Understanding Media Manager

Media Manager is a superb organizational tool within the Roxio Easy Media Creator Suite. It allows you to store several links to your media files so you can find them by date, subject, or file type. You can also look at the files you have recently imported or most recently used.

In addition, you can create your own albums to customize your organization if you want. Because the files you store in your albums are only links to the actual file rather than a copy of the file, you can store your photos in as many albums as you like without using a significant amount of memory. For instance, you might want to create an album for each member of your family, an album for family vacations, and an album for each month. A picture of the family taken in Yellowstone in July of 2005 can be stored in all of these albums.

Understanding Media Manager is essential to every aspect of Easy Media Creator. Every time you add a file to a project, Media Manager opens to allow you to select that file. Media Manager comes up in essentially the same format, but under several names. Media Selector, Add Photos, and Insert Photos/Videos are a few examples.

If you have already created your own albums, or if you have folders that you have set up for your specific media files, you are much better prepared to use Media Manager to import your files into your projects.

Tip

If you have yet to import any media files, please take the time to set up folders to store them in so you can find them whenever you want. You can use the Windows default, which is My Documents. My Documents is divided into My Photos, My Videos, My Music, and so forth. Or you can create your own folders wherever and however you choose. The important thing is to know where they are and to use them consistently.

Understanding the Browse Area

When you launch Media Manager from the Organize menu in the Easy Media Creator Home page, you get the works. Media Manager is not only an organizer, but it contains several fun tools that enhance your viewing and sharing experience. Take a look at Chapter 16, "Media Manager Tools," to get a run-down on how to watch an impromptu slideshow, email your photos, or share your media files over a network or the Internet.

Here, we are going to focus on organizing your files and using the pared-down version of Media Manager that pops up anytime you want to add a file to a project. Specifically, we are going to focus on the Browse area of the Media Manager window.

Media Manager.

Media Manager when used to import a photo into PhotoSuite.

The Browse area contains four tabs: the My Media tab, the My Albums tab, the Folders tab, and the My MediaSpace tab. MediaSpace is covered in Share Media Files on Your Home or Business Network with MediaSpace (on the Web), so only the first three are discussed here.

The four tabs of the Browse area.

My Media View

As you import files with Easy Media Creator, whether you use Media Manager or another application, a link to them is automatically stored within the My Media area. The My Media area is categorized into media types such as All Photos or All Videos. Clicking on any one of these options places all of the files in the area into the File View. This is perfect if you have very few files to choose from and you want to see them all. But if you have many files, you are going to want to narrow your choices to make the process of choosing a file a bit easier. By clicking on the Plus icon next to each one of these objects, you can bring up the following subcategories:

How would you like to sort your photos?

• Date You can choose to look at the files by the date they were created. The menu starts with a list of years, and after you've clicked on the year, it then narrows it down to months.

Note

Be aware that sorting your files by date can be deceptive in some cases. For instance, a photo that has been scanned is sorted by the date that it was scanned because there is no other way for Easy Media Creator to assign a date to it. If you want your files to be sorted by the date that they were actually created, you can create custom albums for each date and sort them yourself.

• Recently Imported If you click on the Recently Imported option, Media Manager brings up a preview of the files that you have most recently imported into Easy Media Creator. This is the fastest way to add the files you have most recently imported into a new project.

• Most Recently Used You can also sort the files by most recently used. This brings up a view of the files you have used most recently in an application in Easy Media Creator.

• Rating As you view your files in Media Manager, you can rate them from one to five stars. You can use the rating system any way you like. Use it the conventional way and rate the files by your personal preference, or you can devise your own system. For instance, you could rate files that you know you want to use frequently as five stars. However you decide to rate them, you can sort them by their rating by clicking on the rating option.

• Custom View You can create a your own custom views into which to sort your files. First you need to perform a search. Type your search criteria in the search box in the File View taskbar, or click on the More button to bring up your Search options. Choose your search criteria and perform the search. When the search is finished, you are given the option to create a new album or a custom view. Click on Create a New Custom View and give your custom view a name. It is added to the Media options.

My Albums View

The albums in Media Manager are completely customized by you. Unlike the Media options, the albums are not filled automatically, and you need to add your files to the albums. You can create as many albums as you want, and it is relatively easy to drag and drop your files into any or all of them. Albums act just exactly like folders.

What albums will you create?

Note

Remember that you are only creating a link to your file when you drag and drop it into an album. Don't worry about placing your file into as many albums as you likethe links do not take up a significant amount of hard disk space.

Start by clicking the My Albums tab at the top of the Browse window. This shows the My Albums view. There are a few prenamed albums in this areayou can use them or create your own.

To create your own album, simply click on the New Album icon in the My Albums options menu. This creates a new album with the name highlighted so you can type in a customized name.

At this point you are going to want to split the view so you can easily drag and drop files into your new album. In the Media Manager taskbar, click on the Split View icon. This divides the Browse and Preview areas into an upper and lower section. In the upper section, browse to the location of the files you want to add to your album. In the lower section, open your new album. Drag and drop files from the upper window into the lower window to fill your album. It's that easy.

Create as many albums as you like and add links to as many files as you like. The more organized your files become, the easier it is to find them when you need them.

Folders View

The Folders view is essentially the same thing as browsing for files in Windows Explorer. Start with My Computer or My Network Places to look for files you have stored on your local and network drives. This is where you need to start because until you have imported files into Media Manager, your other views are empty.

Advanced Viewing Options

You have several options for changing the view in Media Manager. Different views make different tasks easier.

Click an icon to change the view.

View As

Select the View as icon from the File View taskbar to see a list of options for viewing each file. The default view is Thumbnails. You can add the file names to the thumbnails by choosing the Thumbnails with text option. The Details option shrinks the thumbnails significantly and displays more information about each, such as the file size, date, and rating.

Tip

Choosing the Details view is probably the easiest way to rate your files. The Details menu shows several files at once, along with their ratings. You can quickly add or change any of these ratings by clicking on the desired star.

To get the details of your photo and a full thumbnail, choose the Information view. Last, if you would like to see as many files as possible (easier for dragging and dropping purposes), choose the List view to show a small thumbnail with the file name only.

Sort

Select the Sort icon in the File View taskbar to sort your files by name, size, date created, date modified, type, or rating.

Filter

In the My Albums view, you can filter your files by type. This is very useful if you are looking for video files to add to a VideoWave project, for instance. Click on the Filter icon in the File View taskbar to see a list of file types.

Split View

The Split view is almost necessary when moving files from one location to another. The Split view splits the Browse and File views into two sections so you can view two locations. You can use the first location to find the files you want to move and the second to browse for the location into which you would like to drop the files (such as a new album). When both destinations are set, simply drag the files from the top view and drop them into the bottom view.

Tagging Files

You can add tags to your files by adding keywords, comments, and sounds. You can also rate each file from one to five stars. Later, you are able to sort through your files using these tags.

Make sorting your photos easier by tagging them.

Keywords

Add keywords to your files so you can search for the files using the keywords. Click on the Keywords icon in the File View taskbar to bring up a list of keywords. You can choose several files at a time and add as many appropriate keywords as you would like to the files.

Comments

Select the Comments icon in the File View taskbar to add any appropriate comments to your files. A comment area appears above your file listing and you can add comments to each file in turn by selecting it.

Sounds

You can narrate your picture or add sound effects by clicking on the Sounds icon in the File View taskbar. You are able to select an audio file to add to the selected file or record a narration or audio note.

Ratings

You can rate any file by selecting it and clicking on one to five stars to set the rating.