All your assets are stored together in a space labeled All Assets.
An asset library acts like a playlist in a music app: when you add an asset to a library, the library asset is simply pointing back to the original asset in the All Assets group.
Asset libraries allow you to organize your assets any way you like. Any library can contain any assets, and any assets can exist in any number of libraries. Assets are not actually copied to each library; in a library, an asset is a stand-in for the “real” asset that is always stored in All Assets.
The asset library is smart, too. If you attempt to delete an asset from a library, Extensis Connect will ask if you want to remove it from the library or delete it everywhere: from all libraries that contain the asset as well as from All Assets.
See Deleting Assets for details about removing and deleting assets and libraries.
You can also copy assets stored in sub-folders. Select the assets or assets, move the file and press the Option key on a Mac or the Alt key on a Windows. When you drop the asset or assets into the new folder instead of moving the asset or assets, they will be copied. You can check this as the original total should display on the folder being moved from, but the number of assets should increase in the folder you are moving to.
View controls
The majority of the main Connect window displays your assets. There are three ways you can change the display:
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Sort by: Immediately above the assets at the left edge of the pane is a menu where you can choose to sort assets by Name, Size, or Most recent (date and time the assets were added to Connect).
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Sort order: To the right of the sort by menu is the sort order button. Click the button once to sort in ascending order
(A–Z, smallest to largest, or oldest to newest); click again to sort in descending order
.
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View As: The View As menu is above the assets at the right edge of the pane. Here you can choose the relative size of the images displayed in the Assets pane:
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Thumbnails: Each image space is 145 pixels wide and 129 pixels tall.
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Small: Each image space is 218×217 pixels.
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Medium: Each image space is 297×281 pixels.
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Large: Each image space is 460×432 pixels.
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Asset controls
When viewing a group of assets, Connect displays certain information for each asset image and allows you to perform certain actions on single assets or a group of selected assets.
For thumbnail images (the smallest), the only information that Connect displays is the file name.
For all other sizes, Connect also shows the file type (extension) and file size.
If you can’t read the full file name, rest the mouse pointer over the visible file name text. Connect will display a tag with the complete file name.
You can right-click on an asset or use the menu to perform common operations:
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Download
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Convert
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Share
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Save As Library
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Delete
To preview an asset at larger size, click the icon at the top right of the image, or double-click the image.
Video controls
When you move the mouse pointer over a video asset image, the video starts to play. (Any audio is muted so as to not be a distraction.)
The video asset image includes these controls:
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Full screen
Press Esc to return to the library view.
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Picture-in-picture
Opens the video in a small window with separate controls.
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Audio is muted (click to play the sound).
When the audio is playing the icon is
You can click it to mute the sound.
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Info
Click to display a large preview and the asset’s info pane. (You can also double-click in the asset frame.)
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Video
The video starts playing when you move the mouse pointer into the frame. Otherwise, this is a static image.
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Icon that indicates playable video
This icon disappears when the mouse pointer enters the frame and the video starts playing.
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Click to pause
Click to play
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Playback slider
Drag this to view earlier or later in the video.
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Time remaining
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File name
If the file name ends with an ellipsis (…) then move the mouse pointer over the text to see the whole file name.
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File type
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File size
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action menu
This menu provides the same functions as right-clicking the asset image.
Some functions are not available for videos.
Creating an asset library
You can create an asset library in two different ways:
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Click
Add Library at the top of the Asset Libraries pane.
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Select one or more assets, right-click any asset in the selection, then choose Save as Library from the shortcut menu.
Favorite libraries
You can mark your most frequently used libraries as your favorites. Favorite libraries are displayed at the top of the Asset Libraries pane.
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Hover the mouse pointer at the left side of a library name.
Connect shows the favorite selector
, a hollow star.
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Click the favorite selector.
Connect adds the library to the favorites at top of the Asset Libraries pane and displays the favorite indicator
, a solid star.
To remove a library from the favorites list, click the favorite indicator to the left of the favorite library name.
Removing an asset library
To remove an asset library, click the menu next to the asset library’s name and choose Delete Library.
Connect will ask if you want to remove only the asset library or the remove library and delete its assets everywhere (from All Assets and any other asset libraries that include them).