I'm going to kill iPhoto

Hi all,

Ok, I am having serious issues with iPhoto. There are just two accounts on my computer. We would like to have access to the same photos but I would rather not have to save them in 2 spots so as to save HD space. I can not for the life of me manage to share my pics with the other user unless I have my iPhoto programme open in addition to hers - I normally don't have it open so this is a problem. I tried making an alias of my Photo folder from my home directory and putting it in the shared folder. However, whenever she would like to open the shared pics folder she does not have sufficient access privileges to view the pics. I set the her file permissions to read & write for the folder and all the contents but still no go.

I don't know why this has me so frustrated but I want to take iPhoto and throw it out the **** window.

Any advice?

Jordan

I tried it here, apples site says that iphoto on the other account needs to be open in order to share with other accounts.

I don't like what iPhoto tries to be, i.e. a photo database for aol users. On the PC, I use ACDSee, which is a fast image explorer. I prefer it because it lets you organize your photos in folders and you don't have to "import" or look at "rolls" or other irrelevant terms. If I am looking for photos, I just go to the folders I want.

Unfortunately, their version for OSX doesn't work nearly as well as their PC version.

Try iView Media, it's a good photo organising app for the Mac. There is also a more expensive Pro version, but the basic one does fine for me.

What I have setup which works fine for me on multiple accounts is I dragged the iPhoto Photo Libraries folder onto my external hard drive. I hold down alt/option and clicked on iPhoto. A dialogue pops up asking what library you would like to open and I browsed my system to select the folder on my external hard drive. This worked on multiple users and it now saves my pictures on the external hard drive by default

The fact that you have to jump through hoops to accomplish what seems to be an obviously desirable feature makes me wonder if software project managers actually even use computers.

Apple is a company heavily weighted on the marketing side, and less and less on the engineering side. It's a trend I hate to see. Do you think they even listen to the marketplace?

I don't think it is bad engineering. Usually when people want to use the same data they don't have separate logons. There is also a shared folder for items you want to have shared

OK, I agree. Separate users should have separate permissions to folders.

The more I explore iLife, the more I think it is merely a portal for users to buy more software and sevices (i.e. music, photo books, etc.). What I am saying is that the priority at Apple is marketing and not user-friendliness, speed or ease of use. I suspect that the feature set was not decided by anyone who has a background in software engineering.

Maybe it's just me, but I know what I want to do and I want simple tools to get things done. I don't want the sales and marketing people at Apple trying to influence the way I use my computer. It really annoys me that iLife comes bundled with their computers...reminds me of another OS manufacturer.

PS: I like gBrowser, but unfortunately the author is no longer maintaining the project.

Hmmm,

Well, I suppose the good news is that I am not as useless as I thought I was regarding the sharing of photos. The bad news is that I have no easy way to share my photo library with the other users on my computer.

You are very right, this does seem like an obvious feature that iPhoto should have. I am very surprised that it doesn't and that with its recent update in iLife 05 that this wouldn't have been an issue to be dealt with from iLife 04.

I love my iBook and am happy that I switched but feel like I am constantly searching for other programmes to let me do what I need to do with my computer. Well, I suppose it's not so bad as there is a commendable list of free/shareware programmes available.

Thanks for all the replies.

Jordan

Oh yeah,

What is with the photo organization in iPhoto!?!? Is there someway I can just lump my photos into a single or a few manageable folders? I do I have to use the cryptic system of having a million little folders with thumbs and originals etc all over the place?

Thanks again,

Jordan

Well there is this program:

http://www.kavasoft.com/Shoebox/

never used it, but it looks nice and has a free demo.

That looks interesting, at least the folder browsing capabilities. I just don't want to spend the time adding database info to every picture I have. If I want to find a photo, I know which folder of mine to look in. These photo organizing programs seem to be targeted to people who have never used a computer file system before.

This is what I want (what I think most people do):

1) Photo browser with thumbnails that browses by file folder.
2) Manual slideshow for full screen viewing.
3) Simple Editing. Rotate, Crop, Exposure adjustment, Resize, perhaps text.

Then my photos are ready to go to the web.