User manual
The window of PHPture is divided in 5 panels, that each have their own function. This manual describes the function of each panel.
Toolbar
The toolbar contains buttons that can be used to control PHPture. The toolbar is the only panel that cannot be hidden or resized.
Browsing images
The two round buttons in the top left corner allow you to navigate to the previous and next image in the browser and display it in the viewer.
The dark button with the yellow label opens up a popup window with all the keywords that are associated with the images in the library. Click on a keyword to view the images with that keyword in the browser.
Display options
Grid and list view
By default images in the browser are displayed as thumbnails, this is called the grid view. Using the button with the 4 horizontal lines switches the browser to the list view where information about the images is displayed in a table. Pressing the button with the 6 squares will switch back to the grid view.
Opening and closing all stacks
In Apple Aperture there are separate buttons for closing and opening all stacks. In PHPture this functionality is combined into a single button which will close all stacks if there are one or more open, and open all stacks if they are all closed.
Individual stacks can be opened and closed by clicking the number in the top left corner of a thumbnail.
Window options
In order to have more space to view images in the various panels in the window can be opened and closed by dragging their edges and pressing the buttons in the toolbar. If the panel is open it will close, if it is closed already it will be reset to its default size.
Filtering, searching and sorting
On the right side of the toolbar there are the tools for filtering the images by rating. Apple Aperture gives you the opportunity to rate images with 1 to 5 stars, or to reject them. Using the two select-boxes you can select to see the images that at least given a certain rating, exactly the same rating as specified or lesser than a certain rating.
To view all images select to see images that are at least rejected.
The text field can contain additional filtering words. This function searches through all metadata, so you can enter things like the version name, camera model, image comments, pixel size and orientation. Because of the large amount of data that is being searched it might take a few seconds before a result is returned.
The displayed images can be sorted by name, date and rating, the button in the right corner sets the sorting direction to ascending or descending order.
Projects
On the left side of the screen a tree structure in which projects, folders, and albums are displayed. Click on any of them to see the thumbnails of images contained in them in the browser.
Click on the triangle on the left side to expand or collapse the folder or project.
Smart Albums created in Apple Aperture are displayed, but may have a slightly different selection. Please report any issues you may have with smart albums in the forum. Special albums like light table, web journal, book, and gallery are supported, but function in the same way as standard albums.
On the right side the number of images inside the project or album is displayed.
Viewer
In the viewer a preview of the image is displayed. It is automatically scaled to fit within the window. To view the preview in it's original size, double click it with the mouse and use the scrollbars to move around, double click it again to scale it to the window size again.
Browser
Inside the browser a thumbnail version of the images is displayed. Click a thumbnail image to see a larger preview in the viewer. The size of the thumbnails cannot be adjusted. Underneath the thumbnail the name of the version of the image is displayed. If the image is rated, it's rating is displayed in the bottom left corner.
If the image is part of a stack it will have a dark edge and in the top left corner the number of images in the stack is displayed. Click the number to open the stack in order to see all the images contained in it. Click the number again to close the stack.
Once the browser area is active you can navigate through it with the left and right arrow keys to quickly select images. The browser is activated by clicking anywhere within it's borders.
To speed up the loading of the browser a maximum amount of thumbnails is displayed, the default number is 300. Once there are more images in the folder they are split up between several pages. You can browse through the pages by clicking on the page numbers on the bottom right corner of the browser.
Metadata
On the right side of the window a panel with metadata about the currently selected image is displayed.
The metadata also contains a direct link to the preview file which will open the JPEG-image in a new window.
The original master file can also be downloaded from here. Clicking on it will also open it in a new window. If the master file is in a format like RAW or TIFF that some web browsers can't display you will be offered to save the file.
Master files can be several megabytes in size and it might take a few seconds to download them over a network connection.
If the master file is referenced and stored in a location that is not readable by PHP a warning saying '(not readable)' will appear and the master file can't be displayed.
Underneath the standard metadata there are keywords displayed. Click on a keyword to view all images with that keyword. Press the back-button in the web browser to view the previous set.