Libraries on the launch screen
Vixlo opens onto its launch screen: every library it can read, most recently opened first, with the real state of each. The launch screen is the first tour of it; this page goes row by row. Making a library is in Creating a library, and the card that starts one is on The New library card; copying photographs in is in Importing from a card or a folder.
The title bar
At the left, the Vixlo mark. In the centre, No library open, with a count under it: 4 libraries · 2 with unfinished culls — the second half only when a library still has frames nobody has looked at. At the right: a Library rules button (see Library rules), a lock beside Originals read-only, and your account's chip — see Your account in the app.
The list of libraries
Under the heading Libraries the screen says what every library is: Each library holds its own catalog, decisions and metadata. Photographs are copied in — originals are never modified by anything that happens inside.
Then one row per library. A row shows:
- A collage of up to three of its frames — your takes first where you have any, otherwise its opening frames, never a Reject — with a chip counting the frames in the library.
- Its name, and a chip in capitals saying where the cull stands: EMPTY (nothing copied in yet), CULLING (some frames still unreviewed), HOLDS TO RESOLVE (every frame reviewed, holds remain) or READY TO HAND OFF (every frame reviewed, no holds). A ready library gets a faint green edge.
- Where it lives — the folder's path — and Photographs copied in or No photographs yet.
- How far the cull has got, as a bar and a count: 3,120 / 4,862 reviewed.
- What you have decided, once there is something to count: three counts, each with its own mark — 6 takes, 3 holds, 12 in the bin — and when you last had it open: Opened 2 days ago or Opened just now. An Earlier library keeps no such date and always reads Never opened.
The button on each row
The button at the right names what opening this library is for right now:
| Button | When |
|---|---|
| Add photographs | Nothing has been copied in yet |
| Resume cull | Some frames are still unreviewed |
| Resolve holds | Every frame is reviewed and holds remain |
| Hand off | Every frame is reviewed and there are no holds |
A library with holds has a line under the button, 3 holds to revisit, whichever word the button shows. All four open the library on the cull page; the word only says what is left.
More: Rename, Rebuild the index, Forget
Under the button, More opens a short menu.
- Rename turns the row into a field. Type the name and press
↩or click Done; Cancel leaves it. This changes the name Vixlo shows — here and in the window's title — and nothing else: the folder keeps its own name. Clear the field and the library shows its folder's name again. - Rebuild the index… rebuilds the library's index from its folder; What a library is on disk says what that keeps and costs.
- Forget… asks Forget “Alpine week”? and says exactly 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…”. Forget removes the row; Cancel keeps it.
When a library is missing from the list
The list shows the libraries Vixlo can read at the moment it reads the list. A library whose drive is not plugged in, or whose folder has moved or been deleted, is left out. It has not been forgotten, and nothing in it has changed.
- A drive that was unplugged: plug it back in. The library returns the next time Vixlo reads its list — when the app starts, or when you close a library — or at once through Open existing library… on the New library card.
- A folder you moved: click Open existing library… on the New library card and choose the folder at its new place.
Each row checks its folder as it appears and reads Checking… until it knows. On a slow network drive it can stay there, with no counts and an Add photographs button whatever is in the library; clicking it opens the library all the same.
The promises, and the foot
Under the New library card, a card headed HOW A LIBRARY WORKS states four things that hold for every library, and the foot of the screen ends in a Rejected-frame rule: … button. Library rules reads both.
The Earlier libraries
Up to three more rows sit at the bottom of the list: Earlier library · event, Earlier library · personal and Earlier library · studio. Their photographs are bundled inside Vixlo, and they can be culled but not adjusted, renamed or forgotten. Each carries Import this library… in place of More; The launch screen says what that is, and Importing an Earlier library follows it. A row goes from the list once every photograph in it has been imported.
The rows read Application Support/Vixlo7 in your Library, a folder Vixlo makes when the first library is added to its list. Until then, as on a Mac with no library of its own yet, each row reads Not found — its folder may have moved or been deleted, with a disabled button, Unavailable. Make your first library (Creating a library) and the rows can be opened once you are back on the launch screen; if one still reads Not found, quit and reopen Vixlo. A row you have never opened then reads EMPTY, No photographs yet and Add photographs until you open it once, which puts its bundled photographs in.