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Vixlo 0.1

The launch screen

Vixlo opens onto the launch screen whenever no library is open: at launch, when you leave a library with All libraries…, and when you choose File ▸ Close Library (⇧⌘W). It lists every library this Mac knows, most recently opened first. This page is a tour of it.

The launch screen with three libraries, one still being culled

The title bar​

At the left, the Vixlo mark. In the centre, No library open over a one-line summary, 4 libraries · 2 with unfinished culls. At the right, Library rules, a lock with Originals read-only, and the account's short form, Trial · 7 d, while there is something to say. Under the title bar, the account's own line appears when it needs to, as Signing in describes.

The list of libraries​

The left column is headed Libraries, under the line CONTINUE WHERE THE CULL STOPPED, and one sentence says what every row has in common: Each library holds its own catalog, decisions and metadata. Photographs are copied in — originals are never modified by anything that happens inside.

One library's row, with its counts and its More menu open

Each row shows the following (Libraries on the launch screen goes through every part of it):

  • a collage of up to three of its photographs, with the number of frames in the corner;
  • its name and a small state chip, one of EMPTY, CULLING, HOLDS TO RESOLVE and READY TO HAND OFF;
  • the folder it lives in, as a path, and either Photographs copied in or No photographs yet;
  • a progress bar reading 3,120 / 4,862 reviewed, with three counts under it, 6 takes, 3 holds and 2 in the bin, and when it was last opened, Opened 2 days ago;
  • on the right, one button named for what opening it is for right now: Add photographs for an empty library, Resume cull, Resolve holds, or Hand off when every frame is reviewed and no holds remain. A library with holds says 3 holds to revisit under the button, and a finished library has a green edge.

More opens the row's menu: Rename turns the name into a field; Rebuild the index… opens a sheet that says what a rebuild keeps and what it does not before it runs; Forget… asks Forget “Name”? and promises what it does: This only removes it from this list — nothing on disk changes. Its folder, database and photographs stay exactly where they are. Bring it back any time with “Open existing library…”. Nothing on this screen deletes a photograph.

A library that is not in the list​

The list holds the libraries Vixlo can read when it reads the list: at launch, and each time you close a library. A library on a drive that is not plugged in, or whose folder has moved or been deleted, is left out until its folder can be read again; nothing in it has changed. A row reads Checking… while Vixlo looks for its folder, and a folder that goes missing after the list was read makes its row say Not found — its folder may have moved or been deleted or Not connected — plug in its drive to open this library, with its button reading Unavailable. When a library is missing from the list says how to bring one back.

The right-hand column​

The New library card, Choose where it lives, then a source, has the buttons that make and open libraries:

  • Choose location… opens the three-step wizard: Creating a library.
  • Start from the detected card · NAME appears when a card is in the Mac as the launch screen is drawn, and opens the same wizard with the card already chosen as the source. A removable drive without a camera's DCIM folder reads Start from NAME instead. A card put in while the screen is already up may not get its button; choose it with Choose a folder… on the wizard's second step instead.
  • Open existing library… asks you to Choose an existing library's folder — the one that holds its library.sqlite3. It is for a library that moved, one you forgot, or one copied from another Mac.
  • RECENT LOCATIONS, under a hairline: the folders your libraries already live in, each with the free space on its drive, 1.2 TB free. Click one to start the wizard with that folder chosen. On a new install it already shows a path ending in Library/Application Support, the Mac's shared folder for every app's support files; the Earlier library rows live in a folder inside it, Vixlo7, which Vixlo creates when you make your first library. Choose your own location instead.

Under it, HOW A LIBRARY WORKS states four facts that hold for every library: One folder, one library; Originals are never rewritten; What you see is the metadata applied; Export renders from metadata.

Two promises and one rule: Decisions, ratings and edits live in the library — originals are never rewritten; Exports are rendered from metadata; and Rejected-frame rule: ask when finalising, which opens Library rules.

Library rules​

Library rules, in the title bar and in the footer, opens a sheet that holds the rejected-frame rule the wizard starts from, a switch for precise place names, and three rows marked ALWAYS that cannot be turned off. Library rules covers the sheet line by line.

In Vixlo 0.1

The bin rule is shown but not acted on, and the place-names switch on this sheet does not reach a new library. Frames are deleted only when you choose Empty bin… on the pass line and confirm the count. For place names, open the library: in a library with GPS, the line under the places in its Groups pane, Names: from the bundled table · Change…, opens the switch (Library rules).

Three Earlier libraries​

Three rows named Earlier library · event, Earlier library · personal and Earlier library · studio are listed on every Mac, including a brand-new install. They are left over from an earlier shape of the app, and their photographs are bundled inside Vixlo itself rather than living in a folder of their own. Once they open, you can cull them, but no adjustment can be saved in them; the develop panel and the edit page say so, in the same words: This library can't store adjustments. Their row carries Import this library… in place of More: it asks for a folder and copies their photographs, with your decisions, into a real library through the same verified copy every import uses. Importing an Earlier library walks it from the button to the sheet that reports the result.

In Vixlo 0.1

On a Mac that has never made a library, the three rows cannot be opened. Their folder, Application Support/Vixlo7, does not exist until you make your first library, so each row reads Not found — its folder may have moved or been deleted and its button reads Unavailable. Make a library of your own first, then return here with File ▸ Close Library (⇧⌘W): the rows open like any other.