The Library window¶

File › Library… opens one window with five views of everything ShotWork knows about: the files you have registered, every shot in them, the values in their fields, the logos those values wear, and your music. It stays open beside the main window, Esc hides it, and it reopens on the view you last used.

How it works¶

The Library is an index, not a copy. It lists the shot selects and reels registered with it, and works out its counts from what is in those files each time it refreshes. Removing a file from the Library never touches the file.

A shot selects file or reel registers itself when you save or open it, so most of your work is listed without asking. A reel an AI assistant builds registers too.
The Library refreshes when you open it, when you choose a refresh button, and after its own edits. It does not watch your files, so shots marked in another tab appear once you refresh.
An AI assistant searches exactly what the Library lists, so a shot selects file it should see has to be registered.

View, at the top of the window, switches between the five views:

View	What it lists	See
Files	Every registered shot selects file and reel.	Files
Field values	Every value a field holds anywhere, with rename and remove.	Rename and remove field values
Logos	Every image in your logo pool and what it stands for.	Logos
Shots	Every shot in every registered shot selects file.	Shots
Music	Your imported songs.	Music

Files¶

One row per registered shot selects file and reel: its Name, its Shots (for a reel, its clips), the Reels that draw on a shot selects file, and a column for each field you choose to show.

To choose those columns, right-click anywhere in this view, a row, the column headings or the empty space, and open the View submenu (not the View box at the top of the window). It lists every field any of your shot selects defines, the ones most of your files use at the top, and your choice is remembered. A new column lands on the right. ShotWork starts with Company showing.

What a column prints depends on the kind of field:

Field type	The column shows
Text, Choice	the values on that file's shots, up to three, then `+2` for the rest
List	how many different values that file uses
Number	the range it spans, such as `2021-2023`

Add Selects… registers one shot selects file.
Scan Folder… registers every shot selects file and reel anywhere under a folder. Files already listed are not added twice.
Remove from Library stops tracking the selected file. It does not ask and cannot be undone, but the file itself is untouched and can be added again.
Double-click a row to open the file in a tab, or to switch to it if it is open already.
Right-click a row for Open, Reveal in File Browser and Remove from Library. A shot selects file also offers Reels (2), with its count, to open a reel that uses it.
Each column you are showing adds a submenu of that file's values to the row's menu, such as Company (1) or Role (3), and choosing one jumps to it in the Field values view.

A file that has gone missing, or cannot be read, keeps its row with (file not found) or (could not be read) after its name, so unplugging a drive does not make the Library forget it.

Shots¶

Every shot from every registered shot selects file, in the same picker a reel tab uses: the filter box and its query language, the minimum-rating stars, a list or a thumbnail grid, and the size slider. Restricted shots are listed, tinted red. See Filter the list for the query language and Narrow the list first for the picker.

Double-click a shot to open its shot selects at that shot.
Drag a shot onto a reel timeline to add it there.
Right-click a shot for Reveal in File Browser and Open Source Selects.

The list or grid choice and the thumbnail size are shared with the reel tab's picker.

Music¶

Your imported songs, left where they are on disk: each one's Song, Duration, Beats / Energy, Downbeats, and the reels it is Used by. Beats / Energy shows a check mark once the song's beats and its energy curve are analyzed. Downbeats reads every 4 (manual) for a count you set, a check mark once the downbeat engine has placed them, analyzing… while queued, or no engine without the engine installed. A song whose file is gone reads (missing), and one replaced since you imported it reads (file changed) until you analyze it again.

The buttons under the list, a song's right-click menu and dragging a song onto a reel are covered in Your music library; what the analysis finds is in Beats and downbeats.

What this means when you…¶

…mark shots in another tab: choose the refresh button, "Re-read every registered file", to see them here.
…unplug a drive: its files stay listed as not found, and come back with the drive.
…want an AI assistant to see a shot selects file: save or open it once, or add it here.
…rename a studio: every registered shot selects file changes, and its logo comes along. See Rename and remove field values.

What the Library keeps, and where

library.json, in ShotWork's app data, holds two lists of full paths: registered shot selects and registered reels. Everything else the window shows is worked out from those files, or read from a file of its own: remembered field values in field_values.json, logos with their assignments and categories in the logos folder, tags in tags.json, and songs in music.json. Paths are resolved before they are stored, so one file added two ways is one entry, and a missing or damaged library.json reads as an empty library. Because the paths are full paths, the file only means something on the computer that wrote it.

Rename and remove field values and Logos, the other two views in detail.
Describe a shot for the fields whose values the Library lists.
Connect an AI assistant, which searches what the Library lists.