you are exporting are marked as copyright or as otherwise restricted for use, ViewMinder will warn you of this before proceeding.

Exporting data

Users of Expert ViewMinder can decide whether picture metadata - descriptions - should be included with each picture. Genus ViewMinder does not export picture data.

If you add descriptions to your pictures, and the person you are sharing them with also uses ViewMinder, he can import the descriptions at the same as he imports the pictures.

When it exports description, ViewMinder writes them in XML, so even people that don't use ViewMinder can still read the description with a word processor or a web browser.

Export as overspill

One of the choices of export type is Overspill volume. This is used to move pictures from your computer's fixed drive to other storage. At the same time, ViewMinder makes a small copy of the pictures so that you can still see previews of them if you need to, for example as search results.

When you export pictures as overspill, ViewMinder asks you for the name of the overspill volume that you are moving them to. If a higher-resolution copy is needed in future, it will prompt you to insert the right volume.

These overspill volumes are master copies and should be carefully looked after. The copy left in ViewMinder will be inferior in resolution.

The main reason for exporting as overspill is if you are running out of space on your fixed drive. If your pictures are large in pixel and file size, you will save space on the fixed drive by keeping only a low-resolution copy there.

But if your pictures are low in resolution - such as produced by some imaging phones - you will save little or no space on your fixed drive by exporting them as overspill.

Choosing pictures for overspill

You can save the most space by moving your largest pictures into overspill. To see the largest pictures, go to Browse mode, group view and select the radio button All images. The tray will now show your whole collection. From the Menu, select Size - Sort by - Size descending. The pictures at the top of the tray will be the largest.

This will probably produce a fairly random selection of pictures.

Alternatively, you might decide to move pictures grouped by some subject into overspill, for example pictures that you don't use very often. In this case you would select them with a search.

Export for backup

The overspill option is not a good way to make backups of your valuable pictures.

The point of a backup is to produce a second master copy in case the first fails. After exporting as overspill, there is still only one master copy, the overspill diskette or CD.

If you want to back up your collection, choose Basic as the export type.