Tagging Mode
The other way to modify file properties is to use Tagging Mode.
- Select a View Scheme in the tree (you must select the Parent, not Child of the Scheme).
- The right screen should be divided into two parts: Action Panes on the top, and a list of files on the bottom. If you only see one pane:
- Make sure the horizontal splitter bar isn't at the top or bottom. If it is, slide it towards the middle.
- You may have something other than "Panes" selected in the upper left drop-down menu of the content pane.
- Select files in the list, or, to narrow the list, select items in the Action Pane first.
- Press F4 or go to Edit > Tagging Mode. The check boxes in the Action Pane will become enabled.
- Checked items in the Action Panes reflect the tags for the currently selected file(s). If multiple files are selected, you may see red squares in the Action Panes. These show that some of the selected files include this tag. Check or uncheck boxes in the Action Pane to modify the selected file(s) accordingly.
- Press F4 to exit Tagging Mode.
Example
This example was posted by Doof on the Media Center Interact Board. It has been edited.
Let's say you have a picture of you, your mom & dad, your sister (Barbie) and her husband (Ken), and your dog (Chopper). You also have a picture of just your mom & dad. And another of just you and Chopper.
You can store a list of people that are in your pictures. If you wanted to find all pictures with you in them, you could just open a View Scheme that uses People as a field. Let's say you chose the People\Places\Events view scheme.
- Open the People/Places/Events View Scheme and scroll through the People pane until you find your name.
- Click on it, and the list of pictures will show you every picture with you in it (2 pictures in this example: one of your entire family, and one of just you and Choppper).
If you decide to see all pictures with your mom & dad in it:
- Click your mother's name, and while holding the Ctrl key, click your father's name.
Now both names are selected and you will see all the pictures with either your mother or father in them. In the example I gave above, this would list two pictures: the one of you and your entire family, and the one of just your mom and dad.
Action Panes provide a nice way of searching for photos with certain people in them. But how do you get that list of people entered in such a way that picture 1 has 7 people assigned to it, the second only has 2, and the third only has 2?
That's where Tagging Mode comes in. When you opened up the People\Places\Events View Scheme, you noticed a list of names under People, a different list under Places, and yet another list under Events. Ignore Place and Events for now.
Under People you would have:
Barbie
Chopper
Dad
Ken
Me
Mom
With this list you can easily select the names of the people you're interested in, and by checking the boxes, the pictures with the relevant people is displayed.
- Select files from the list, and then press F4 to enter into Tagging Mode.
- Under the People Pane you see the same list, but with one additional field "New People".
- You will also see checkmarks in the boxes next to the people's names.
If you select the picture of you and Chopper, you'll see that there is a check in the box next to "Me" and "Chopper". But what's this? You just noticed that Mom is sitting in the background. You'd never noticed that before. So it's time to add her to this list.
- Check the box next to "Mom".
- You'll now have checks next to "Chopper", "Me", and "Mom". You've just updated the list of people that show up in the picture of you and Chopper.
- Press F4 again, and the checkboxes disappear from the People column. You're left with just a list of names again.
- Click on "Mom". You'll now notice that rather than just the 2 pictures from before, 3 pictures show up.
The same thing works for any field. You can easily change the name of a band to a different band, reassign a song's genre, or year, or album, or whatever, just by checking a checkbox. You can also add new people by checking the "New People" box that appears in Tagging Mode, and typing in the new name.