PMIO's main window is called the Browser Window. One browser is opened when you run PMIO, and you can open any number of others. Each browser remembers its size, position, visible panes and the location it is displaying.
The browser is split into five main areas.
- At the top there is the Menu Bar and Tool Panel.
- On the left is the Location Browser.
- Below that is the Shortcut Pane.
- On the right is the Thumbnail Panel.
- Below that is the Status Bar.
You can right-click on each of these areas to get a context menu of relevant commands.
The Browser
Menu Bar and Tool Panel
All the functions of the browser are available from the menu bar, and many functions are also available from the tool panel below it. On the right of the menu bar is a text box that shows the location the browser is displaying. You can type or paste a new location name in here and press RETURN. You can remove old items from this list by choosing Trim Location History from the Tools menu.
The menu bar and tool panel can be toggled on and off by pressing Ctrl/F5 and Ctrl/F6 respectively. Note: The tool panel is actually customisable but there is no user interface for this in the current version of PMIO.
Location Browser
The location browser works just like the Windows Explorer folder browser. It allows you to navigate to the folder that you would like to open in the browser. You can also use it to open a basket; the baskets are listed below the regular folders. Finally, pressing Alt/9 and Alt/0 toggles between Explorer View and Catalogue View. The latter displays all folders that are in the PMIO catalogue including those that once existed but have since been deleted. This can be useful for browsing your removable volumes without mounting them in a drive.
Shortcut Pane
The shortcut pane allows you to set up a list of shortcuts to favourite locations.
To add the current location to the shortcut list:
or
- Right-click on it in the Location Browser.
- Choose Add To Shortcuts from the context menu.
Alternatively, you can create a new shortcut from scratch:
- Right-click on the shortcut pane.
- Choose New Shortcut from the context menu.
- In the dialog box that appears, type a name for the shortcut and choose the location you want it to point to.
The New Shortcut Dialog
Shortcuts can be renamed, edited or deleted by right-clicking on one and choosing Rename Shortcut, Edit Shortcut or Delete Shortcut respectively.
Thumbnail Panel
The thumbnail panel displays thumbnails for each image found at the current location. Each thumbnail contains a small representation of the image file, and other information about it.
The Thumbnail Panel
Selecting Thumbnails
If you click on a thumbnail, it will be selected. You can select more than one by clicking in the space between them and dragging a rectangle. You can also use the Shift and Ctrl keys to make multiple selections; hold down Shift to select a run of thumbnails, or Ctrl to toggle individual ones on and off. To unselect all the thumbnails quickly, click on the panel between two thumbnails and drag a little.
Changing the Thumbnail Order
You can select and drag thumbnails within the panel. While dragging, you get feedback about where the thumbnails will end up, and when you release the mouse button, the thumbnails will move to that position. This will modify the custom sort-order for the current location. You can also change the thumbnail order by using the Move To Top command. Note: If you drag the thumbnails off of the panel and onto another browser, this will move the image files to the other browser's current location. This is similar to a drag and drop operation in Windows Explorer. For more information, see Copying and Moving Images.
Image Information
If you click the label of a selected thumbnail, it will open up into a white box containing all the information known about the underlying image. To remove this box, click on the thumbnail panel or select another thumbnail.
Display Modes
The thumbnails can be displayed as images (the default), as text, or as a list. These options are available on the Thumbnail menu. Show As List is similar to the 'Details' mode in Windows Explorer; you get one row for each image with information and clickable headers for sorting.
Commands
If you right-click on a thumbnail or thumbnail selection, you will get a context menu that lets you perform many functions on the underlying images. Choose one of the topics below to get information on any of these functions:
For more information about thumbnails, see About Thumbnails.
Status Bar
The status bar shows information about the location, the images it contains and the sort order. Here you can find out how many thumbnails are selected, the size of all the images and the size of the selected images. Information about commands is also displayed here when you pass the mouse over a tool button. If an image has a duplicate in this location, this will be mentioned on the status bar, and also which drives have enough space to accept a copy of the selected images.
- See also:
- Main Page
