iPhoto Buddy
iPhoto Buddy
What is iPhoto Buddy?
iPhoto Buddy
is a Mac OS X application (Universal) that allows you
to easily create, manage, and switch between multiple
iPhoto Libraries. The advantages of splitting your
One Huge Photo Library into multiple, smaller ones
include improved iPhoto performance, increased
flexibility in organizing your digital photo
collection, and a consistency with most other Mac
applications that allow their respective data to be
stored in as many documents (in this case,
"Libraries") as you like.
iPhoto Buddy uses a simple, streamlined interface
that was inspired by iPhoto itself. Anyone that has
used iPhoto will immediately feel right at home using
iPhoto Buddy. It truly is a companion application--a
real buddy!
iPhoto Buddy will never alter/move/delete your
Libraries or your photo files. It's perfectly safe!
What can you do with it?
With
iPhoto Buddy,
you can easily manage an entire list of iPhoto
Libraries, enabling you to quickly and easily open
the Library of your choice for
viewing/editing/printing in iPhoto.
You can easily switch between your multiple
Libraries, and iPhoto Buddy will automatically quit
iPhoto and instantly re-launch it with the newly
selected Library (iPhoto can only have one Library
open at a time).
There is no limit to the number of Libraries, and
they can be located in various locations--even on
external hard disk drives, network volumes, or
encrypted disk images. Each Library can be assigned
its own name that differs from its folder name in the
Finder; each Library can be assigned a thumbnail
image that can help to remind you of its contents;
and each Library can be password protected for
privacy/security.
iPhoto Buddy also displays various details about your
Libraries without launching iPhoto. Information like
each Library's size and image count as well as a
complete listing of the Albums, Smart Albums,
Folders, Books, Slide Shows, etc. contained therein.
And in keeping with the enhanced integration of the
iApps that Apple introduced with the original iLife
package, iPhoto Buddy also allows you to open iMovie,
iDVD, and iWeb using any of your iPhoto Libraries for
importing photos into your Movies, DVDs and websites.
In fact with iPhoto Buddy, any application that
contains a Media Browser for accessing your iPhoto
Library, can used with ANY of your iPhoto Libraries.
What
are the system requirements?
iPhoto Buddy requires a Macintosh computer running OS
X 10.3.9 or later, and iPhoto 2 or later. iPhoto
Buddy is fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard,
as well as 10.4 Tiger and 10.3 Panther. iPhoto Buddy
is fully compatible with iLife '04, iLife '05, iLife
'06, and iLife '08.
How
does it work?
If
you're like me, you prefer to understand exactly what
a new program is doing with the precious information
on your computer. You can relax. iPhoto Buddy is
quite innocuous. Here's what it does:
- Creates a folder in your Preferences folder (/users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences/iPhoto Buddy) in which it stores special alias files and application preferences. Do not move or modify this folder or its contents unless you stop using iPhoto Buddy and remove it from your computer.
- Modifies iPhoto's plist file (/users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iPhoto.plist) each time you use iPhoto Buddy to launch iPhoto. The modification is a simple one in which iPhoto Buddy inserts the path to the selected Library's folder into the proper location in iPhoto's plist file. When iPhoto is launched, it reads the plist file and uses the Library specified therein.
- Modifies the plist file (/users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iApps.plist) used by iMovie/iDVD/iWeb (and Pages, and Keynote, and Screen Saver, too!) to determine the location of your iPhoto Library each time you use iPhoto Buddy to launch iMovie, iDVD, or iWeb.
