- The Jan-FAQs
- The Movie Maker Interface
- Creating and Managing Collections
- Customizing Your Collection Views
- Customizing Movie Maker's Panes
- Setting Project Defaults
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Creating and Managing Collections
Managing your collections is a major part of project management, so let's dive into it. Operations are a touch idiosyncratic, but easy enough to deal with once you understand what's going on.
From my perspective, project management is easiest when all collections related to your project are grouped together, as shown in Figure 3.13 . This makes all of your project assets easy to find, and all of your collections easy to delete when you've finished the project.
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Figure 3.13 The collections tree, where you organize all project collections.
Consolidating related assets and collections is simple when you import audio and still image assets because you can create and insert a collection anywhere in the collections tree, and Movie Maker will load the assets into that collection. In contrast, when you capture and import video, Movie Maker always creates a new collection, and that collection is always on the root of the collections tree. Not a huge deal, though—you can always rename the new collection as desired and drag it to any location in the tree, as you'll see in "To move a collection" later in this chapter.
I'll fully explore importing audio, video, and still image assets in their respective chapters. For now, here's a quick overview of the process so you can visualize the optimal project organization before getting started.
To create a new collection
- Click the collections tree root or any collection (
Figure 3.14
).
Figure 3.14 To create a new collection, click the collection from which the new collection should branch.
- Do one of the following:
- Right-click and choose New Collection (
Figure 3.15
).
Figure 3.15 Then right-click and choose New Collection.
- On the right side of the main toolbar, click the New Collection Folder button (see Figure 3.12).
Figure 3.16 Movie Maker adds the new collection.
- Right-click and choose New Collection (
Figure 3.15
).
- While the New Collection name field is active, as shown in Figure 3.16, type a name for the collection.
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To rename a collection
- Do one of the following:
- Slowly click the collection twice.
- Click the collection; then right-click and choose Rename.
- Type the desired name and press Enter on your keyboard.
Movie Maker renames the collection (
Figure 3.17
).
Figure 3.17 You can then easily rename a collection.
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To import audio and still images into a collection
- Click the collection you wan to import into (
Figure 3.18
).
Figure 3.18 To import images or audio into a collection, select the collection.
- Do one of the following:
- From the main menu, choose File > Import into Collections (
Figure 3.19
).
Figure 3.19 Then from the File menu, choose Import into Collections
- Press Ctrl+I.
Figure 3.20 The Import File dialog box.
- From the main menu, choose File > Import into Collections (
Figure 3.19
).
- Select the audio and still image content to insert and click Import.
Movie Maker imports the audio and still images into that collection (
Figure 3.21
).
Figure 3.21 Images inserted.
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To import video into a collection
- Do one of the following:
- From the main menu, choose File > Import into Collections (see Figure 3.19).
- Press Ctrl+I.
Figure 3.22 Importing video also starts with the Import File dialog.
- Select the video files to insert and click Import.
Movie Maker imports the video file into a new collection on the root of the collections tree (
Figure 3.23
).
Figure 3.23 But all imported video collections end up on the root of the collections tree.
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To move a collection
- Click the collection to make it active (
Figure 3.24
).
Figure 3.24 Just select the new collection and drag it.
- Drag the collection to the target collection (
Figure 3.25
).
Movie Maker highlights the target collection.
Figure 3.25 Drag the collection to the target collection, which will become highlighted.
- Release the mouse button.
Movie Maker moves the collection to the new location (
Figure 3.26
).
Figure 3.26 Release the mouse button to drop the new collection in the existing one.
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To delete a collection
- Click the collection you want to delete.
- Do one of the following:
- Right-click and choose Delete (
Figure 3.27
).
Figure 3.27 You can delete collections by right-clicking and choosing Delete.
- Press the Delete key on your keyboard.
- From the main menu, choose Edit > Delete (
Figure 3.28
).
Figure 3.28 You can also choose Delete from the Edit menu.
- Right-click and choose Delete (
Figure 3.27
).
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To cut/copy and paste a collection
- Click the collection you want to cut, copy or paste.
- Do one of the following:
- Right-click and choose Cut or Copy (
Figure 3.29
).
Figure 3.29 Cut and Copy commands are accessible from the right-click menu.
- Press Ctrl+X (Cut) or Ctrl+C (copy).
- From the main menu, choose Edit > Cut or Copy (
Figure 3.30
).
Figure 3.30 Cut and Copy are also accessible from the Edit menu.
- Right-click and choose Cut or Copy (
Figure 3.29
).
- Click the new location (
Figure 3.31
).
Figure 3.31 Click the new location.
- Do one of the following:
- Right-click and choose Paste (
Figure 3.32
).
Figure 3.32 Right-click and choose Paste.
- Press Ctrl+V.
- From the Movie Maker menu, choose Edit > Paste.
Figure 3.33 Movie Maker does the rest.
- Right-click and choose Paste (
Figure 3.32
).
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