Aperture 1.5: Who Needs Previews?
2006-09-30
You've upgraded to Aperture 1.5 and clicked on the little box that asked if you wanted to make previews. Now you are waiting while 80,000 images are created and you don't really know why you clicked on that little box. Meanwhile your disk is filling up, your machine is slow, and the fans are going crazy.
The fact is you don't understand previews. And you almost certainly don't need the 80,000 new images that Aperture is creating for you right now. Blasphemy!
So, lets get rid of all of those previews that have been generated and take control of the situation. Click on the Library and uncheck Maintain Previews For All Projects in the action menu (cog top right in the projects window):
Then delete all the previews by control-clicking on the Library and selecting Delete Previews For Library:
And while we're at it, prevent any more previews being automatically created by opening the Aperture preferences deselecting New Projects Automatically Generate Previews:
Whew. Those fans will die down in a little while and you will be able to think.
Down to business. There are only four reasons that you need Aperture 1.5 previews:
1. You use slide shows
2. You need high resolution versions of your images with you while you are away from the originals
3. You or someone else needs to access images from other applications (including iLife) while Aperture is not running
4. You want to click and drag thumbnails from Aperture to the Finder or other applications.
And if you do need previews, then you probably don't need a library packed with them at the resolution and quality that Aperture has picked for you.
Furthermore:
1. You don't need previews to view, browse, sort, or rate images while you are away from the originals
2. Previews are never used for on-screen display except for slide shows [update -- see below]
3. Previews cannot be used to export versions or masters
4. Previews are always used at the resolution and quality they were created
Really I did not expect previews to be the way they are, but they are that way.
[Update: I'm wrong about this. Aperture does use the high resolution previews for regular screen display, but only if it thinks it can do better than the built-in library image and the master is off-line. You can test this yourself. Set the preview quality to be 0 and the size to be 1280x1280. Take a project that uses big images and regenerate all the previews. Now move the project masters to another volume and take it off-line. Try displaying the images in the project at 100% and you will see the fuzzy image based on the built-in library image appear first and then the blocky low-quality preview replace it. If the master is on-line then the preview is not used -- or at least I have never been able to catch it using it with the technique just described. However, my error does not change my advice though, given in the paragraph below. If you have off-line images and you need high resolution, then previews are most definitely for you].
Aperture already has images stored in the library that it uses for screen and thumbnail display. You don't have any control over which images have them (all of them do) or the quality or resolution they are generated at. The previews are an extra mechanism that the user can control. But you only need them if you need high quality or high resolution images that you don't have the means or the time to generate from the master on the fly. Hence the rules above.
If you do need previews, then a better way to manage them is as follows:
1. Decide how high a resolution you need and set it up by going to Aperture preferences and selecting the quality and size. Pick the size by figuring out how big you will ever want to view the images away from the originals. Pick the quality by experimentation. A setting of 7 or above seems fine to me. Check the box to share the previews with other applications:
The asterisk shows your screen size. That's a good choice for slide shows.
2. Now pick the projects and albums that you do need previews for, and make them. Control click on the project or album and select Update Previews. When it is done, you are done:
Check on progress by selecting Window > Show Tasks List to see how far it has to go:
There will be more on previews. Managing them is very confusing until you understand a few things.
The fact is you don't understand previews. And you almost certainly don't need the 80,000 new images that Aperture is creating for you right now. Blasphemy!
So, lets get rid of all of those previews that have been generated and take control of the situation. Click on the Library and uncheck Maintain Previews For All Projects in the action menu (cog top right in the projects window):
Then delete all the previews by control-clicking on the Library and selecting Delete Previews For Library:
And while we're at it, prevent any more previews being automatically created by opening the Aperture preferences deselecting New Projects Automatically Generate Previews:
Whew. Those fans will die down in a little while and you will be able to think.
Down to business. There are only four reasons that you need Aperture 1.5 previews:
1. You use slide shows
2. You need high resolution versions of your images with you while you are away from the originals
3. You or someone else needs to access images from other applications (including iLife) while Aperture is not running
4. You want to click and drag thumbnails from Aperture to the Finder or other applications.
And if you do need previews, then you probably don't need a library packed with them at the resolution and quality that Aperture has picked for you.
Furthermore:
1. You don't need previews to view, browse, sort, or rate images while you are away from the originals
2. Previews are never used for on-screen display except for slide shows [update -- see below]
3. Previews cannot be used to export versions or masters
4. Previews are always used at the resolution and quality they were created
Really I did not expect previews to be the way they are, but they are that way.
[Update: I'm wrong about this. Aperture does use the high resolution previews for regular screen display, but only if it thinks it can do better than the built-in library image and the master is off-line. You can test this yourself. Set the preview quality to be 0 and the size to be 1280x1280. Take a project that uses big images and regenerate all the previews. Now move the project masters to another volume and take it off-line. Try displaying the images in the project at 100% and you will see the fuzzy image based on the built-in library image appear first and then the blocky low-quality preview replace it. If the master is on-line then the preview is not used -- or at least I have never been able to catch it using it with the technique just described. However, my error does not change my advice though, given in the paragraph below. If you have off-line images and you need high resolution, then previews are most definitely for you].
Aperture already has images stored in the library that it uses for screen and thumbnail display. You don't have any control over which images have them (all of them do) or the quality or resolution they are generated at. The previews are an extra mechanism that the user can control. But you only need them if you need high quality or high resolution images that you don't have the means or the time to generate from the master on the fly. Hence the rules above.
If you do need previews, then a better way to manage them is as follows:
1. Decide how high a resolution you need and set it up by going to Aperture preferences and selecting the quality and size. Pick the size by figuring out how big you will ever want to view the images away from the originals. Pick the quality by experimentation. A setting of 7 or above seems fine to me. Check the box to share the previews with other applications:
The asterisk shows your screen size. That's a good choice for slide shows.
2. Now pick the projects and albums that you do need previews for, and make them. Control click on the project or album and select Update Previews. When it is done, you are done:
Check on progress by selecting Window > Show Tasks List to see how far it has to go:
There will be more on previews. Managing them is very confusing until you understand a few things.
|
Aperture 1.5: First Impressions
2006-09-30
My first impression is that my machine is going to be very busy for a long time.
After updating to 10.4.8 I installed and ran Aperture 1.5. After selecting to update my library, my Mac went to work. First there is a preparation stage during which I think it copies all the non-image library information to a safe place. Then it converts projects one by one. Then it validates the projects one by one, presumably comparing them against the data it save during preparation. At this point the projects start to reappear in the projects pane. Then it upgrades all the albums one by one and they reappear.
Then it is done! But not quite. In the background it is generating previews, about 20,000 of them in my case. This will take a while (it is still going). Use Window > Show Tasks List to see how far it has to go:
At the rate it is processing them right now, I have about 4.5 hours still to go. I can use Aperture in the meantime, but I know it is going to be sluggish.
To find out how to use the new loupe, go to Help > Late Breaking News. You bring up the old loupe first (tilde, above the TAB key on my US keyboard), then select View > Use Centered Loupe (command shift tilde). The manual that is in the Help menu is more up to date than the one on the Apple web site, but still incomplete.
The most obvious visual difference is that the keys 1 through 8 no longer add metadata to images. Option 1 through 8 do that. Keys 1 through 5 are now used to change ratings. 0 now means not rated and 9 means reject. + and - increase and decrease as before.
Clicking on the filter button brings up the filter much faster for projects with a lot of keyworded images.
After updating to 10.4.8 I installed and ran Aperture 1.5. After selecting to update my library, my Mac went to work. First there is a preparation stage during which I think it copies all the non-image library information to a safe place. Then it converts projects one by one. Then it validates the projects one by one, presumably comparing them against the data it save during preparation. At this point the projects start to reappear in the projects pane. Then it upgrades all the albums one by one and they reappear.
Then it is done! But not quite. In the background it is generating previews, about 20,000 of them in my case. This will take a while (it is still going). Use Window > Show Tasks List to see how far it has to go:
At the rate it is processing them right now, I have about 4.5 hours still to go. I can use Aperture in the meantime, but I know it is going to be sluggish.
To find out how to use the new loupe, go to Help > Late Breaking News. You bring up the old loupe first (tilde, above the TAB key on my US keyboard), then select View > Use Centered Loupe (command shift tilde). The manual that is in the Help menu is more up to date than the one on the Apple web site, but still incomplete.
The most obvious visual difference is that the keys 1 through 8 no longer add metadata to images. Option 1 through 8 do that. Keys 1 through 5 are now used to change ratings. 0 now means not rated and 9 means reject. + and - increase and decrease as before.
Clicking on the filter button brings up the filter much faster for projects with a lot of keyworded images.
Aperture 1.5 Is Out
2006-09-29
Once you have downloaded the Aperture 1.5 update (125MB) and then one of the Mac OS X 10.4.8 updates that you need to install first (148MB for me), and then let Aperture loose on your library updating all the thumbnails and previews, you'll be wondering where the new documentation is.
Right now the manuals are on the front page of Apple's Support page for Manuals, but this will change as more manuals get added to the site. You can download the manuals all in one go (about 22MB) as follows:
1. Open the Download window in Safari
2. Highlight the text below
3. Drag and drop it onto the Download window
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Aperture_Performing_Adjustments.pdf
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Aperture_Ordering_Books_and_Prints.pdf
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Aperture_Quick__Reference.pdf
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Aperture_Installing_Your_Software.pdf
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Aperture_User_Manual.pdf
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Aperture_1.0_lbn_z.pdf
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Aperture_New_Features.pdf
Update: That user manual is still the same one that shipped with 1.0. Once you are running Aperture, go to Help > User Manual for the latest version.
Neil Turner's Technique
2006-09-28
Neil Turner in the UK has a great photography web site. It includes a very detailed techniques page on which he details every aspect of a particular shoot.
Aperture 1.5: Why The Wait?
2006-09-27
Everything says it is ready -- except it is not available yet. Why not?
The best reason I can come up with is that some of the changes in it need 10.4.8, and that will be released this week too. It is also possible that the 10.4.8 release is being synchronized with an update of the MacBook and MacBook Pros, since new hardware often needs an OS revision to drive it.
While you wait you can read this article by Rob Galbraith. It includes images from the presentation in Germany this week.
The best reason I can come up with is that some of the changes in it need 10.4.8, and that will be released this week too. It is also possible that the 10.4.8 release is being synchronized with an update of the MacBook and MacBook Pros, since new hardware often needs an OS revision to drive it.
While you wait you can read this article by Rob Galbraith. It includes images from the presentation in Germany this week.
Edit Canon S3 movies in Final Cut Express HD
2006-09-26
The Canon S3 IS shoots movies at 640x480 resolution, 30fps, so it is a contender for double duty as a video camera. My only problem up until now has been editing. But recently I figured out how to do it and get a HD 16:9 aspect ratio movie into iDVD.
I use Final Cut Express HD 3.0, but FCE has restrictions on the formats it will edit and I cannot just dial in the camera resolution. I normally shoot using anamorphic on a standard definition video camera, so the resolution of the frames is 720x480 but with a scale factor applied to stretch the horizontal. I looked briefly at converting my S3 footage to DV and dealing with all the anamorphic confusion, but that seemed like a lot of work. And anyway I really wanted to avoid DV and use HD if at all possible.
Here is how I did it.
Set the project up to be HDV-Apple Intermediate Codec 720p30 by pressing control-Q and selecting from the pop-up:
This gives a resolution of 1280x720 progressive (no interlacing). It is double the width of the S3 video, and less than double the height, so forcing the S3 video into this format will chop off the top and bottom 1/8 of each frame:
In S3 video coordinates it will look like this:
There is only enough information for 640x360, so that will make for a good Quicktime export size.
I do this simply by dragging and dropping the video into the browser, but File > Import > Fiiles (command I) will work too. The raw AVI files are recognized with no problem. Internally they are motion JPEG -- just a sequence of JPEG-compressed images.
I control-click in the browser and create a new sequence. This is an important step, because the sequence that was there already (Sequence1 normally) is in the previous format, the format that was set before I changed to 720p:
See that Anamorphic flag by Sequence1? My previous project was anamorphic HD. Right-click on a sequence and select Item Properties to check how it is set up. So I delete Sequence1, rename Sequence2 to Blog, and double click it to create a timeline window for it.
Naively inserting the clips into this new sequence gives a display like the one below. The viewer (100%) on the left shows the original clip, while the timeline (66%) on the right shows a small image against black:
That's because on the right the 640x480 image is centered on a 1280x720 frame. So I must double its size. I will do this before adding it to the sequence. So I remove the clip from the sequence and double click on the clip in the browser, click on the Motion tab top left, and change the scale to 200 by typing in the box.
Now clicking on the video tab and reinserting my clip in the sequence gives me this:
Now I am filling the HD frame and automatically cropping. The advantage of scaling the original clip as I decided to do is that I never have to do it again, however many times I use that clip. The disadvantage is that I can no longer see the whole original frame in the viewer (see on the left). The alternative is to scale the clips after they are inserted into the sequence.
The red line above the timeline tells me that I need to render that part of the sequence. That is a consequence of using an HD format: all media is converted to the Apple Intermediate format. Once rendered I can play it full speed.
Now all I need to do is to edit my movie as I normally would. In addition, because I have extra material above and below the final frame I can use the motion key framing to move the frame up and down if I need to adjust what is displayed in the available space.
To export to iDVD, nothing special is needed. Just use File > Export > Quicktime Movie and that will create a file that iDVD can import. It is quick too if you deselect Make Self-Contained Movie because it can just reference the Apple Intermediate movie. If I open that with Quicktime I see that it is 1280x720 as expected. Also it is much bigger than what I started with, since the material was scaled up by a factor of 2 and results in about 4 times the file size. This is the one disadvantage with this method. iDVD will squish the frames down to standard widescreen automatically and recognize it as 16:9.
To export to Quicktime, again nothing special is needed. 640x360 or smaller is the recommended size for the aspect ratio.
I don't have Final Cut Pro, but I would expect it to handle this in a more standard fashion. And since I have not upgraded to Final Cut Express 3.5 I cannot say how this would work in that. Once I get and Intel CPU I will upgrade and my workflow may change.
I use Final Cut Express HD 3.0, but FCE has restrictions on the formats it will edit and I cannot just dial in the camera resolution. I normally shoot using anamorphic on a standard definition video camera, so the resolution of the frames is 720x480 but with a scale factor applied to stretch the horizontal. I looked briefly at converting my S3 footage to DV and dealing with all the anamorphic confusion, but that seemed like a lot of work. And anyway I really wanted to avoid DV and use HD if at all possible.
Here is how I did it.
Create a New Final Cut Express Project
Set the project up to be HDV-Apple Intermediate Codec 720p30 by pressing control-Q and selecting from the pop-up:
This gives a resolution of 1280x720 progressive (no interlacing). It is double the width of the S3 video, and less than double the height, so forcing the S3 video into this format will chop off the top and bottom 1/8 of each frame:
In S3 video coordinates it will look like this:
There is only enough information for 640x360, so that will make for a good Quicktime export size.
Import S3 Video
I do this simply by dragging and dropping the video into the browser, but File > Import > Fiiles (command I) will work too. The raw AVI files are recognized with no problem. Internally they are motion JPEG -- just a sequence of JPEG-compressed images.
Create a new HD Sequence
I control-click in the browser and create a new sequence. This is an important step, because the sequence that was there already (Sequence1 normally) is in the previous format, the format that was set before I changed to 720p:
See that Anamorphic flag by Sequence1? My previous project was anamorphic HD. Right-click on a sequence and select Item Properties to check how it is set up. So I delete Sequence1, rename Sequence2 to Blog, and double click it to create a timeline window for it.
Double The Size of the Clips
Naively inserting the clips into this new sequence gives a display like the one below. The viewer (100%) on the left shows the original clip, while the timeline (66%) on the right shows a small image against black:
That's because on the right the 640x480 image is centered on a 1280x720 frame. So I must double its size. I will do this before adding it to the sequence. So I remove the clip from the sequence and double click on the clip in the browser, click on the Motion tab top left, and change the scale to 200 by typing in the box.
Now clicking on the video tab and reinserting my clip in the sequence gives me this:
Now I am filling the HD frame and automatically cropping. The advantage of scaling the original clip as I decided to do is that I never have to do it again, however many times I use that clip. The disadvantage is that I can no longer see the whole original frame in the viewer (see on the left). The alternative is to scale the clips after they are inserted into the sequence.
The red line above the timeline tells me that I need to render that part of the sequence. That is a consequence of using an HD format: all media is converted to the Apple Intermediate format. Once rendered I can play it full speed.
Make A Movie
Now all I need to do is to edit my movie as I normally would. In addition, because I have extra material above and below the final frame I can use the motion key framing to move the frame up and down if I need to adjust what is displayed in the available space.
To export to iDVD, nothing special is needed. Just use File > Export > Quicktime Movie and that will create a file that iDVD can import. It is quick too if you deselect Make Self-Contained Movie because it can just reference the Apple Intermediate movie. If I open that with Quicktime I see that it is 1280x720 as expected. Also it is much bigger than what I started with, since the material was scaled up by a factor of 2 and results in about 4 times the file size. This is the one disadvantage with this method. iDVD will squish the frames down to standard widescreen automatically and recognize it as 16:9.
To export to Quicktime, again nothing special is needed. 640x360 or smaller is the recommended size for the aspect ratio.
Alternative Methods
I don't have Final Cut Pro, but I would expect it to handle this in a more standard fashion. And since I have not upgraded to Final Cut Express 3.5 I cannot say how this would work in that. Once I get and Intel CPU I will upgrade and my workflow may change.
Download All Aperture Quick Tours
2006-09-26
You can download all the movies in one go:
1. Open the Download window in Safari
2. Highlight the text below
3. Drag and drop it onto the Download window
4. Have a large cup of coffee. The movies are pretty big.
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/00-apple-aperture-essentials-tour_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/01-apple-aperture-acquisition_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/02-apple-aperture-interface_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/03-apple-aperture-projects_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/04-apple-aperture-browsing_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/05-apple-aperture-viewing_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/06-apple-aperture-ratings_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/07-apple-aperture-keywords_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/08-apple-aperture-liftstamp_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/09-apple-aperture-metadata_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/10-apple-aperture-search_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/11-apple-aperture-adjustments_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/12-apple-aperture-lighttable_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/13-apple-aperture-laptop_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/14-apple-aperture-books_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/15-apple-aperture-slideshow_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/16-apple-aperture-output_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/17-apple-aperture-fullscreen_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/18-apple-aperture-archiving_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/19-apple-aperture-web_720x416_20060925.mov
1. Open the Download window in Safari
2. Highlight the text below
3. Drag and drop it onto the Download window
4. Have a large cup of coffee. The movies are pretty big.
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/00-apple-aperture-essentials-tour_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/01-apple-aperture-acquisition_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/02-apple-aperture-interface_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/03-apple-aperture-projects_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/04-apple-aperture-browsing_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/05-apple-aperture-viewing_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/06-apple-aperture-ratings_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/07-apple-aperture-keywords_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/08-apple-aperture-liftstamp_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/09-apple-aperture-metadata_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/10-apple-aperture-search_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/11-apple-aperture-adjustments_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/12-apple-aperture-lighttable_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/13-apple-aperture-laptop_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/14-apple-aperture-books_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/15-apple-aperture-slideshow_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/16-apple-aperture-output_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/17-apple-aperture-fullscreen_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/18-apple-aperture-archiving_720x416_20060925.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/aperture/19-apple-aperture-web_720x416_20060925.mov
Aperture 1.5 Announced
2006-09-25
Announced, but not yet released... The update will be available "later this week", and I am sure the news will spread like wildfire once it is available.
The best information I have found so is a review of a late beta at Creative Pro. And of course on Apple's own Aperture pages.
As well as the big new features, it looks like vaults can now be split across drives: Apple now lists back up to multiple drives simultaneously and says "and the vaults themselves could consist of multiple external drives" in the description of Integrated Backup.
Automator.us has information on the new actions available in Aperture 1.5.
A post on the Apple Aperture forums today:
Aperture 1.5 includes two new commands -- Relocate Masters and Consolidate Masters -- which will automatically move images out of or into the Aperture Library bundle, so you have the choice of locating them wherever you want...and you can change your mind at any point and relocate them again, as the need arises. In any case, they will always remain linked to your Library.
Joe Schorr
Sr. Product Manager, Aperture
Apple
A list of supported cameras is on Apple's site. Fuji support has been added. And Apple's tutorials and quick tours have been updated for Aperture 1.5.
Key Value Coding 9: Getting An Array
2006-09-25
KVC can be used to get an entire array of values at once. Download KVO9 and look at it. KVO9 adds a new ivar, called type:
The VehicleCollection class does away with the two NSMutableArrays and replaces them with one:
and Vehicle now includes the type as an ivar:
These changes mean that AppController can now access an entire array of ivars with a single key path:
Look carefully at what happened there. The key path collection.paint when accessing mytoys returns an array of paint strings, one per Vehicle in the VehicleCollection object. So now KVC is saving us iteration over arrays by doing all the message passing and result collection for us. This works because collection is an NSMutableArray. That's very different from the way that NSMutableDictionaries work on this situation.
The VehicleCollection class does away with the two NSMutableArrays and replaces them with one:
and Vehicle now includes the type as an ivar:
These changes mean that AppController can now access an entire array of ivars with a single key path:
Look carefully at what happened there. The key path collection.paint when accessing mytoys returns an array of paint strings, one per Vehicle in the VehicleCollection object. So now KVC is saving us iteration over arrays by doing all the message passing and result collection for us. This works because collection is an NSMutableArray. That's very different from the way that NSMutableDictionaries work on this situation.
Change Aperture Libraries with Applescript
2006-09-24
Allan Marcus has contributed this handy Applescript to the Apple discussion boards. Compile and save it as an application using Script Studio, then drop onto the icon the Aperture library you want Aperture to open. If you double-click on the icon, Aperture will open.
on open (theFiles)
set lib to quoted form of POSIX path of theFiles
if isAppRunning("Aperture") then
tell application "Aperture" to quit
end if
repeat while isAppRunning("Aperture")
delay 1
end repeat
try
do shell script "defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Aperture LibraryPath " & lib
end try
delay 1
tell application "Aperture" to activate
end open
on run
tell application "Aperture" to activate
end run
on isAppRunning(pAppName)
tell application "Finder"
set appIsRunning to process pAppName exists
return appIsRunning
end tell
end isAppRunning
on open (theFiles)
set lib to quoted form of POSIX path of theFiles
if isAppRunning("Aperture") then
tell application "Aperture" to quit
end if
repeat while isAppRunning("Aperture")
delay 1
end repeat
try
do shell script "defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Aperture LibraryPath " & lib
end try
delay 1
tell application "Aperture" to activate
end open
on run
tell application "Aperture" to activate
end run
on isAppRunning(pAppName)
tell application "Finder"
set appIsRunning to process pAppName exists
return appIsRunning
end tell
end isAppRunning
DRM as a Market Advantage
2006-09-23
The Fishbowl describes Apple's handling of DRM very well in a piece entitled The Greatest Trick:
The greatest trick Apple pulled was to build a market where lock-in is mandated, but convince the world that this was something they did reluctantly, at the behest of the villainous recording industry.
Apple gets to define the technology, the terms of interoperability, the delivery system, customer expectations, price points -- practically the entire customer experience for digital audio players -- patent it all, and cement it in place with trademarks.
But this is not all that they have done. Apple used its might and market position to ensure that no other competitor has a more customer-friendly DRM than they have, so ensuring their continued success spearheaded with ease of use. Look at it from the content provider's viewpoint: they created a tiny monkey five years ago and now it has grown up to be an enormous gorilla. No way are they going to fall for that one again. The 800 lb gorilla may be tough to deal with, but let's face it, anything over 200 lb will be be just as bad. So the record companies put all the other monkeys on a diet and ensure Apple's continued dominance.
The greatest trick Apple pulled was to build a market where lock-in is mandated, but convince the world that this was something they did reluctantly, at the behest of the villainous recording industry.
Apple gets to define the technology, the terms of interoperability, the delivery system, customer expectations, price points -- practically the entire customer experience for digital audio players -- patent it all, and cement it in place with trademarks.
But this is not all that they have done. Apple used its might and market position to ensure that no other competitor has a more customer-friendly DRM than they have, so ensuring their continued success spearheaded with ease of use. Look at it from the content provider's viewpoint: they created a tiny monkey five years ago and now it has grown up to be an enormous gorilla. No way are they going to fall for that one again. The 800 lb gorilla may be tough to deal with, but let's face it, anything over 200 lb will be be just as bad. So the record companies put all the other monkeys on a diet and ensure Apple's continued dominance.
Aperture No Longer On Macs In The Apple Store
2006-09-21
I was in the Mall Of America (Minnesota) the other day and Aperture was not loaded onto any of the machines in the store, a fact confirmed by the staff. I know that all the machines I checked had had it removed, because I could still find the supporting files (plists etc.) present. There is some discussion of this on the Apple Aperture Discussion board.
Aperture: Book Metadata
2006-09-18
Metadata can be added to books. Here I've created a page in the small soft cover book I already had started and dragged a photo on to it:
I need a border to leave room for the metadata. To do that I drag the corners in and then change the way that Aperture fills the box by right-clicking and changing from Scale To Fit Centered to Scale to Fill:
Now adding metadata should be easy. I make sure I am in Edit Layout mode, select an image, click on the Add Metadata button::
And there it is. Or is it? It turns out that this does not work. At all. It turns out that you can't add metadata boxes to small soft cover books -- or at least I can't make it work. So lets start again. I'll pick a new theme, say Special Occasion, and edit it a little. Now let's add metadata to this image:
After moving the new metadata box I get this:
And now I can go to the metadata format drop-down and select something else:
Such as aperture:
But that is not very friendly. It looks like I have to create a separate box for each item I want to add. No metadata sets here? Apparently not. I hope that is coming in a later version. Anyway here is the result:
Another neat thing you can do with books is to automatically flow all the photos into the template and then rearrange:
Some of its choices are inspired, like this one:
And this one:
Unfortunately there is no way to randomize the images into a book. That would be a real boon.
A neat feature of the books is that as long as you are in Edit Mode, if you drag photos about on a page they will swap, not replace. In other words, there is no need to cut and paste and reposition. Drag to rearrange, simple as that.
I need a border to leave room for the metadata. To do that I drag the corners in and then change the way that Aperture fills the box by right-clicking and changing from Scale To Fit Centered to Scale to Fill:
Now adding metadata should be easy. I make sure I am in Edit Layout mode, select an image, click on the Add Metadata button::
And there it is. Or is it? It turns out that this does not work. At all. It turns out that you can't add metadata boxes to small soft cover books -- or at least I can't make it work. So lets start again. I'll pick a new theme, say Special Occasion, and edit it a little. Now let's add metadata to this image:
After moving the new metadata box I get this:
And now I can go to the metadata format drop-down and select something else:
Such as aperture:
But that is not very friendly. It looks like I have to create a separate box for each item I want to add. No metadata sets here? Apparently not. I hope that is coming in a later version. Anyway here is the result:
Another neat thing you can do with books is to automatically flow all the photos into the template and then rearrange:
Some of its choices are inspired, like this one:
And this one:
Unfortunately there is no way to randomize the images into a book. That would be a real boon.
A neat feature of the books is that as long as you are in Edit Mode, if you drag photos about on a page they will swap, not replace. In other words, there is no need to cut and paste and reposition. Drag to rearrange, simple as that.
Apple's iPhone is Just a Phone
2006-09-15
Speculation about the "iPhone" has been rampant, with discussion, speculation, mock-ups, fakes, history, concepts, and jokes like the one above.
Here's my prediction about Apple's phone: it's just a phone. Yes, there will be a camera and a click wheel, and games, and it will play music, and it will make calls of course, but it will still just be a phone.
JUST A PHONE??? This is Apple and they always make this groundbreaking stuff, so how can it just be a phone? Actually I may be overstating things. It probably does not have a camera, and may well not have all sorts of other features that high-end phones have today. That's because Apple wants mass appeal and they want something that is basically a low-price, simple device. A very simple device. Because simple devices are easier to design, make, sell, support, market, and everything else. Apple wants to do one thing well with this phone, one thing so well that it is head and shoulders over the other phones that are out there. So what is there?
Integration. This phone will be so integrated with the iPod, the Mac, and the internet that it will be hard to tell where one ends and another starts. Many of the features that would normally be crammed onto a small display and keyboard will be missing entirely, transferred to your desktop. Syncing will be effortless and automatic. Your address book and calendar will be there. And your music and games. And the phone will have multiple identities, like fast user switching, to allow families and other groups to share one phone. You'll be able to listen to your voice mail on your iPod or in front of your TV (via iTV) because your Mac will automatically download voicemail for you, and you will be able to manage it in iTunes. You'll also be able to use the phone as a voice recorder and have it drop those files into iTunes. If you call someone else's phone (any phone) and get voicemail, you'll be able to press a button and have your phone leave a standard message.
Wonder why speech is going to be so much better in Leopard? You'll be able to have your Mac call you as long as it is connected to the internet to provide status information or to pass on voice mail it has received. There will be exclusive Apple ring tones that you buy on the iTunes store. You'll be able to use your iTunes account to pay for time used on the phone. And you'll be able to use your phone number as an identity for email, iChat, and other forms of communication through the Mac.
Your calling history will download to your Mac and display in nifty ways. If you pull up a contact in the address book you'll see when you last called that person. Reminders will be able to ring you phone when they occur. The phone will be able to take part in audio iChats too. You'll be able to start a chat on your Mac and then dial out to anyone you want to include. Chat invitations that come in will be routable to your phone. All phone functions like call forwarding will be done on your Mac.
You'll have a choice of bandwidth too: need it fast, pay for the call and deal with a slow transfer rate. If you can wait until you get in the office, sync through Bluetooth for a faster choice. Or for best speed (USB 2.0), use the cradle. The screen and keyboard will adapt to the environmental light level so it is never dim or glaring. It will have an audio input jack so you can hook up an iPod to it and play through one set of headphones attached to the phone.
But despite all that, it will still be just a phone.
Apple At Photokina
2006-09-14
Macworld and others report that Apple is hosting a special event at Photokina September 25th. A new version of Aperture? I certainly hope so.
Aperture: Laying Out a Book
2006-09-14
Now I have the cover of my book in place, it is time to add some content. On the left side of the book viewer is a schematic of the pages that make up the book:
The first page is the outside cover and is unnumbered. The inside of the cover is not shown (gap to the left of page 1) and is blank in the final output. The page numbered 1 is the first non-cover page (on the right) and the following page pairs are shown as they would look if the book were opened flat on a table.
I'll go with this style and make my page 1 just have the title. If I paste in the title from the cover, I get this:
No style has been applied. So I have to apply the style I want by selecting the text and control-clicking to get the Styles:
The style I have previously defined is called Title. So select that and click Apply:
to get the effect needed:
Now pages 2 and 3 are set to full page photos. What I would like to have here is a 1-up spread: a single photo that spans both pages. I click on the little triangle next to page 2 and select the 1-up spread like so:
That changes the page thumbnail to look like this:
and I can now drag an image onto the spread and adjust it to get the desired result:
There is so little color in this image that I think I will convert it to monochrome with a filter. I can filter the images in the book without affecting the version I am using. I switch to Layout Edit mode and select the image, then apply a filter from the filter pop-up:
to get this:
For the next page I want a close up image of some action. The image I want is part of a stack (the one on the right), so lets drag it onto page 4:
But it doesn't work. I get this:
The problem here is that I can only use the stack pick. But there is a way out: I can make a special kind of pick called the Album Pick. It's the pick just for this album (or book or web gallery). I select the image and go to Stack > Set Album Pick (command vertical bar) and a new badge appears to show the album pick:
Now the drag to page 4 will work, and I can close the stack it it will work as well:
For the facing page, page 5, I want some descriptive text. It's about time this book actually said something about wind and water. So I select a blank page and create a new text box, and put my text in. I select Palatino as the font and make it italic. My friends are all Romans, so the text is in Latin:
That's nice, but I want to have drop caps for the C and the second Q. However, I can't figure out how to do this with Aperture.
On the next two pages I want to use a picture of the stones on the beach as a background for lots a small images. But if I drag the same stones image to both pages it will be obvious that it is a duplicate. So I create a new version of the original and then manipulate the two before putting them on the pages:
That generates a new version and automatically makes it the album pick in a stack. So I have to drag it out of the stack to be able to use both:
I select the left thumbnail and hit F to go into full screen mode. Then hit C to bring up the cropping tool and select a part of the image:
Hit A to end the crop and F to exit full screen. I repeat that for the right thumbnail and include a rotation and a different part of the image. Here are my pages:
To use that as a background I want it to be much lighter, so I filter it with a light wash from the filter pop-up:
Next I want to add images. If I drag and drop any images they will simply replace the ones that are there, so that will not do. I need to create a new photo box for each image I want to place and then drag and drop into those.
From Layout Edit mode, I select one of the pages and the use the action menu to add a new photo box:
Then I repeat and rearrange as needed. If I want I can select preset aspect ratios for my photo boxes with control-click:
There, done:
Now I can fill the boxes and adjust the photos:
It's a pity that the typography in Aperture is not up to scratch. I am hoping that they transplant the Pages features into Aperture and make the text handling more consistent.
The first page is the outside cover and is unnumbered. The inside of the cover is not shown (gap to the left of page 1) and is blank in the final output. The page numbered 1 is the first non-cover page (on the right) and the following page pairs are shown as they would look if the book were opened flat on a table.
I'll go with this style and make my page 1 just have the title. If I paste in the title from the cover, I get this:
No style has been applied. So I have to apply the style I want by selecting the text and control-clicking to get the Styles:
The style I have previously defined is called Title. So select that and click Apply:
to get the effect needed:
Now pages 2 and 3 are set to full page photos. What I would like to have here is a 1-up spread: a single photo that spans both pages. I click on the little triangle next to page 2 and select the 1-up spread like so:
That changes the page thumbnail to look like this:
and I can now drag an image onto the spread and adjust it to get the desired result:
There is so little color in this image that I think I will convert it to monochrome with a filter. I can filter the images in the book without affecting the version I am using. I switch to Layout Edit mode and select the image, then apply a filter from the filter pop-up:
to get this:
For the next page I want a close up image of some action. The image I want is part of a stack (the one on the right), so lets drag it onto page 4:
But it doesn't work. I get this:
The problem here is that I can only use the stack pick. But there is a way out: I can make a special kind of pick called the Album Pick. It's the pick just for this album (or book or web gallery). I select the image and go to Stack > Set Album Pick (command vertical bar) and a new badge appears to show the album pick:
Now the drag to page 4 will work, and I can close the stack it it will work as well:
For the facing page, page 5, I want some descriptive text. It's about time this book actually said something about wind and water. So I select a blank page and create a new text box, and put my text in. I select Palatino as the font and make it italic. My friends are all Romans, so the text is in Latin:
That's nice, but I want to have drop caps for the C and the second Q. However, I can't figure out how to do this with Aperture.
On the next two pages I want to use a picture of the stones on the beach as a background for lots a small images. But if I drag the same stones image to both pages it will be obvious that it is a duplicate. So I create a new version of the original and then manipulate the two before putting them on the pages:
That generates a new version and automatically makes it the album pick in a stack. So I have to drag it out of the stack to be able to use both:
I select the left thumbnail and hit F to go into full screen mode. Then hit C to bring up the cropping tool and select a part of the image:
Hit A to end the crop and F to exit full screen. I repeat that for the right thumbnail and include a rotation and a different part of the image. Here are my pages:
To use that as a background I want it to be much lighter, so I filter it with a light wash from the filter pop-up:
Next I want to add images. If I drag and drop any images they will simply replace the ones that are there, so that will not do. I need to create a new photo box for each image I want to place and then drag and drop into those.
From Layout Edit mode, I select one of the pages and the use the action menu to add a new photo box:
Then I repeat and rearrange as needed. If I want I can select preset aspect ratios for my photo boxes with control-click:
There, done:
Now I can fill the boxes and adjust the photos:
It's a pity that the typography in Aperture is not up to scratch. I am hoping that they transplant the Pages features into Aperture and make the text handling more consistent.
The Yip Yip Martians Discover a Phone
2006-09-13
Devil Ducky has a video of the Yip Yip Martians from Sesame Street finding a phone and trying to communicate with it.
Key Value Coding 8: Accessing An Array
2006-09-11
KVO8 is a modified version of KVO6. KVO7 was a side step. In KVO8 fact it looks just like KVO6. Get it at the download page.
In KVO8 the VehicleCollection class has the NSMutableDictionaries replaced with NSMutableArrays:
The code to access the ivars in AppController is different now since the array is indexed:
The first valueForKey is used to access the NSMutableArray ivar by name, either cars or bikes. Then objectAtIndex is used to access the Vehicle in the array, and finally valueForKeyPath accesses the ivar by name. So that is three accesses to get the data.
In KVO8 the VehicleCollection class has the NSMutableDictionaries replaced with NSMutableArrays:
The code to access the ivars in AppController is different now since the array is indexed:
The first valueForKey is used to access the NSMutableArray ivar by name, either cars or bikes. Then objectAtIndex is used to access the Vehicle in the array, and finally valueForKeyPath accesses the ivar by name. So that is three accesses to get the data.
The Amazon Unbox
2006-09-09
Tom Merritt has experienced Unbox, the new movie download service from Amazon and he doesn't like it:
So, in summary, to be allowed the privilege of purchasing a video that I can't burn to DVD and can't watch on my iPod, I have to allow a program to hijack my start-up and force me to login to uninstall it? No way. Sorry, Amazon. I love a lot of what you do, but I will absolutely not recommend this service. Try again.
You would think that an internet retail pioneer would realize that there are no second tries, but somehow that has escaped them and they have rolled out this particularly odd way of losing customer loyalty and diluting their brand.
So, in summary, to be allowed the privilege of purchasing a video that I can't burn to DVD and can't watch on my iPod, I have to allow a program to hijack my start-up and force me to login to uninstall it? No way. Sorry, Amazon. I love a lot of what you do, but I will absolutely not recommend this service. Try again.
You would think that an internet retail pioneer would realize that there are no second tries, but somehow that has escaped them and they have rolled out this particularly odd way of losing customer loyalty and diluting their brand.
Aperture: Making a Book Cover
2006-09-08
The easiest way to get started with a book is to make a selection of images that you want to put in it and then do File > New From Selection > Book. Here is what you get:
Don't miss the softcover books, selected by picking from the pop-up top left:
Here I have made an image selection, created a new book and called it Wind and Water:
There are 40 images in there that are straight from the camera. I went through several hundred that I had shot recently and gave anything that was part way decent one star and deleted the ones that were no good for anything, then filtered to one star, selected all of them, and created a new book.
So why not adjust and tag and rate and all that and then make the book? Well partly because I don't have to do things in that order if I don't want to: that is one of the beauties of Aperture. It is non-destructive and non-linear as well. Not so much of a workflow tool as a work freedom tool. And partly because I want to see how the images look together in a book before I start messing with them. And partly because I don't think I will use these images for anything else ever, so why bother with the extra work?
So here is the book that it created:
Except that I don't see a book here. Apart from a few new icons upper right, it looks just like the grid view to me. I have to press V to bring up the viewer because the viewer was not visible when I created the book. The book appears in the viewer. Aperture should really do that step for you.
Here I have used shift W to put the thumbnails at the bottom and W to get rid of the project pane. I magnified the book image a little by using the slider top right. On the left is the layout of the pages in my 20 page softcover book.
So far there are no images in the book, so everything is gray. To get images in I just drag and drop from the thumbnails to the grey boxes. Here is the first page with an image dropped on:
I clicked on the text and changed it to make a book title as well. The thumbnail I used now has a little number on it showing that I have used the image once:
But I don't like this image the way it is. It should be bigger and more central. And I think it would look better flipped 180 degrees. So I select the image and hit ] twice to flip it and then double click to bring up the Image Scale slider and adjust the size. To centralize the image, I just click and drag:
To end this I click outside the image. Was there any exposure adjustment when I took this photo? Just put the cursor over the image and press T to to bring up the metadata:
No exposure bias there. Now the colors look too dull for a title page, so I hit H to bring up the adjustment HUD and play a little. Am I making the image too grainy? Bring up the loupe and have a look:
It probably is too grainy, so I'll reduce the magnification, change the composition some more, and crank up the saturation:
Good. Now what about that font? I want something more interesting, but there is no obvious way to change it. It's done through the pop-up menu. If I control-click on the text and select Fonts that gets me this:
And now I can select something better:
But I want the text centered and there is no obvious way to do this either! This is because the alignment of the text in the text box is a property of the text box, not of the text inside it. So I have to switch to Edit Layout mode. So far I have been in Edit Content mode, so moving text boxes and all that has not been possible. This is good because I can't accidently mess anything up. To change modes I click the right button of these two on the top left:
And now I can change the setting either by selecting the text box and control-clicking on one of the control points:
or by selecting the text box and using the Actions menu (cog icon) on the lower left:
And here is the text centered:
While I'm in Edit Layout, I'll take the time to move the box up and add some more text. Moving the box up and down is tricky because the box snaps to the edge of the page and the image, but this only happens if I use the control points on the edges of the text box. If I use the corner points the movement is smooth and I can get to where I want:
For that extra text, I use the action menu (cog icon) to add a new text box and position it. Then add and style text:
Now I will probably want to use these styles again in other parts of the book. By selecting some text and right-clicking I can get to the Style dialog:
and that lets me add it to my favorites. The style is actually shown in the white area, but you can't see it because it is white on white:
I click Add To Favorites and can give it a name:
I can repeat this with the other style I used and then select these later through the Favorite Styles selection. The way all of this works is really kooky. I don't know why there is not just an inspector like in Pages that does all of this. To style new text, select it, control-click to get the styles sheet, click Favorite Styles, and pick the one you want:
and click Apply. The styles two I added I called Overtype and Title, and you can see them in the list above.
So here is my finished title page:
I have no idea how this would look printed as a book, but for this exercise I don't care. I could simply print this book to a PDF document and email it if I preferred that.
Don't miss the softcover books, selected by picking from the pop-up top left:
Here I have made an image selection, created a new book and called it Wind and Water:
There are 40 images in there that are straight from the camera. I went through several hundred that I had shot recently and gave anything that was part way decent one star and deleted the ones that were no good for anything, then filtered to one star, selected all of them, and created a new book.
So why not adjust and tag and rate and all that and then make the book? Well partly because I don't have to do things in that order if I don't want to: that is one of the beauties of Aperture. It is non-destructive and non-linear as well. Not so much of a workflow tool as a work freedom tool. And partly because I want to see how the images look together in a book before I start messing with them. And partly because I don't think I will use these images for anything else ever, so why bother with the extra work?
So here is the book that it created:
Except that I don't see a book here. Apart from a few new icons upper right, it looks just like the grid view to me. I have to press V to bring up the viewer because the viewer was not visible when I created the book. The book appears in the viewer. Aperture should really do that step for you.
Here I have used shift W to put the thumbnails at the bottom and W to get rid of the project pane. I magnified the book image a little by using the slider top right. On the left is the layout of the pages in my 20 page softcover book.
So far there are no images in the book, so everything is gray. To get images in I just drag and drop from the thumbnails to the grey boxes. Here is the first page with an image dropped on:
I clicked on the text and changed it to make a book title as well. The thumbnail I used now has a little number on it showing that I have used the image once:
But I don't like this image the way it is. It should be bigger and more central. And I think it would look better flipped 180 degrees. So I select the image and hit ] twice to flip it and then double click to bring up the Image Scale slider and adjust the size. To centralize the image, I just click and drag:
To end this I click outside the image. Was there any exposure adjustment when I took this photo? Just put the cursor over the image and press T to to bring up the metadata:
No exposure bias there. Now the colors look too dull for a title page, so I hit H to bring up the adjustment HUD and play a little. Am I making the image too grainy? Bring up the loupe and have a look:
It probably is too grainy, so I'll reduce the magnification, change the composition some more, and crank up the saturation:
Good. Now what about that font? I want something more interesting, but there is no obvious way to change it. It's done through the pop-up menu. If I control-click on the text and select Fonts that gets me this:
And now I can select something better:
But I want the text centered and there is no obvious way to do this either! This is because the alignment of the text in the text box is a property of the text box, not of the text inside it. So I have to switch to Edit Layout mode. So far I have been in Edit Content mode, so moving text boxes and all that has not been possible. This is good because I can't accidently mess anything up. To change modes I click the right button of these two on the top left:
And now I can change the setting either by selecting the text box and control-clicking on one of the control points:
or by selecting the text box and using the Actions menu (cog icon) on the lower left:
And here is the text centered:
While I'm in Edit Layout, I'll take the time to move the box up and add some more text. Moving the box up and down is tricky because the box snaps to the edge of the page and the image, but this only happens if I use the control points on the edges of the text box. If I use the corner points the movement is smooth and I can get to where I want:
For that extra text, I use the action menu (cog icon) to add a new text box and position it. Then add and style text:
Now I will probably want to use these styles again in other parts of the book. By selecting some text and right-clicking I can get to the Style dialog:
and that lets me add it to my favorites. The style is actually shown in the white area, but you can't see it because it is white on white:
I click Add To Favorites and can give it a name:
I can repeat this with the other style I used and then select these later through the Favorite Styles selection. The way all of this works is really kooky. I don't know why there is not just an inspector like in Pages that does all of this. To style new text, select it, control-click to get the styles sheet, click Favorite Styles, and pick the one you want:
and click Apply. The styles two I added I called Overtype and Title, and you can see them in the list above.
So here is my finished title page:
I have no idea how this would look printed as a book, but for this exercise I don't care. I could simply print this book to a PDF document and email it if I preferred that.
Aperture vs. Lightroom
2006-09-05
Key Value Coding 7: Accessing a Dictionary
2006-09-04
Download the code for KVO7. This program is a side step that uses a key path to return a dictionary:
When you enter the ivar name at the top it displays information in one pair of fields or the other depending on whether the vehicle is a car or a bike.
All the changes in this code are in the AppController. It accesses the ivars like this:
Look at the variable d. It is set with a key path that looks like cars.limo. So that returns a dictionary and the rest of the code accesses that dictionary with valueForkey. nil values are returned if the vehicle named is not in the dictionary, so the code uses that to fill in the correct fields of the window.
When you enter the ivar name at the top it displays information in one pair of fields or the other depending on whether the vehicle is a car or a bike.
All the changes in this code are in the AppController. It accesses the ivars like this:
Look at the variable d. It is set with a key path that looks like cars.limo. So that returns a dictionary and the rest of the code accesses that dictionary with valueForkey. nil values are returned if the vehicle named is not in the dictionary, so the code uses that to fill in the correct fields of the window.
Multiplayer Game of the Year
2006-09-03
Cabel's Blog has an article about the Multiplayer Game of the Year. It's not what you think it might be. It's running. Real running on two legs.
What makes it multiplayer is that he's using iPod+Nike and competing against people on line. And that is where it gets interesting. He's writing about the social and emotional attachment that iPod+Nike has given him through running. This is where Apple is earning its new long-term business: technological support for emotional and social experiences.
What makes it multiplayer is that he's using iPod+Nike and competing against people on line. And that is where it gets interesting. He's writing about the social and emotional attachment that iPod+Nike has given him through running. This is where Apple is earning its new long-term business: technological support for emotional and social experiences.
Aperture Metadata Sets
2006-09-01
Quick! -- What time of day was that photo taken? Was their any exposure compensation used?
You can find out this kind of thing in Aperture with a single key press. Put the cursor over the image (or thumbnail) and hit T. Up will pop a little overlay that gives you some information about the image. Hit T again and it will go away. It's especially useful in full screen mode or any view with all thumbnails because you don't have to make any workspace changes and then undo them again.
Here is a full-screen image with the pop-up showing:
For this image, the pop-up looks like this. It is only as big as it needs to be to display the information that is available:
In theory the pop-up should change as you drag the cursor about over different images, but I have found this to be unreliable. So I generally hit T then T again to make sure it has gone. Apple calls this an Image Tooltip, but that is a rather odd name. It has nothing to do with tools or tips. Metadata Quick Look or something like that would be more meaningful.
The information it displays is customizable too, and that makes this an even handier tool. You will find the controls for this in View > View Options (or hit command J):
It's the last one. All you can do is to set the metadata set that is displayed by selecting one from the pop-up. Clicking the checkbox is the same as hitting T. You can enable the tooltips and see what effect the different metadata sets have with the window open.
Also on here are all the other settings for metadata display for both the viewer and the grid (thumbnails) and the list view. I choose to display everything Over thumbnails, but that doesn't really mean that everything overlays them because there isn't enough room. Here is a thumbnail with the display set to Over:
and here is the same thumbnail with the display set to Below:
The badges get their own space in the Below view, but the other data is always below. Show Labels will prefix each item of data with what it is, such as "Image Date". I keep this turned off since it just uses more space.
To change what the metadata sets such as Tooltips - expanded actually specify, you have to press I (uppercase i) to get the inspector and then select the one you want to change:
Then when it has been selected, you can edit it, rename it, or duplicate it, or create a completely new set:
If you chose to edit it, you will get a display like this:
You can remove items with the little
symbols, or add them by clicking the checkboxes in the lower part of the panel. And you can change the order of the data by dragging the metadata labels.
I have my metadata views set up so that I have Viewer - Basic normally overlaying the image. What this means is that I get badges only and they are on top of the image. This allows the image to be as big as possible and have almost no clutter.
If I switch sets with Shift Y I get everything (Viewer - Expanded) below the image:
For thumbnails I can use Shift U to switch between the sets. Again Grid - Basic overlays the badges but I also have it set up to show the size of the image in pixels and bytes. This is small data and fits easily:
Grid - Expanded overlays the badges too, but puts other data below the image. I display keywords and captions in this mode so I can see how far I have gotten in adding that data to my images:
Although the controls are a little spread out, the metadata viewing capabilities of Aperture are pretty good. The only thing that I wish I could do that I cannot is to have more selections for the placement of data. For instance I would like to have metadata on the left or right side of many images. I have the screen space and it is black, but Aperture only puts the data it at the bottom, so shrinking the image size.
You can find out this kind of thing in Aperture with a single key press. Put the cursor over the image (or thumbnail) and hit T. Up will pop a little overlay that gives you some information about the image. Hit T again and it will go away. It's especially useful in full screen mode or any view with all thumbnails because you don't have to make any workspace changes and then undo them again.
Here is a full-screen image with the pop-up showing:
For this image, the pop-up looks like this. It is only as big as it needs to be to display the information that is available:
In theory the pop-up should change as you drag the cursor about over different images, but I have found this to be unreliable. So I generally hit T then T again to make sure it has gone. Apple calls this an Image Tooltip, but that is a rather odd name. It has nothing to do with tools or tips. Metadata Quick Look or something like that would be more meaningful.
The information it displays is customizable too, and that makes this an even handier tool. You will find the controls for this in View > View Options (or hit command J):
It's the last one. All you can do is to set the metadata set that is displayed by selecting one from the pop-up. Clicking the checkbox is the same as hitting T. You can enable the tooltips and see what effect the different metadata sets have with the window open.
Also on here are all the other settings for metadata display for both the viewer and the grid (thumbnails) and the list view. I choose to display everything Over thumbnails, but that doesn't really mean that everything overlays them because there isn't enough room. Here is a thumbnail with the display set to Over:
and here is the same thumbnail with the display set to Below:
The badges get their own space in the Below view, but the other data is always below. Show Labels will prefix each item of data with what it is, such as "Image Date". I keep this turned off since it just uses more space.
To change what the metadata sets such as Tooltips - expanded actually specify, you have to press I (uppercase i) to get the inspector and then select the one you want to change:
Then when it has been selected, you can edit it, rename it, or duplicate it, or create a completely new set:
If you chose to edit it, you will get a display like this:
You can remove items with the little
symbols, or add them by clicking the checkboxes in the lower part of the panel. And you can change the order of the data by dragging the metadata labels.I have my metadata views set up so that I have Viewer - Basic normally overlaying the image. What this means is that I get badges only and they are on top of the image. This allows the image to be as big as possible and have almost no clutter.
If I switch sets with Shift Y I get everything (Viewer - Expanded) below the image:
For thumbnails I can use Shift U to switch between the sets. Again Grid - Basic overlays the badges but I also have it set up to show the size of the image in pixels and bytes. This is small data and fits easily:
Grid - Expanded overlays the badges too, but puts other data below the image. I display keywords and captions in this mode so I can see how far I have gotten in adding that data to my images:
Although the controls are a little spread out, the metadata viewing capabilities of Aperture are pretty good. The only thing that I wish I could do that I cannot is to have more selections for the placement of data. For instance I would like to have metadata on the left or right side of many images. I have the screen space and it is black, but Aperture only puts the data it at the bottom, so shrinking the image size.
Skeletons of Cartoon Characters
2006-09-01
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