(PlayLists) CREATING A SLIDE SHOW PLAY LIST

If you decide you want to create a slide show play list, then click on the "Slide Show" main menu, then click on the "Create / Edit Slide Show Play Lists" menu item.

WHY USE THIS FEATURE?

Let's say you have a folder of a 100 files. And let's say they are of different topics. For example: Birds, BDay Dinner and Buildings. Typically, you would create 3 sub folders and move the appropriate files into the appropriate folders. Then when the user clicks on the appropriate folder, they get to see only the files that you wanted them to see. So far so good. NOW let's say you want a couple of more folders. For example: Best Pics and Funny Pics. You would then create 2 more sub folders and then COPY the best files from all you folders into the Best Pics. Then you would COPY the funniest files from all your sub folders into the Funny Pics folder. Also, let's say you wanted to control the ORDER of the files, you would have a tedious time renaming all the files to produce the correct filename order. These are the common PROBLEMS.

Wasted Space For Copies: Since you have COPIES of files, this means you are now taking up more disk space. If you are burning CD-ROMs, this can turn into a problem of not having enough space on your CD-ROM to hold everything.

Text Comment Syncronization: Let's say you added some text comments to your files. If you LATER change a text comment for a file, you now have to change the text comment in the Best Pics or Funny Pics folder as well (if the file was in more than one folder).

Display Order: Since all the files by default are shown in filename order, you would have to RENAME all your files to produce the desired showing order. Renaming would be tedious for large amounts of filenames.

All of the above problems can be solved by using the Slide Show Play List Creator. This allows you to have all your files in ONE folder, so the "Wasted Space For Copies" problem is solved and the "Text Comment Syncronization" problem is solved too. The play list creator allows you to control the order in which the files are displayed so the "Display Order" problem is solved too.

The play lists are saved into a play list file. All play list files have the extension of *.plylst. Once you have created some play lists, the user can then Choose which play list to view as they load the folder or refresh the folder or as they browse to a folder.

HOW TO USE THIS FEATURE

The following shows you how to use Slide Show Play List Creator to create play lists.

NOTE: If you have some files tagged in the main Photo Jockey window, then you will be asked if you want to use those tagged files for your play list. You can either include them in the play list, or you can make them the only files in the play list.

DEFINITIONS:
Checked: When you click in the box for each thumbnail you will see a checkmark.
Tagged: Same as checked.
Selected: When you click on a thumbnail, it turns a different color. This is selected. Also, if you drag your mouse around a bunch of thumbnails, then a bunch will be selected.

TOP SECTION:
At the top of the window, you will see a pulldown that contains all of the available play lists in the current folder. If none exists, then the pulldown will be empty. Next to the pulldown is a "DELETE" button, that allows you to delete the currently showing play list.

There is also a "ThumbNail Size" selector. Just pick how big you want the thumnnails.

MIDDLE SECTION:
This portion of the window contains all of the thumbnails of the images in the folder. You can drag them around to control the order you want. You can select multiple files by using the CTRL key, or you can drag boxes around multiple files to select multiple files. Once selected, you can drag the group to where you want them.

As you SELECT/DRAGyour files with the mouse, if you are draging your selection rectangle larger to make more files selected, you can control the SPEED at which the files list scrolls. As you move the mouse PAST THE EDGE of the window, the files list starts to scroll slowly, the MORE you move past the edge of the window, the scrolling goes faster. This is standard functionality with all windows applications.

BOTTOM SECTION:

Status Indicators: This tells you how many files you have tagged & selected. It also shows you how many files are in the list.

Preview Comparison Window: This allows you to open a preview window so that you can see the image in more detail and also adjust the image like, red-eye, rotate etc...

Sort List: This button allows you to select the sort order in which the files appear in the thumbnail list. There are many sort options to choose from.

Show File Properties Hint: This allows you to control if the File Property tip appears over every file you move your mouse over. If you find it annoying, then un-check it.

Tagging Operations:

Tag All Files: This tags every file in the list

Flip All Tags: This tags all files that are NOT tagged, it also un-tags all files that are tagged.

Un-Tag All Files: This un-tags all files.

Tag Selected: This tags all the files you have selected

Un-Tag Selected: This un-tags all files you have selected

Tagging files is great because, you can control which files are part of the play list. All un-checked (un-tagged) files are removed from the play list. They are NOT REMOVED FROM YOUR HARD DRIVE. The above 5 buttons gives you complete control over which files are included in the play list.

Slide Show Play List Properties:

There are a few properties that you can use so that when the user is choosing which play list to view, they will have a good idea of which one to pick.

Play List Files: ###: This shows you how many files are in the play list currently.

Import Tags(#): This options allows you to merge checked(tagged) files from the main Photo Jockey window so that you can do all your checking from the main window, and then transfer them into a play list. The # shows how many files you have tagged in the main window. There are 3 choices:

Only Use Play List Tags: This restores the play list so it doesn't include any of the tagged files from the MAIN window, in case you had chosen one of the following options.

Only Use Tags From Main Window: This basically forces the play list to contain ONLY the tagged files from the main window.

Add Tags From Main Window: This keeps the current play list tags and ADDS any tagged files from the main window.

NOTE: In order for the "Only Use Play List Tags" to work efficiently, the list of play list files are kept in a temp area. Then as you tag and untag files in the play list, the temp area is updated to indicate what files the user wants in the play list. Then when the "Only Use Play List Tags" is selected, then basically only the files in this temp area are in the play list.

Title Of Play List: Enter a title describing the play list.

Selected Image As Preview: Select an image from the list and then click this button. The selected image will now be used when the user chooses which play list to view. The preview thumbnail is displayed along with the title for the user in the choosing window.

SOME HELPFUL NOTES:

NOTE: If you move or rename your folders, there is NO problem. This is because the *.plylst files do NOT contain the path and filename of each file, it only contains the filenames.

NOTE: If you RENAME your files in Photo Jockey, any play list that references the renamed file will be updated so that the play lists will now reference the new filename. If you rename your files OUTSIDE of Photo Jockey, then when the play list is loaded, it will indicate to the user that some files couldn't be found in the play list.



Jump to Help table of contents...

---