Where to place folders and pictures in Reunion?

[martha]

I have read various opinions on this forum about where to place the picture folder and various other folders related to Reunion. Is there a "proper" place for these and is it outside of the Reunion folder? My Reunion folder contains all of my genealogy related material. Is this incorrect?

Thanks in advance for your knowledgeable replies!!

Martha [in Israel]

[David G. Kanter]

I have read various opinions on this forum about where to place the picture folder and various other folders related to Reunion. Is there a "proper" place for these and is it outside of the Reunion folder? My Reunion folder contains all of my genealogy related material. Is this incorrect?Not necessarily—as long as you keep that in mind when you do your backups.

However, under OS X, the far-more-common place to put the files you create—which would include your Family Files, your Multimedia folders (such as your picture folder), your Reports, and your Charts—is in your <Home> directory (i.e., the one with your User Name) and, most usually, within the Documents folder in that directory. Caution: There is also a Documents folder at the top level of your hard drive, but that is not the one I mean. (Most recently-issued OS X applications will, by default, put your data files in one of the folders in that <Home> directory—e.g.,the Documents folder or within the Library folder.)

One good reason for putting all the files you create in one place—such as the <Home> directory—is that there is just one directory to consider when you are backing up the data you created.

So you could create a folder, perhaps named "Reunion Data", in the that <Home>/Documents folder and put your Reunion Family File(s), Multimedia folders, Charts, & Reports in that folder. Reminder: If you do move your Multimedia folders, remember to tell Reunion where they are now located (Options->Multimedia->Multimedia Folders) and confirm any Dock items you have made (e.g., of your Family Files) still work. (If they don't, drag the old ones off the Dock and recreate them by dragging the items from their new location to the proper side of the Dock).

I'd recommend you leave the other items installed by Reunion (e.g., the application and the Reunion 8 Manual folder, to mention just two) in their default location within the Reunion 8 folder in your Applications folder.

[martha]

Thanks, David!! And thanks for always being there!!

Martha [in Israel]

[Steve W. Jackson]

... Caution: There is also a Documents folder at the top level of your hard drive ...
Just as a point of interest, there is no longer a Documents folder at the top level of your hard drive on newer systems. Chances are, if you've got one there, it's an indication that your system dates to the days when they shipped with Mac OS 9 and/or could boot into it. I no longer have one on my PowerBook G4/800 or on our new iMac G5.

= Steve =

[Roger Franke]

Just as a point of interest, there is no longer a Documents folder at the top level of your hard drive on newer systems. Chances are, if you've got one there, it's an indication that your system dates to the days when they shipped with Mac OS 9 and/or could boot into it. I no longer have one on my PowerBook G4/800 or on our new iMac G5.

= Steve =

Steve, I usually take your words as gospel, but in this case I have to disagree. I have had a new iMac G 5 for several months now and am still in the process of learning OS X and specifically OS 10.4. I don't understand it, but when the sidebar is visible in Finder, there under my home folder are several categories as follows: Applications, Documents, Movies, Music and Pictures. Clicking on my home folder opens up a window which shows in the top row: Desktop, Documents, Library. Now I have already placed a couple of folders of my own making in the documents folder of my home folder. But when I click on it, it opens up the documents folder in the sidebar. In other words, both documents folders contain exactly the same files, and it appears that I don't have a "personal" documents folder. Have I already messed something up or what's going on here anyway? So far I am the only user of the computer and it is not networked. Roger Franke

[dfilpus]

Steve, I usually take your words as gospel, but in this case I have to disagree. I have had a new iMac G 5 for several months now and am still in the process of learning OS X and specifically OS 10.4. I don't understand it, but when the sidebar is visible in Finder, there under my home folder are several categories as follows: Applications, Documents, Movies, Music and Pictures. Clicking on my home folder opens up a window which shows in the top row: Desktop, Documents, Library. Now I have already placed a couple of folders of my own making in the documents folder of my home folder. But when I click on it, it opens up the documents folder in the sidebar. In other words, both documents folders contain exactly the same files, and it appears that I don't have a "personal" documents folder. Have I already messed something up or what's going on here anyway? So far I am the only user of the computer and it is not networked. Roger Franke

What Steve is referring to is not the Documents folder in your home directory, but a Documents folder in the top level of the disk drive. If you double click on the disk icon, not your home icon, you will see that the disk contains Applications, Library, System, Users, etc, which are global folders for all users. If OS 9/Classic is installed, then there is a global Documents folder there, which is not there if OS 9/Classic is not installed.

If you open Users, you will see folders for each user on your machine, these are the home directories for the users. Each of these contain a local set of folders, many with the same name as the folders in the top level of the disk drive, such as Applications and Library. Clicking on home opens the user's personal directory which has the personal Documents folder.

[David G. Kanter]

…when the sidebar is visible in Finder, there under my home folder are several categories as follows: Applications, Documents, Movies, Music and Pictures. Clicking on my home folder opens up a window which shows in the top row: Desktop, Documents, Library. Now I have already placed a couple of folders of my own making in the documents folder of my home folder. But when I click on it, it opens up the documents folder in the sidebar. In other words, both documents folders contain exactly the same files, and it appears that I don't have a "personal" documents folder. Have I already messed something up or what's going on here anyway?You haven't messed up anything.

The Documents folder that's originally in your Sidebar is the same one as you'll find in the contents list when you select your home folder in the Sidebar—it is your "personal" Documents folder. Thus you properly find the same contents whether you open that folder directly from its entry in the Sidebar or by "drilling down" from your home folder in the Sidebar. (The top-level Documents folder—which, per Steve W. Jackson's advice, may or may not be present on your computer—isn't on the Sidebar unless the user puts it there. Also, see the Finder Preferences->Sidebar for where you can enable and disable what OS X puts on the Sidebar—both in the upper and lower sections.)

Here's more about the Sidebar in relation to Roger Franke's question: The key point is that the location on your hard drive of things shown in the lower portion of the Sidebar can be anywhere on your hard drive. (The upper portion is for "volumes"; the lower portion is for anything else—e.g., applications, folders, & files.) There's no implied on-the-hard-drive-location relationship by how things are listed in the Sidebar—and you can cange the order of the Sidebar items by dragging them. (As you drag, the other items will move apart to show you where the item you're moving will end up when you "drop" it—i.e., release the clicker.) Think of the entries on the Sidebar as just an alias ["pointer"] to the actual item. You can drag something from anywhere on your hard drive to the lower portion of the Sidebar and if you position what you're dragging between two items already on the Sidebar, you'll see a solid line which is where what you're dragging will go in the Sidebar when you "drop" it. When you no longer need that item on the Sidebar, you drag it off the Sidebar and it goes "poof"—with no effect on the actual item on your hard drive. (For me, that ability to tailor just what's on the Sidebar is a fabulous feature. I often temporarily put things on the Sidebar that I need for a specific project I'm doing and then remove them when I'm done.)

[DelbertCurlin]

I don't know if my problem belongs here but I imagine someone can tell me if not.
On my computer screen in the side under the disk drives, home, apps, etc., the last item is Pictures. Reunion has a file called pictures. I have iphoto where my camera puts pictures.
Is there some way to consolidate all of these picture files so I only have one place to look?



Delbert Curlin