Chapter 3: Working with Libraries
In This Chapter
Understanding Libraries
Customizing and working with Libraries
Building your own Libraries
Windows 8.1 brought several infuriating changes to Windows 8 — I’d list the privacy-busting Smart Search (see Book II, Chapter 3) “feature” as the worst culprit. But in the same breath, I’d have to mention Microsoft’s attempt to make it difficult to use Libraries.
Libraries were a key selling point for Windows 7: They really do make it easier for you to organize and maintain your files. The feature continued untarnished in Windows 8. Unfortunately, Microsoft decided to stunt and bury them in Windows 8.1. If I were a more cynical soul, I would guess that MS is trying to get you to use SkyDrive — and pay the piper for cloud storage.
It’s silly, really, because Libraries are the single best way to incorporate SD card storage into your everyday Windows life. When Libraries are set up with the Public folders activated (as should’ve been the case in Windows 8.1 straight out of the box), they also give you a chance to share data with other people on your computer or on your home network.
In this chapter, I start with some concepts and then show you how to get Libraries working on your Windows 8.1 machine. Then we can go into the advanced course.
Understanding Libraries
A lot of experienced Windows users get confused when they start thinking about Libraries. That’s because they have a long-imprinted misconception that data has to be located in one place. Your files are on your C: drive or on a DVD, or you download them from the Internet. You open a file, and if you don’t find what you want, you look in another file in the same folder. If the folder doesn’t have what you want, you go up one level and look again.
All those concepts are locked into the idea that your data has to be located in just one place.
Although your files have to sit somewhere, Windows 7 introduced a concept that makes it easier to handle collections of files and folders.
You know what a file is, right? (If not, I talk about it in Book I, Chapter 1.) Files hold data. Typically, you have one photo or video in one file. You have one song in one file. You have one document, spreadsheet, or PowerPoint presentation in one file. Of course, there are lots of nuances, but at its heart, a file is just a collection of data that you stick in one place. Files can be empty. They can be huge.
And you know about folders, yes? Folders are collections of files and other folders. Folders can also be empty. They can be huge. They can have lots of little files or many big files, or any combination of little and big files and folders. You put a bunch of files and folders together in one place, and that place is a folder.
Note how I said “in one place.” The physical details may get a little hairy, but at least conceptually, all the data in the file is in one place. All the files in a folder are in one place. That’s how Libraries are different.
Libraries aren’t all in one place. Libraries bring together folders that can be sitting just about anywhere: on your C: drive, on your D: drive, on a USB stick, an SD card, on an external drive, even someplace else on your network, if you have one. A Library is a collection of folders that’s broken free of the “in one place” restriction. But Libraries use pointers to make it seem like these files are all in one place.
Making Your Libraries Visible
When you bring up File Explorer in Windows 8.1, you’re placed in a make-believe folder called This PC and shown six folders at the top — Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, and Videos. See Figure 3-1.
If you’ve used Windows 7 or 8, you probably wondered what happened to your Libraries — they used to appear on the left side of the screen as links to the Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos Libraries. Instead, we get the four folder (not Libraries) listed at the top of Figure 3-1.
Figure 3-1: The original File Explorer layout.
Here’s how to bring back your Libraries:
1. Open File Explorer. Click the View tab.
You see the Ribbon shown in Figure 3-2.
Figure 3-2: Have File Explorer show you Libraries.
2. Click or tap on the large Navigation Pane icon on the left and then select Show Libraries.
Your four default Libraries appear on the left, as in Figure 3-3.
Figure 3-3: Bringing back the stunted version of Libraries.
Unfortunately, you aren’t done yet. One of the most important features of Libraries in Windows 7 and Windows 8 was their ability to hook into the Public folders on your computer. The Public folders are a good place to put files that you want to share with other people on your computer or other people on your network.
In Windows 8.1, the default Libraries aren’t hooked up to the Public folders of the same time. You’ll see later in this chapter why that’s important. For now, just take my word for it, swear once or twice at Microsoft, and roll your Public folders into your Libraries. Here’s how:
1. In File Explorer, navigate to your Public Documents folder. To do so, double-click This PC, double-click Local Disk (C:), double-click Users, and then double-click Public.
After all that double-clicking, you should come to a screen that looks like the one in Figure 3-4.
Figure 3-4: Add the Public Documents folder to your Documents Library.
2. Right-click the Public Documents folder, choose Include in Library, and then Documents.
Windows 8.1 reluctantly puts your Public Documents folder where it belongs.
3. Repeat the steps for the Public Music folder (put it in the Music Library), the Public Pictures folder (in Pictures), and the Public Videos folder (in Videos).
4. Close File Explorer (click the X in the upper right corner) and restart it. Verify that all the Public folders now appear in their correct Libraries, as in Figure 3-5.
Give Microsoft a little epithet for that one.
Figure 3-5: Public folders now appear where they should’ve been in the first place.
Working with Your Default Libraries
After you’ve set up your Libraries as described in the preceding section, when you start File Explorer, icons for the four Libraries that you just built appear (see Figure 3-6).
Figure 3-6: The four horses of the Library apocalypse.
You may be tempted to think that Windows magically identifies the kinds of files you’re working with and shows them in the appropriate Library — all your pictures appear in the Pictures Library, for example. That isn’t how Libraries work.
The way we set up Libraries in the preceding section make them work this way:
Everything that appears in the Documents Library comes from the Documents folder, mashed together with the PublicDocuments folder.
Same for the Music Library.
Everything in the Pictures Library comes from either the Pictures or Public Pictures folder.
Same for the Videos Library.
The converse is also true. Every file in the Music folder appears in the Music Library, as does every file in the PublicMusic folder. Windows doesn’t dig in to the file and see whether it’s a music file. The Music Library doesn’t consist of music files, necessarily. It’s just a mash-up of all the files in those two folders.
Why would you want to bother with Libraries? Ends up that they’re pretty powerful after you get used to them. Probably the most valuable timesaver for most people is in the search that spans across multiple folders. Here are two examples:
If you want to search all your music for an album by Nickelback, go to the Music Library and in the upper-right corner search for Nickelback.
If you want to search for documents and spreadsheets that contain the word defenestrate, bring up the Documents Library, type defenestrate in the search box, and Windows returns all the documents in both Documents and PublicDocuments that contains the word.
Imagine how that searching can make your life easier if you keep, say, all your music in a folder on one computer that’s attached to your network. Set up your Music Library to include that folder, and your searching just got a whole lot easier.
If you have a computer with an SD card, set up a Documents folder on the SD card, and add it to your Documents Library. That makes it easier to find documents on the SD card, store documents on the SD card, and generally keep your system running much, much easier: You don’t have to think about where the data’s stored because it’s all in the Library.
When an application running under Windows looks for the Documents folder, Windows hands it the entire Documents Library. If you start a graphics program and choose File⇒Open, you don’t go to your Pictures folder any more. Instead, you open the Pictures Library. Imagine. If you have a folder on another computer that contains documents you commonly use, and you add that folder to your Documents Library, every time you crank up Word and choose File⇒Open, that folder’s staring right at you. Unlike earlier versions, Windows Media Player doesn’t need separate settings to handle Libraries because Windows takes care of everything.
Think of Libraries as Folders: The Next Generation.
Customizing Libraries
You can add more folders to a Library above and beyond the folders that we added in the first section of this chapter. You can also change where a Library saves data when you add items to it. Read on for the details.
Adding a folder to a Library
The most common change I see people make to their Libraries is to add a new folder to the Pictures or Music Library. Typically, you have pictures or maybe music strewn in several locations, either on your computer or on your network. Here’s how easy it is to add a folder from far away into your Library:
1. Using File Explorer, navigate to the folder you want to add.
It can be located just about anywhere.
2. Tap and hold or right-click the folder, select Include in Library, and choose the Library.
In Figure 3-7, I add the Family Pics folder to my Pictures Library.
Figure 3-7: Adding a folder to a Library is easy, if you start by going to the folder.
3. Go back to the Library and make sure that the folder was added properly.
In Figure 3-8, you can see that the Family Pics folder, which sits on a different computer, is now in my Pictures Library.
Figure 3-8: Even though the folder hasn’t moved, it’s now included in the Library.
It’s important to realize that Windows doesn’t move anything. The pictures are still in their old location. But the Library has been expanded to include the folder in the remote location. If you search your Pictures Library, Windows will not only look at the contents of the Pictures and PublicPictures folders, it will also look inside the Family Pics folder — whether it’s on your C: drive, an external hard drive, an SD card, someplace on your network . . . just about anywhere.
Libraries aren’t exclusive. You can put one folder in multiple Libraries. You can put a folder in one Library and a subfolder of that folder in a different Library.
If you ever want to remove a folder from a Library, tap and hold or right-click the folder’s name on the left in the Navigation pane. Choose Remove Location from Library.
Changing a Library’s default save location
Want to challenge your brain a bit? Don’t short-circuit on this one, but “Libraries” itself is a Library — a Library that contains Libraries.
When you drag, copy, or move a file (or folder) into a Library, the file (or folder) has to physically go somewhere — it has to be placed in a real, physical folder. For example, if you save a new picture called Dummy.pic to the Pictures Library, Windows has to put the file Dummy.pic someplace; it has to stick it in a real folder. Because the Pictures Library isn’t a real folder, Windows needs to figure out which folder inside the Pictures Library should get the copy of Dummy.pic.
The folder is the default save location for the Library. If you set up your Libraries as described at the beginning of this chapter, the save location for the Documents Library is the Documents folder. The save location for the Music Library is the Music folder and so on.
It’s easy to change the default save location for any of the Libraries.
I, personally, change the save location of the Music Library to the PublicMusic folder, so any time I drag or save music into the Music Library, it automatically ends up in a place where other people who use my PC, and other people on my network, can access that music easily.
Here’s how to change the default save location:
1. Start File Explorer and click the Libraries link on the left.
The Libraries appear, as shown in Figure 3-6.
2. On the left, tap or click a Library. Then at the top, tap or click the Library Tools tab.
The Library Tools Manage tab opens and exposes the Manage Library Ribbon, which looks like Figure 3-9.
Figure 3-9: Manage your Libraries from this Ribbon.
3. On the left, in the Navigation pane, tap or click whichever Library you wish to change.
4. At the top, tap or click Set Save Location and choose the folder that you wish to set as the default save location.
Your change takes place immediately.
Creating Your Own Library
At the beginning of this chapter, I showed you how to set up four Libraries — the same four Libraries that ship with Windows 7 and Windows 8 — but you can add as many as you like.
You may want to create your own Library if, for example, you have a bunch of information about a house you want to sell. The info may include Word documents, an Excel spreadsheet, multiple photos, and maybe a video or two. You have the documents in a folder in Documents, the photos are in a separate folder in Pictures, and the video is in a separate folder in Videos. Here’s how to make a Library that ties them all together:
1. Start File Explorer and make sure your Libraries show (refer to Figure 3-6).
2. Tap and hold or right-click any blank location on the right and choose New⇒Library.
Windows creates a new Library, giving it the name New Library.
3. Immediately type a name for the Library and hit Enter (or tap the new icon).
In Figure 3-10, I typed the name House for Sale and pressed Enter, and File Explorer showed me my new empty Library.
Figure 3-10: Start your own custom Library.
4. Tap or click the Include a Folder button.
Windows lets you out to pick and choose your first folder.
5. Navigate to the first folder you want to include and tap or click Include Folder.
The first folder becomes the default save folder.
6. To add additional folders to the Library, navigate to the folder, tap or right-click and hold, choose Include in Library, and choose the name of the new Library.
The new Library appears everywhere that the four default Libraries appear, including the Navigation pane on the left of File Explorer and in the right-click menu for folders.