Getting Started with InfoLayout
Part 2. Adding Files and Folders to a Catalog.

This second part of the Getting Started tutorial tells you how to add files and folders to a catalog. As you will see below, adding your discs to a catalog is easy, especially using the default settings. Essentially, it only takes one step to scan your discs.

How to Add Your CD, DVD, and Other Files to a Catalog

To add files or discs to a catalog, on the Catalog menu, click the CatalogAdd Folders and Files... item . The 'Add Folders and Files' dialog appears.

Look at the following controls on the dialog:

• Disc name (1) - an alias for the disc like 'Video01' - Some label that you prefer to assign to the disc in the catalog.
• Scan path (2) - the local path to the disc, such as 'd:\'.
• Location in catalog (3) - you can put disc info in an appropriate location to catalog using virtual folders. To change the location of a new disc in the catalog, click the drop-down button and select a location. This drop-down list displays all virtual folders in your catalog. (Note that, although discs can be added only to virtual folders, this dialog will appear if you select a file or scanned folder in the catalog. InfoLayout will then find the nearest virtual folder in the catalog and place file info into it.)
• Scan profile (4) - settings used to scan your disc. Click the 'Manage Profiles' button to edit your scan settings or choose an existing profile from the list box. You can customize scan settings (like scanning specific file types) and save those settings to a scan profile.

After you click the OK button, InfoLayout will start scanning your disc. You will see a progress dialog during the process.

Note that you can cancel scanning at any time. If you cancel scanning, no files will be added to the catalog.

Additional Features

The 'Add Folders and Files' dialog has several additional options that you may use when scanning your discs. Some of them are just for your convenience. For example, InfoLayout can notify you when scanning is complete by playing a sound and ejecting the CD. This allows you to switch to other tasks while the cataloger is scanning your discs, since it make take some time to finish.

Another useful option is to prompt for scanning again after the current disc is added to the catalog. This way you can do a batch scan of several discs one by one. To enable this, check 'Display this dialog again for the next disc' option.

What's Next?

As you can see, it's easy to add discs to a catalog using the default settings. After you add your discs' information to the catalog, you can browse it or search for files. If you want advanced customization of the scan process, you can edit the settings in scan profiles. This is described in detail in the Customizing Scan Settings article.