Library rules
Library rules is a sheet on the launch screen. It holds the rejected-frame rule new libraries start with and a switch for place names, and it states the three things that are true of every library and cannot be turned off. You need it when you want to read what Vixlo promises before you trust it with a card, or when you wonder what the bin rule you see around the app does.
Opening the sheet
Click Library rules in the title bar at the top of the launch screen, or the Rejected-frame rule: … button in its foot. The sheet opens with its own one-line summary: The default for libraries you make from here. Nothing on this screen can rewrite an original photograph. Done closes it; a choice takes effect the moment you click it.
The rejected-frame rule
Under REJECTED FRAMES the sheet offers three rules, each with a sentence beside it:
- Keep the bin until I empty it myself
- Ask when I finalise the cull
- Empty the bin automatically when I finalise — choosing it adds a warning in red under the three.
Until you choose, new libraries start with Ask when I finalise the cull; Vixlo never chooses the automatic rule for you. Your choice is kept on this Mac, and the last step of the new-library wizard starts from it. It is never applied to a library that already exists.
The rule is shown but not acted on. Whichever rule is chosen, nothing empties the bin by itself and nothing asks to — not Hand off, not finishing a cull — so the sentences beside the second and third rules describe a step this version does not take. In practice every library works as Keep the bin until I empty it myself says: frames are deleted only when you choose Empty bin… and confirm the count it shows, and until then you can restore them. A rule chosen in the wizard, or for an open library, also lasts only until that library closes: every library opens at ask when finalising.
The rule for the library you have open
Open the ⋯ menu at the end of the views line and choose Bin rule…; the row shows the rule in force after it: kept until I empty it, ask when finalising or empty on finalise.
The dialog is headed Bin rule for this library and starts with what is in the bin now: 12 frames are in the bin — out of the queue, still on disk, restorable one by one or all at once. Emptying the bin is the only thing that deletes a file, and it only ever touches the library folder. Under WHEN THE BIN IS EMPTIED are the same three rules, and a line under them says the source card is never modified. Click a rule and it is chosen at once. Save rule closes the dialog, and a short message near the foot of the page reads Bin rule saved with the rule's name; Close closes it too and keeps the rule you last clicked. As the caution above says, the choice lasts until you close the library.
What emptying the bin does, and the counted confirmation it asks first, are in The one action that deletes a photograph.
Precise place names
Under PLACES the sheet has a switch, Name places precisely, using Apple's service, with its own sentence: Sends the centre of each place — a coordinate, nothing else — to Apple's geocoder over the network. Off, names come from the table inside the app and nothing leaves this Mac.
The switch on this sheet does not reach any library. Starting a new library — with Choose location…, a detected card or a recent location — puts it back to off, and the wizard has no switch of its own. To turn precise names on, open the library and use its places section, below.
Precise place names for a library you have open
A library that has any GPS in it shows a section headed PLACES in the side panel's Groups pane. Under its places and journeys, a row states the rule in force — Names: from the bundled table · Change… or Names: via Apple's service · Change… — and clicking anywhere on that row opens Place names for this library, with the same switch and the same sentence. It takes effect as soon as you flip it and is kept with the library; Done closes the dialog.
While any place on screen takes its name from the table inside the app, one more line follows the rule row: Place names: GeoNames, CC BY 4.0. A library with no GPS anywhere shows no places section and has nothing to switch.
With the switch on, Vixlo sends the centre of each place and of each journey's destination to Apple, once, and keeps the answer. What leaves this Mac, and when has the rest.
What always holds
At the foot of the sheet, three rows are marked ALWAYS. They are not settings — the sheet shows them so that you can see there is no version of Vixlo where they are off:
- Originals are read-only in every library — This cannot be turned off. Culling, rating and editing only ever write metadata.
- Photographs render with metadata applied — Adjustments and crops are shown everywhere the frame appears, so what you judge is what exports.
- Holds stay as a revisit queue — They keep their own queue after a pass, so a shoot can be finished in sittings.
The promises on the launch screen
The card under New library on the launch screen, headed HOW A LIBRARY WORKS, states four things that hold for every library: One folder, one library; Originals are never rewritten; What you see is the metadata applied; Export renders from metadata.
The foot of the screen repeats two of them — Decisions, ratings and edits live in the library — originals are never rewritten and Exports are rendered from metadata — and ends with a button, Rejected-frame rule: …, that names the rule new libraries start with. After the colon it reads kept until I empty it, ask when finalising or empty on finalise, the last with its glyph in red. Click it to open this sheet.