History Manager Details

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Overview

History Manager is a software utility that helps you implement the History Data methodology to manage picture, audio, and video files from any source. With History Manager you can:

Organize files

• Browse files across folder trees

• Generate and correct date/time stamps

• Create or modify chronological sequence

• Group sets of files into folders

Annotate files

• Inspect file contents in a graphical preview window

• Annotate individual files in a graphical attribute tree

• Batch-annotate groups of files, adding or removing attributes one at a time

• Verify syntax and completeness with live proofing tools

Locate files

• Filter sets of files by time period

• Filter sets of files with attributes and logical operators (And, Or, Not, etc.)

• Generate ad-hoc albums by creating folders with shortcuts to selected files

User Interface

History Manager's user interface consists of several different windows that help you perform different actions with your History Data files. The main windows, described in the following sections, are the Browser, Editor, and Viewer.

History Browser

The Browser lets you manage groups of History Data files. It loads lists of files that span multi-level folder trees and flags any files that have invalid filenames, syntax errors, or other issues. You can select files manually, or you can select files using combinations of attributes (Date, Subject, Place, etc.) and logical operators (AND, OR, NOT, etc.). Various tools let you perform batch operations on selected groups of files:

• Generate or adjust timestamps and sequence numbers

• Add or remove attributes

• Check for duplicate chronology

• Copy, move, or delete files

• Create shortcuts in a selected output folder

History Editor

The Editor lets you edit individual History Data filenames graphically with live syntax checking. You can either edit filenames directly as raw text, or you can edit using a hierarchical tree that lets you insert, delete, move, promote, and demote attribute and value nodes. The Editor automatically expands abbreviated attribute codes, consolidates duplicate attributes and values, flags any errors with icons and descriptive messages, and reorders attributes so you can focus on describing your files instead of worrying about syntax.

History Viewer

The Viewer helps you identify the contents of your files when editing attributes in the Editor or selecting files in the Browser.