iPhoto Buddy Home

What is iPhoto Buddy?

iPhoto Buddy is a Mac OS X application (Universal) that allows you to easily create, manage, and switch between multiple iPhoto Libraries. The advantages of splitting your One Huge Photo Library into multiple, smaller ones include improved iPhoto performance, increased flexibility in organizing your digital photo collection, and a consistency with most other Mac applications that allow their respective data to be stored in as many documents (in this case, "Libraries") as you like.

iPhoto Buddy uses a simple, streamlined interface that was inspired by iPhoto itself. Anyone that has used iPhoto will immediately feel right at home using iPhoto Buddy. It truly is a companion application--a real buddy!

iPhoto Buddy will never alter/move/delete your Libraries or your photo files. It's perfectly safe!
 

What can you do with it?

With iPhoto Buddy, you can easily manage an entire list of iPhoto Libraries, enabling you to quickly and easily open the Library of your choice for viewing/editing/printing in iPhoto. You can easily switch between your multiple Libraries, and iPhoto Buddy will automatically quit iPhoto and instantly re-launch it with the newly selected Library (iPhoto can only have one Library open at a time). There is no limit to the number of Libraries, and they can be located in various locations--even on external hard disk drives, network volumes, or encrypted disk images. Each Library can be assigned its own name that differs from its folder name in the Finder; each Library can be assigned a thumbnail image that can help to remind you of its contents; and each Library can be password protected for privacy/security.

iPhoto Buddy also displays various details about your Libraries without launching iPhoto. Information like each Library's size and image count as well as a complete listing of the Albums, Smart Albums, Folders, Books, Slide Shows, etc. contained therein.

And in keeping with the enhanced integration of the iApps that Apple introduced with the original iLife package, iPhoto Buddy also allows you to open iMovie, iDVD, and iWeb using any of your iPhoto Libraries for importing photos into your Movies, DVDs and websites. In fact with iPhoto Buddy, any application that contains a Media Browser for accessing your iPhoto Library, can used with ANY of your iPhoto Libraries.

What are the system requirements?

iPhoto Buddy requires a Macintosh computer running OS X 10.3.9 or later, and iPhoto 2 or later. iPhoto Buddy is fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, as well as 10.4 Tiger and 10.3 Panther. iPhoto Buddy is fully compatible with iLife '04, iLife '05, iLife '06, and iLife '08.

Where did it come from?

I originally developed iPhoto Buddy for my own use. I did so partly as a programming excersize, and partly because I simply didn't care for the other alternatives I had tried. I wanted something more--something fast, flexible, unobtrusive, and easy to use. And something more consistent with the iApp interface found in iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, etc.

How much does it cost?

Nothing. I originally developed iPhoto Buddy for my own use, and then decided to make it available for others. That said, I AM accepting donations in an effort to offset the ongoing costs of updating and supporting iPhoto Buddy. If you use the program, please consider making a donation in the spirit of shareware. You'll be doing your part to keep iPhoto Buddy free!

How does it work?

If you're like me, you prefer to understand exactly what a new program is doing with the precious information on your computer. You can relax. iPhoto Buddy is quite innocuous. Here's what it does:

• Creates a folder in your Preferences folder (/users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences/iPhoto Buddy) in which it stores special alias files and application preferences. Do not move or modify this folder or its contents unless you stop using iPhoto Buddy and remove it from your computer.
• Modifies iPhoto's plist file (/users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iPhoto.plist) each time you use iPhoto Buddy to launch iPhoto. The modification is a simple one in which iPhoto Buddy inserts the path to the selected Library's folder into the proper location in iPhoto's plist file. When iPhoto is launched, it reads the plist file and uses the Library specified therein.
• Modifies the plist file (/users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iApps.plist) used by iMovie/iDVD/iWeb (and Pages, and Keynote, and Screen Saver, too!) to determine the location of your iPhoto Library each time you use iPhoto Buddy to launch iMovie, iDVD, or iWeb.

Is iPhoto Buddy useful even with iPhoto 7?

With the introduction of iPhoto 7 (as part of the iLife '08 suite), Apple has further improved iPhoto's performance. So, is iPhoto Buddy still useful even with iPhoto 7? Absolutely!

Regardless of the improvements Apple has made, there is simply no getting around the fact that iPhoto is much faster, smoother and generally easier to live with if the Photo Library has fewer than a few thousand photos in it. Especially if you're running an older, slower Mac. Besides, can you imagine storing all of your spreadsheet data in one spreadsheet, and then using Excel’s search features to find what you want when you want it? How about storing all of your text-based information in one word processing document and counting on Word or Pages to find that important fax in a hurry? I don't think so.

When iLife ’04 was introduced at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco in January of 2004, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said, "It’s like Microsoft Office for the rest of your life.” And in many ways it is (except, of course it works better!). But none of the components of Microsoft Office (or iWork, or Adobe Creative Suite, or most any Mac or PC software -- including most of the other iLife programs, iMovie, iDVD, Garage Band) require that you store all of its data in one document. So why does iPhoto? Why indeed.

Using multiple Libraries allows you to a great deal of additional flexibility in organzing your photos. And it preserves the tried and true paradigm in which each program has a collection of user-created and user-managed documents (in this case, Libraries) for storing its data.
 

Questions? Comments?

If you'd like more information,feel free to contact me: info@iphotobuddy.com.

Enjoy!