v6 Manual: pages 99-103
What does the Collect feature do?
When you select 'Catalog -> Collect...' or click the Collect on the main toolbar, below is the dialog you'll see, though on first use all text boxes will be empty and all ticks cleared. In addition the Collect button on the dialog is greyed out if no image location is set and if the catalogue tickbox is ticked but no catalogue location is set:
Destination
To set the Destination frame's location to which images are to be saved, use the 'Collect files to folder' textbox. Either type a valid path to an existing folder on the network (to which you have write access) or click the browse button, which pops this dialog:
Navigate to your folder and click 'OK'. Should you need to create a new folder, click the 'New Folder...' button and you get this dialog:
Enter the name of the new folder and click OK.
If you wish to maintain the folder naming and layout currently occupied by the images you are copying, tick the 'Preserve file hierarchy' box back on the Collect dialog. What happens with this option? The default is 'off' and in this mode all images are copied to one folder, the one you specified in the 'Collect files to folder' textbox. If you specified C:\Images\ as you destination, all images would be copied to this folder.
With the option on, Portfolio works down form the hard disk root to find the lowest level of folder common to all images being copied. Thus if you had images in folders in C:\this\that\other\big\ and C:\this\that\alt\small, the folder '\that\' is the common folder and so images would be copied to - assuming the same destination as above - C:\Images\that\other\big\ and C:\Images\that\alt\small. Note than only folders within the hierarchy that have images that are being copied will be created at the destination, not all folders in the source location's hierarchy.
There is an added complication, not mentioned in the manual, if you are 'Collecting' images for a CD layout. This is covered in the 'Catalog' section below.
Create Archive Catalog
This option controls activation of the next two frames on the Collect dialog. To access them, this box must be ticked.
Catalog
On first use, the 'Save Catalog As:' textbox will be empty. To create an archive catalogue you must supply both a catalogue filename and a folder location. Click the Browse button, and a normal file save dialog opens:
The default location suggested by Portfolio is the folder specified for the images but this is not ideal. The best location to use is the folder you'll use as the root of your CD project files, or even better a sub-folder off that. Thus if you use C:\Stage\ as your CD project 'root' then set the archive catalogue location as C:\Stage\Catalog\. You must also provide a name for the catalogue file - the '.fdb' extension will be added if you forget it.
There is a subordinate - Windows only - option to set a new 'volume name'. Thus if your eventual CD will, for instance, be called 'DEMO' tick the 'Use this Volume name in the Archive Catalog:' box and type DEMO in the textbox. The option is very useful if you intend to run the archive catalogue from the CD, or from hard disk but pointing to the images on your CD. As the given CD doesn't exist yet you can't set it as a location via Explorer and the archive catalogue record paths will end up wrong without this method of setting them correctly. It is assumed Mac users will be using a (temporary) volume of the correct name as their set-up location for the CD, resolving the Volume name issue.
However, there is a further consideration. You might think, "why didn't he suggest putting the images in C:\Stage\Images\ instead of C:\Images\?". If you set the image location to a folder that is not directly off the hard disk root, then the above option does not work as you might suppose. If images were 'collected' to C:\Stage\Images\ and the Volume set to 'DEMO' the path generated is DEMO\Stage\Images\etc whereas you might have thought DEMO\Images\etc would result.
Thus, set your image destination folder (you can call it anything) off the h/d route and then after the Collect procedure has run, drag the folder into your project route. Using the above example, drag folder C:\Images\ to C:\Stage\Images\ so that the CD is create with a top level 'Images' folder (E.g. F:\Images\, if F: is the CD drive). The record paths in the archive catalogue will show DEMO\Images and the images will be located correctly by the browser.
I hope that made sense - if not try a dummy run with just few records and you'll see the difference it makes to getting your project right.
Browser
You've set up your catalogue for the CD and as with previous versions of Portfolio there is a free Browser provided. As before, the Browser is a cut down version of the main program allowing single-user read-only access at Reader level. Cleverly, the Browser is created for you from the main program itself and you don't need to d/l the Browser as you had to in the past. Tick the 'Include Browser' box and a copy of the Portfolio Browser will be placed in a folder called 'Portfolio Browser' inside the folder you've selected for the Archive Catalogue. There is a secondary option to include the User Guide. I recommend you include the latter but note that it is a PDF and if users don't have Acrobat Reader, you'll need to provide it. You can also set Acrobat Reader to run from a CD - see my AcrobatFAQ.
Not mentioned in the manual and not created by the Collect feature, the old PortBrws.ini method still works with v6 though you'll have to write your own file. Open Notepad and save the file as PortBrws.ini (making sure a .txt doesn't get added on). Now assuming the file is in the folder above the browser and is called 'Demo.fdb', type:
[Open]
catalog="..\Demo.fdb
Save the file, close and move it to the Browser's folder (\Portfolio Browser\). Now, whenever the Browser is opened on the CD your catalogue will be opened. Depending on the name and relative location of your catalogue, you'll need to change the ini code sample above.
It is important to note that currently, Portfolio only creates the Browser for the host OS and if making a hybrid CD you'll need to d/l the other OS's Browser, i.e. Mac users download the Windows Browser and vice versa. Note that unlike previous Browser versions, using it on your (Windows) system does not cause it to become associated with catalogue files instead of the main Portfolio program, which makes local testing less hassle.
Collect
You've filled out all the options - it's time to collect. You'll see a progress dialog as the operation proceeds:
So what ends up in the archive catalogue?
All in all, a pretty neat feature! Note that by selecting just one record, you can use this as a useful method to clone a catalogue style. It isn't the only method but an easy one.
If you would like to see a worked example of the above to create an autoplay Windows CD, try this FAQ article.
Question: Setting up a CD Catalogue - Collect (v6) [FAQ00239.htm]
Last Update:- 31 May 2006
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