The Browser
This is the area in which the Library displays its media assets – the videos, photos, audio, projects, collections and ‘creative elements’ that are available for you to use in your movie and disc projects. The items are displayed either as a list of text records or as a grid of icons. Visual asset types use thumbnail images for their icons; other types use graphic symbols.
The Library would not be much help if the Browser displayed all its assets at once. It therefore has several controls that help you screen out items that aren’t relevant to your purpose.
Thumbnails, Details, Show scenes
Each asset is displayed in the Browser in one of two formats, depending on the view selected. Because the icons of thumbnails view and the text records of details view represent the same assets, they have certain features in common. For instance, the context menu for assets is the same regardless of which representation is used.
Similarly, standard media assets (video, photo and audio), along with Sound effects in the Creative Elements branch, open an appropriate media correction editor when double-clicked in either view. The correction editors are also available from your project timeline, but when applied to a Library asset the corrections are carried forward into any future project that includes it.
Details
In details view, each asset is presented as one line in a list of text records. In thumbnail view, it appears as a thumbnail image (for visual media types) or graphic icon.
To switch the Browser to details view, click the icon on the details view button at the bottom of the Library. The arrow beside the button opens a panel where you can choose the columns to be included in the text records. The columns available for inclusion are Name, File size, File type, Date, Tags, Rating and Duration.
In Details view, each asset is displayed as a one-line text record. A dropdown list beside the Details view button lets you select which columns to show. In the illustration, ‘animals’ and ‘scenery’ are the names of folders in the All Media branch of the Library.
Thumbnails
The button to the left of the details view button selects thumbnails view, in which assets are represented by icons rather than text. The arrow beside the button opens a panel where you can choose additional data to be shown in conjunction with each icon. The options are Text, Tag indicator, Collection indicator, Ratings and Corrections indicator.
In addition to these optional controls, whenever the mouse pointer is positioned over the icon, an info button is displayed. Clicking the button opens the information panel at the bottom of the Browser view.
When the mouse pointer is over a Library asset icon, the Info button (top right corner) appears.
At the bottom left of most asset icons a preview button, a standard triangular play symbol within a circle, is displayed. In the compact version of the Library (used in the project editor and some media editors), the preview is shown on the Source tab of the embedded Player. In the Main Library, preview occurs in a separate Player window. See The Library Preview for more information.
In either version of the Library, Alt-clicking the preview button will give you a mini-preview on the asset icon itself. With video and audio media, you can preview under manual control with a scrubber that appears below the thumbnail whenever the mouse is over the icon.
Show Scenes
On video files this button will switch to Scene View. Scenes are managed by the Library Player. See The Library Preview for more information.
The optional controls
The optional indicators and buttons on an asset icon let you access information about the asset without having to burrow deeper.
Text: The caption below the icon is the Library alias for the asset, which you can set with the Edit caption context menu command for any asset. It is not necessarily the name of the asset file (which is shown in the tooltip).
Tag indicator: The lower of the two symbols at the bottom right of the thumbnail is shown if the asset has any tags assigned to it. Hover the mouse pointer over the indicator to bring up a menu on which the existing tags for the asset are shown. As you pass the pointer over a tag name on this menu, a remove button appears. Click it to unset the tag. Click remove all at the bottom of the menu to clear all tags from the asset.
Collection indicator: Just above the tag indicator, the presence of this icon indicates that you have included the asset in one or more Collections. To see which ones, hover the mouse over the icon. As with the tag indicator menu, a remove button is shown as you position the mouse on each Collection name; click it to remove the asset from the Collection. The remove all command removes the asset from all Collections of which it is a member.
The Ratings control is displayed at the left above the thumbnail (or graphic icon, depending on the media type). At top-right is the Info button. The Corrections indicator is also at upper right but within the thumbnail.
Ratings: The row of stars above the top left of the icon lets you set the asset rating. If no stars are lit, the asset is said to be unrated. To set the rating of one asset or a selection of assets, either click the corresponding star on the indicator (click the first star twice to make the asset unrated again) or choose the setting on the Apply rating context submenu.
Corrections indicator: The Library allows you to apply image and audio correction filters ‘non-destructively’ on Library media assets, meaning that the original file remains intact. The types of corrections that have been applied to an asset, and the parameters that were used to control them, are stored in the Library database. The corrections indicator is shown on all assets to which corrections have been applied.