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Frames

Frames is the whole pass laid out as one contact sheet. Reach for it to see the shape of a shoot or to look inside a burst. Press G to open it and G again to go back to Single, or to Compare if you opened Frames from there; Single and Frames lists the other ways between them.

The sheet​

Frames draws every frame of the pass at its own shape, an upright frame in an upright cell, in rows justified to the sheet's width. The sheet's header reads what is under it and how it is laid out, first in small orange capitals — STABLE QUEUE · 451 FRAMES · 6 SESSIONS · 18 STACKS — then as a sentence such as Grouped by Camera body → Session · similar frames stacked · sorted by capture time · in sections. Each phrase with a chevron is a menu on those very words; How a shoot is grouped covers grouping, stacking and sorting. Each group's heading is its name with its count beside it: ILSE AND TOM · MORNING 8 frames · 2 takes.

What a cell shows​

A cell carries only what is true of its photograph.

  • the photograph, fitted inside the cell, never cropped to fill it;
  • the decision as the photograph's own edge in its colour — green for a Take, amber for a Hold, red for a Reject, and a Reject drawn faint. An Undecided frame has no edge;
  • a small tile at the top-left with the state's glyph, and a warning triangle beside it when the app has an advisory for the frame;
  • the app's proposal, when there is one, as a dashed mark at the top-right;
  • the colour label, when it has one, as a small swatch at the bottom-left of the picture;
  • the file name and the rating's stars on a strip under the photograph;
  • on a stack's cover, a badge with the number of frames behind it. On a row tall enough to carry them, a burst whose best frame the app has proposed adds Best of 7 beside the badge, and a bracket or panorama Vixlo keeps whole (Sets kept whole) wears a chip such as bracket of 3 · kept whole at the top-right.

Hold the pointer over a cell and it names the file. On the frame you are on it adds click again to open it in Pass (that is, in Single); on a stack's cover it says how many frames the stack holds and the key that opens it: DSCF7601.JPG · 4 similar frames — ↩ to resolve.

Frames: a few cells with their edges, tiles and footers under a group heading

Working on the sheet​

Clicking. A click makes that frame the one the page is about: the strip and the header follow, and Single does not open. A second click on the same frame, or a double-click on any frame, opens Single on it, even if you came to Frames from Compare. A double-click on a stack's cover opens the Stack Resolver instead, because that is what that cell is. A line under the sheet says all of this in your own keys.

The hint line under the Frames sheet

Deciding here. Every decision key works in Frames as it does in Single. It acts on the frame with the orange ring, and with auto-advance on a decision then steps to the next frame, the one → would reach.

In Vixlo 0.1

With similar frames stacked, which is the default, → and auto-advance in Frames step through every frame of the pass, including the ones hidden behind a stack's cover. When a step lands on a hidden frame, no cell carries the ring, so the sheet looks as though nothing moved. The cursor has moved: the header, the pass line and the strip follow it, and the next decision key decides that frame, which the sheet is not drawing.

To keep every step on a cell you can see, choose Expanded from the menu on similar frames stacked in the sheet's header, so each frame has a cell of its own. Or step in Single.

Resizing the rows. Pinch on a trackpad, or hold ⌘ and scroll with a mouse: three notches double the height, and three back halve it. Plain scrolling scrolls the sheet. The size is remembered with the library.

The loupe. Point at a cell and hold Z to see that frame's own pixels under the pointer. See Zoom and the focus check.

Stacks and the Stack Resolver​

With similar frames stacked, a burst sits behind one cover on the sheet, with a badge counting its frames. The Stack Resolver is where you look inside one and choose. To open it:

  • double-click the stack's cover, or click its count badge;
  • press ↩ on a frame that belongs to a stack, in Frames or in Single;
  • choose View ▸ Open Stack Resolver.

It opens over the page. The header reads STACK RESOLVER with how many frames there are and why they were stacked, such as 8 frames · burst · 92% confidence. One frame is shown large, and every frame of the stack is in a strip under it — with the sharpest first, when Vixlo has measured them. Click a frame in the strip to bring it up large. Double-click or ⌘-scroll the large frame to zoom, or use the zoom buttons; the zoom holds as you click along the strip.

Under the strip are the large frame's file name, its stars and the actions for it:

  • Take decides it, and you can take more than one frame of a burst;
  • Make Cover makes it the frame that stands for the stack. The resolver always opens on the stack's cover, and the button is not drawn while the large frame is the cover; click another frame in the strip to bring it up;
  • Split takes it out of the stack, to stand on its own.

Prev Moment and Next Moment at the top go to the stack before or after. Reject Entire Stack, at the foot, asks first and then marks every frame in the stack Reject — into the bin, nothing deleted, and each frame its own step for ⌘Z. The foot also says Measured from the frames · no decision is changed automatically · double-click or ⌘-scroll the photo to zoom, drag to pan. While the resolver is open, ← and → do nothing, so they cannot walk you out of the stack.

To close it, press Esc, click the ✕ at the top-right, or click outside the panel. ↩ closes it too, except while it offers to accept the app's proposal for the stack — then ↩ accepts; see Accepting, or deciding for yourself.

The Stack Resolver open on a burst