The first thing to learn about the user interface is the Explorer Bar. You can find it as a vertical bar at the far left-hand side of the main window. The Explorer Bar allows you to display (open) or hide (close) different panels in the application, with each type of panel represented by an icon tab in the bar. To open a panel, just click once on the icon. To close a panel, either select a different icon or click on the active icon again. Each of the icons will display their name when you hover (by pausing the mouse) over the icon.
The entries in the Explorer Bar are:
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Catalog Explorer The Catalog Explorer is the spider's web in IDimager. It allows you to browse images stored in the catalog database in a tree-styled manner
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Media Explorer The Media Explorer allows you to directly browse through the file system for your images
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Image Details By opening this panel you will be able to edit the details/metadata of the selected images
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Preview The Preview panel shows a preview image (small sized image) of the currently selected image
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Collection Details This panel shows more information about the currently active collection
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Calendar This panel displays a calendar, and a preview will be shown if there were images taken on that day. You can also use the calendar to find all images on a given date or within a range of dates
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Exif Info This panel displays, for the selected image, the technical information such as the date and time the picture was taken, the shutter speed, the aperture opening, etc. (the so called Exif information). For more information about Exif, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EXIF
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Histogram This panel displays the histogram of the selected image. A histogram displays how the color intensities in the image are distributed, allowing you to more accurately edit the image. For more info about histograms, seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histogram
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Versions This panel contains all images that are defined as versions of the selected image. A version will typically be an image that is derived from another image; e.g. an edited image
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Script panel This panel can be populated with an IDimager script. It will show you the active script content and is intended to offer you a flexible panel that can be populated with info not standard available in IDimager. |
By default IDimager is configured to close any existing open panels when you open a new panel. However, by holding down the [Ctrl] key while clicking on an Explorer Bar icon, IDimager will keep the existing panel(s) open when opening a new panel. In this way you can have multiple panels opened at the same time, allowing you to work with several main features of the program simultaneously.
IDimager also provides you several ways to change the Explorer Bar behavior. For example, IDimager can be configured so that clicking on an Explorer Bar icon will work exactly the opposite to the default behavior, i.e. clicking on an Explorer Bar icon will open the panel and add it to any existing open panels, while [Ctrl] + Click will open the panel but close any existing open panels. To configure this behavior, de-select the options setting in the options dialog ("Tools -> Options -> General -> When opening a panel from the left Explorer Bar then all opened panels should close").
The Tools -> Options -> General tab contains two other relevant options for controlling the Explorer Bar behavior: Clean panel opening, and Use colored panel captions.
"Clean panel opening" is a setting that allows you to keep panels on the left side at a pre-fixed width. This makes switching panels more "eye-friendly", since the display will not shift when you change panels.
"Use colored panel captions" is another relevant setting. When you switch this option off, IDimager will use your application's theme for its color scheme in the left tab menu. Note: colored panels are not supported by all application themes.
Floating and docking panels
Each panel can be dragged “out” of the Explorer Bar. Once dragged out, the panel becomes “floated”. To float a panel, click the panel's caption bar (its header or title bar) and drag it to a different on-screen position. If you use a dual monitor system, IDimager will also allow you to drag panels to a second monitor. Floated panels can remain floating while the application is running, and IDimager will remember and restore their on-screen positions when you restart the application.
A panel can be docked in IDimager in four different positions: the far-left, the far-right, the top, and the bottom of the screen. To dock a panel to a new location, just click the panel's caption bar, drag it to any of these screen locations, and then release the mouse. You can also drag several panels to the same dock area (left, right, top, bottom) to "stack" the panels. The panel stack order will correspond to the order in which the panels where dragged into the screen location. To remove a panel in its stack, just drag it to its new location and release the mouse. The screen sample below displays a stack of panels at the right side dock-area of the screen.
When more than one panel is stacked in a dock area, then each panel will display three icons in the upper right corner of the panel title. These buttons allow you to minimize the panel, maximize the panel, or close the panel. When a panel is minimized, the first button will change to the restore icon and clicking on that icon will reset the panel to its previous state.
