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File Organization On Mac


farabee

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Just curious....without ACDC or whatever that Windows program is, what applications do Mac folks use to organize papers/elements? I'm using iPhoto. Learned I could have one library of photos and one library of jpg/psd/png images. Is there another easier way, I wonder?

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I just have different folders with my scrap items. I have one large scrapbook folder and then subfolders within that. I have subfolders for collections, embellishments, word art, etc. When I need to see what I have I use coverflow (a new view in the new OS) to flip through my things. I can see images of anything and if I want to see even more detail I just click on the item once to highlight it and then hit the space bar. It opens a preview of the image without having to open any program so it is super fast.

 

If you don't have the new OS you could just also use adobe bridge. That is what I did before I got the new OS. I would browse my files with bridge. There I could see thumbnails of everything.

 

I keep my photos in iPhoto but have never put my scrap stuff in there. I am not one to tag things so I saw no point in filling up my iPhoto library with more stuff. It is huge enough with all my pictures. I have different photo libraries but I hate having to quit the whole program to switch libraries. Perhaps someday they will make it easier to go between libraries. If they ever did that then I just might put my scrap stuff in there!

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I just have different folders with my scrap items. I have one large scrapbook folder and then subfolders within that. I have subfolders for collections, embellishments, word art, etc. When I need to see what I have I use coverflow (a new view in the new OS) to flip through my things. I can see images of anything and if I want to see even more detail I just click on the item once to highlight it and then hit the space bar. It opens a preview of the image without having to open any program so it is super fast.

 

If you don't have the new OS you could just also use adobe bridge. That is what I did before I got the new OS. I would browse my files with bridge. There I could see thumbnails of everything.

 

I keep my photos in iPhoto but have never put my scrap stuff in there. I am not one to tag things so I saw no point in filling up my iPhoto library with more stuff. It is huge enough with all my pictures. I have different photo libraries but I hate having to quit the whole program to switch libraries. Perhaps someday they will make it easier to go between libraries. If they ever did that then I just might put my scrap stuff in there!

 

I'm new to scrappin' and I have been downloading lots of materials. I think I've been doing pretty good at organizing them, however there are just a few items that don't seem to fit. I'm not sure if I should file papers by color or collections? Next how do you sort templates? Should I sort paper temples with my paper? What about styles and actions? Should they have their own folder? One last thing, what about the thumbnails.dbs? Do I need to keep them or can I toss them? I don't understand why they come separate? Wait! I have another. What do I do with all the instructions and full page.jpgs that come with my orders? Do I need a separate folder for them too?

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  • 2 weeks later...
I just have different folders with my scrap items. I have one large scrapbook folder and then subfolders within that. I have subfolders for collections, embellishments, word art, etc. When I need to see what I have I use coverflow (a new view in the new OS) to flip through my things. I can see images of anything and if I want to see even more detail I just click on the item once to highlight it and then hit the space bar. It opens a preview of the image without having to open any program so it is super fast.

 

If you don't have the new OS you could just also use adobe bridge. That is what I did before I got the new OS. I would browse my files with bridge. There I could see thumbnails of everything.

 

I keep my photos in iPhoto but have never put my scrap stuff in there. I am not one to tag things so I saw no point in filling up my iPhoto library with more stuff. It is huge enough with all my pictures. I have different photo libraries but I hate having to quit the whole program to switch libraries. Perhaps someday they will make it easier to go between libraries. If they ever did that then I just might put my scrap stuff in there!

 

I'm new to scrappin' and I have been downloading lots of materials. I think I've been doing pretty good at organizing them, however there are just a few items that don't seem to fit. I'm not sure if I should file papers by color or collections? Next how do you sort templates? Should I sort paper temples with my paper? What about styles and actions? Should they have their own folder? One last thing, what about the thumbnails.dbs? Do I need to keep them or can I toss them? I don't understand why they come separate? Wait! I have another. What do I do with all the instructions and full page.jpgs that come with my orders? Do I need a separate folder for them too?

 

It's pretty exciting and daunting at the same time isn't it? :breakdance:

When I first started up, I found this information Ro posted in the university to be helpful (found under The Basics).

http://www.scrapgirls.com/managing_digital...ng_supplies.htm

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  • 1 month later...
Just curious....without ACDC or whatever that Windows program is, what applications do Mac folks use to organize papers/elements? I'm using iPhoto. Learned I could have one library of photos and one library of jpg/psd/png images. Is there another easier way, I wonder?

 

I have just figured out a process that is working for me. I did read Ro's thoughts on organizing, but I decided not to go that way (separating all things into papers, embellishments, etc).

 

I also have a bunch of free stuff from other sites, so this is what I've done:

 

I have a folder for each site where I have stuff from. Inside each of those I have a folder based on each Collection name. Inside each collection I've got folders for paper, embellishments, alphas. I put the copyright / TOUs at the site level if they are specific to the site only, at the collection level if they are specific to the collection, etc. This way I don't have copies upon copies of the same copyright notices.

 

(click on the thumbnails for larger view)

th_ScrapGirlsFolder.png th_ScrapGirlsCollections.png th_RefreshCollection.png

 

Now, here is where I chose to use the goodness that is the Mac OS. I have Leopard, but it should work similarly in Tiger.

 

I have put Spotlight comments on all my files. I have a standard list, that's actually quite long, but they are all common terms among all of these items. Each item has a top-level comment (paper, embellishment, alpha), and then are further described from there (red, number, frame, etc).

 

(click on the thumbnails for larger view)

th_PaperwithSpotlightcomments.png th_PinwithSpotlightcomments.png

 

Then I can just use Spotlight to search for what I want. If I only want to see red paper, I type 'paper red kind:images'. (I always include the kind:images so that I don't get any folders in the results). I will also save my most common Spotlight searches as Smart Folders, so that they are always there waiting for me.

 

(click on the thumbnail for larger view)

th_redpaperresults.png

 

A cool thing that I really like in Leopard, is the Cover Flow view. Makes looking through everything much nicer.

 

(click on the thumbnail for larger view)

th_redpaperresultscoverflow.png

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LeenieLou, I love your idea of how to organize with the spotlight comments, but I'm running into a problem and can't seem to find the answer by searching the net. Right now it's not feasible for me to store my gigantic collection on my laptop, so it stays on my EHD, and my spotlight comments don't stay put there. Does anyone know why?

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Just curious....without ACDC or whatever that Windows program is, what applications do Mac folks use to organize papers/elements? I'm using iPhoto. Learned I could have one library of photos and one library of jpg/psd/png images. Is there another easier way, I wonder?

 

I have just figured out a process that is working for me. I did read Ro's thoughts on organizing, but I decided not to go that way (separating all things into papers, embellishments, etc).

 

I also have a bunch of free stuff from other sites, so this is what I've done:

 

I have a folder for each site where I have stuff from. Inside each of those I have a folder based on each Collection name. Inside each collection I've got folders for paper, embellishments, alphas. I put the copyright / TOUs at the site level if they are specific to the site only, at the collection level if they are specific to the collection, etc. This way I don't have copies upon copies of the same copyright notices.

 

(click on the thumbnails for larger view)

th_ScrapGirlsFolder.png th_ScrapGirlsCollections.png th_RefreshCollection.png

 

Now, here is where I chose to use the goodness that is the Mac OS. I have Leopard, but it should work similarly in Tiger.

 

I have put Spotlight comments on all my files. I have a standard list, that's actually quite long, but they are all common terms among all of these items. Each item has a top-level comment (paper, embellishment, alpha), and then are further described from there (red, number, frame, etc).

 

(click on the thumbnails for larger view)

th_PaperwithSpotlightcomments.png th_PinwithSpotlightcomments.png

 

Then I can just use Spotlight to search for what I want. If I only want to see red paper, I type 'paper red kind:images'. (I always include the kind:images so that I don't get any folders in the results). I will also save my most common Spotlight searches as Smart Folders, so that they are always there waiting for me.

 

(click on the thumbnail for larger view)

th_redpaperresults.png

 

A cool thing that I really like in Leopard, is the Cover Flow view. Makes looking through everything much nicer.

 

(click on the thumbnail for larger view)

th_redpaperresultscoverflow.png

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WOW.....your computer sense is fantastic. I could never have figured that out with Spotlight! I'm really going to have to think about that. Thanks so much for the detailed comment and the wonderful screen shots!

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LeenieLou, I love your idea of how to organize with the spotlight comments, but I'm running into a problem and can't seem to find the answer by searching the net. Right now it's not feasible for me to store my gigantic collection on my laptop, so it stays on my EHD, and my spotlight comments don't stay put there. Does anyone know why?

 

Well, I have all my stuff on an external hard drive, as well, so this should work.

 

Hmm...thinking...do you have Tiger or Leopard?

 

And, what do you mean by 'my spotlight comments don't stay put there'? Do you put comments on, then do a search, and the item you just tagged won't come up, or when you 'Get Info' on the item the comments are gone?

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WOW.....your computer sense is fantastic. I could never have figured that out with Spotlight! I'm really going to have to think about that. Thanks so much for the detailed comment and the wonderful screen shots!

 

farabee, glad I could shed some light on other organizing ideas. This really spawned out of the fact that while I thought that iPhoto would be great for organizing digi-scrapping stuff, I really didn't want to clutter up my already large photo library with stuff that wasn't photos, and also didn't want to deal with having multiple libraries (1 for photos and 1 for digi-scrapping stuff).

 

I'm still not done commenting all the stuff that I already have, but I've already used this system to put together a thank you card for my daughter's 1st birthday, and I can say that I'm really happy with how easy it is to find stuff.

 

Hope you find a system that works great for you.

 

(Oh, and as for my computer sense....I'm a Java developer by trade (read: computer programmer =) ), so thinking in 'computer' is almost 2nd nature to me).

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Well, I have all my stuff on an external hard drive, as well, so this should work.

 

Hmm...thinking...do you have Tiger or Leopard?

 

And, what do you mean by 'my spotlight comments don't stay put there'? Do you put comments on, then do a search, and the item you just tagged won't come up, or when you 'Get Info' on the item the comments are gone?

 

 

My comments aren't there when I go to Get Info. I just checked, though, and I can do a search and see my tags.

I have Leopard.

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  • 2 weeks later...

WOW! What a great idea LeenieLou. I spent heaps of time making another library as as I didn't want to mix photos with digi scrappin' stuff.,

but I didn't like switching between libraries and the black background, but I loved the keyword thing. I've got leopard on my macbook, but I use my desktop for my scrapping and that is tiger,

so I'm going to give it a try. It will take a while to do all the tagging, but you've got to start somewhere!

 

Thanks for the great idea! You're a legend!

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WOW! What a great idea LeenieLou. I spent heaps of time making another library as as I didn't want to mix photos with digi scrappin' stuff.,

but I didn't like switching between libraries and the black background, but I loved the keyword thing. I've got leopard on my macbook, but I use my desktop for my scrapping and that is tiger,

so I'm going to give it a try. It will take a while to do all the tagging, but you've got to start somewhere!

 

Thanks for the great idea! You're a legend!

 

Wow, I'm a legend?! That's something I never thought I'd hear... Thanks!

 

Best of luck to you with the tagging. I'm still tagging stuff. Though I think I'm making it harder on myself by downloading new stuff every day. There's just so much great free stuff out there sometimes, that I just can't help myself!

 

Well, back to tagging for me!

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Well, I have all my stuff on an external hard drive, as well, so this should work.

 

Hmm...thinking...do you have Tiger or Leopard?

 

And, what do you mean by 'my spotlight comments don't stay put there'? Do you put comments on, then do a search, and the item you just tagged won't come up, or when you 'Get Info' on the item the comments are gone?

 

 

My comments aren't there when I go to Get Info. I just checked, though, and I can do a search and see my tags.

I have Leopard.

 

Nutmeg,

 

Hmmm, that is weird. I'm sure it's probably a bug of some sort (I've read that there are apparently all sorts of bugs with Spotlight and Leopard...I ran across one where my hard drive icon disappeared...), but I haven't come across that one yet. If I happen across anything, I'll be sure to let you know.

 

Weirder still that even though the tags don't seem to be there anymore, you can still search. Weird, weird, weird...

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
I just have different folders with my scrap items. I have one large scrapbook folder and then subfolders within that. I have subfolders for collections, embellishments, word art, etc. When I need to see what I have I use coverflow (a new view in the new OS) to flip through my things. I can see images of anything and if I want to see even more detail I just click on the item once to highlight it and then hit the space bar. It opens a preview of the image without having to open any program so it is super fast.

 

If you don't have the new OS you could just also use adobe bridge. That is what I did before I got the new OS. I would browse my files with bridge. There I could see thumbnails of everything.

 

I keep my photos in iPhoto but have never put my scrap stuff in there. I am not one to tag things so I saw no point in filling up my iPhoto library with more stuff. It is huge enough with all my pictures. I have different photo libraries but I hate having to quit the whole program to switch libraries. Perhaps someday they will make it easier to go between libraries. If they ever did that then I just might put my scrap stuff in there!

 

I'm new to scrappin' and I have been downloading lots of materials. I think I've been doing pretty good at organizing them, however there are just a few items that don't seem to fit. I'm not sure if I should file papers by color or collections? Next how do you sort templates? Should I sort paper temples with my paper? What about styles and actions? Should they have their own folder? One last thing, what about the thumbnails.dbs? Do I need to keep them or can I toss them? I don't understand why they come separate? Wait! I have another. What do I do with all the instructions and full page.jpgs that come with my orders? Do I need a separate folder for them too?

 

It's pretty exciting and daunting at the same time isn't it? :breakdance:

When I first started up, I found this information Ro posted in the university to be helpful (found under The Basics).

http://www.scrapgirls.com/managing_digital...ng_supplies.htm

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I appreciate this information. I'm new at this and having a ball but have so many questions. I'm a Mac user also and am always looking for tips so thank you. I have created a few layouts but need to upload them to print as my printer simply doesn't cut it. When I get ready to find a new one does anyone have any suggestions on a good printer? Thanks and happy scrapping!

kellielinn

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I have been posting in another area of the board looking for this very topic. With them all being PC users, the suggestions weren't going to work for me. I have Tiger, but it's not installed yet until I finish backing up my Mac. Maybe this will motivate me to get it done a lot faster.

 

Anyone have any ideas to search for those items that had to be put on CD due to lack of hard disk space?

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I have been posting in another area of the board looking for this very topic. With them all being PC users, the suggestions weren't going to work for me. I have Tiger, but it's not installed yet until I finish backing up my Mac. Maybe this will motivate me to get it done a lot faster.

 

Anyone have any ideas to search for those items that had to be put on CD due to lack of hard disk space?

 

 

I haven't done it myself, but it seems like you should be able to insert the CD and then run a spotlight search on it. Maybe someone will come along and say for sure.

 

LeenieLo's ideas of maximizing the spotlight functions of the mac is the best mac organization solution I've seen. Takes some time - but then so does everything! I'm using it and I love it. I think she is a computer wiz & may be able to answer the CD question. Try sending her a PM.

 

Good Luck!

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Oh no... new organization tips!!!! I'm addicted to organizing and now I fear I'll never get to scrap again cuz' I'm just loving these ideas and I have WAY too much stuff to tag. Oh well... now that I know, I just MUST try it out. Thanks for feeding my organization addiction as well as my digi-scrappin' one! Sometimes I can just sit for hours and stare at all my pretty papers!!!!!

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  • 4 months later...
  • 2 months later...

Hi,

 

I've been converted to a MAC and am thrilled to find this resource to help make the transition easier. Unfortunately it would seem that the wonderful screen shots are no longer there so I'm having trouble following the thread. Any chance someone would flesh out the system a little more so I can understand (I've had my MAC a week now and don't know much about any of it's features.)

 

Thanks so much!

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Hi,

 

I've been converted to a MAC and am thrilled to find this resource to help make the transition easier. Unfortunately it would seem that the wonderful screen shots are no longer there so I'm having trouble following the thread. Any chance someone would flesh out the system a little more so I can understand (I've had my MAC a week now and don't know much about any of it's features.)

 

Thanks so much!

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  • 1 month later...
Well, I have all my stuff on an external hard drive, as well, so this should work.

 

Hmm...thinking...do you have Tiger or Leopard?

 

And, what do you mean by 'my spotlight comments don't stay put there'? Do you put comments on, then do a search, and the item you just tagged won't come up, or when you 'Get Info' on the item the comments are gone?

 

 

My comments aren't there when I go to Get Info. I just checked, though, and I can do a search and see my tags.

I have Leopard.

 

Just in case anybody else has this problem, I finally figured it out. My external was formatted in FAT32, and now that I've changed it to the mac os journaled format, everything works. All of the spotlight comments I've made over the past year are there and I can finally see them!

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Hi- just thought I'd mention Shoebox for organizing digi stuff. I use that. Seems to work just fine for me! Here is the link: http://www.kavasoft.com/Shoebox/

I don't work for them, just use the software. I also took a class on using Shoebox through Jessica Sprague. Here is the link for that: http://www.jessicasprague.com/index.php?pa...t&Itemid=49

 

Take care, Judy

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I want to weigh in on Shoebox also - I love it! I could never figure out how to do Boolean searches in Bridge, but they're easy in Shoebox. And FAST! My only complaint is that it appears that you can only have it installed on one computer at a time, so now I have to decide whether it's worth paying the registration again to have it on the laptop. (I'm leaning towards no since I could still browse by collection with Bridge)

 

If you're looking for a free option, the Spotlight searches combined with Cover Flow are great, too, just not quite as great as Shoebox. ;-)

 

Nancy

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Wow! You heard back from Shoebox??? That is my only complaint is that their customer service (in my opinion only) stinks. But since I took the class through Jessica Sprague's website, I contact the person who set up the class and she gets back to me very promptly. The only issue I have with Shoebox is if the digi item is black, like say for instance quotes, they are not visible at full view. I open it with Preview to see it. It crashes now and then but then so did Bridge. Tried iPhoto but that just didn't work at all. Crashed and was generally a mess. So Shoebox it is!! Judy

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Yeah, I did hear back from Shoebox, although it was a couple of years ago maybe that's why?

My problem with Shoebox is it sometimes moves files out of their folders. For example if I have a collection folder containing folders of papers, embellishments, word art, etc., it moves all the files out of those folders into the collection folder. Very annoying.

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Hmmm........ Haven't had that happen but I did run into a weird problem that I was finally able to fix: any digi stuff I buy and download goes into my Mac's Download folder. To move it into Shoebox and get categories assigned to it, I made a folder called SORT. Well, once I categorized the items and moved them into their respective folders, the SORT folder would disappear!! And I would have to make another one. Well, my solution was to make a document with TextEdit with the words, DO NOT DELETE in the body of the text and the same words when I saved it. As long as there is one item in that SORT folder, it stays in Shoebox. If nothing is in it, the folder disappears! Strange. My other issue with Shoebox (which thankfully I haven't had for awhile) is that my papers (mostly) collection would get messed up. I'd categorize and put them in the papers folder and all would look well but then I would go back in to Shoebox later on and some papers wouldn't have the paper thumbnail- just the jpeg symbol or a blank, white note with a tear across the top. The latter means there was a broken link, the jpeg icon I am not sure what that meant but to me that meant I couldn't see the paper! If I viewed it in full view, I could see but not in the thumbnail view. What I had to do to get it to appear again was to open it in PSE6, save it again as the same name and everything and replace what was just a jpeg icon right back into Shoebox. Sometimes there were lots to fix and sometimes just a few. Only papers. My overlays/transparencies category got messed up too. Time Machine has been a godsend!!! I wrote to Shoebox about the issue of the jpeg showing up instead of the digi item, oh, about 2 months ago. No word. Sent them an example like I was asked to do. I wrote first to the helpful instructor for Shoebox and told her what the problem was and how terrible the support was at Shoebox and she forwarded my email to them but that didn't phase them one bit- still getting the same customer service. They have by far one of the worst customer service depts. I have come across! But I do like their product. Through forums like this though, we can usually get the help we need and I am thankful for that! So cdnliz, maybe what I experienced is what you had happen with things moving out of your collections........ Long story, sorry. Judy

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