Material Library

Modified on 2016/06/19 10:41 by Administrator Categorized as Design objects, Main concepts
{s:Conceptual Object Panel
| title=Material Library
| category=Structural Object
| role=Store stimulus materials
| icon=[image|Element Icon|{UP}/pictures/icons/elements/renderer.png]
}

Every experiment created with [EventIDE] has its own data storage, called Material Library. Library may contain multiple items organized in a hierarchical folder structure, like a standard file system. Any stimulus material, such as picture, sound and video or custom data can be loaded from external files and added into Library. Then materials can be organized, previewed/edited and made to use anywhere in experiment. Building Material Library is one of the first steps in designing experiments in [EventIDE].

{TOC}

== Things To Know ==
* Library items can not be used directly to build a content in a designed experiment. First, they have to be dropped to an appropriate [element|Element] that can handle the underlying data. For example, [Renderer] element can draw the graphical library items (bitmap and vector) after they added into element's list
* Most of the library items are created over a externally loaded file. The original file can be extracted from Library and saved back to a hard disk just by drag and dropping an item to Windows Explorer
* All Library content is stored together with the parent experiment, inside of a '.eve' file. Thus, migration of any experiment with all materials to another computer is done just by copying a single file.
* Library items are shown in a sorted alphabetical list and may change an order only on renaming
* Each library item is an unique object which, however, can be reused in different parts of an experiment. If necessary, an item can be duplicated with copy-paste, e.g. for making multiple copies of the same image in Library
* At any moment you can load new items, delete unused ones and, most importantly, update the existing items that are already used in an experiment. It allows you to easily change your stimuli without modification of the experiment itself
* The storage capacity of the library is limited only by the available disk space but working with very large files (e.g long movies) can reduce responsiveness of the [EventIDE] GUI

== Item Types ==
[EventIDE] automatically classify library items in one of the following types:
* Bitmap Image
* Vector graphics
* Wave sound
* Compressed audio
* Video
* Custom data

The type classification is important for a further use of a library items. The most of [Elements] can handles only a particular type of library items, e.g. [Direct Sound Element] can play only the Wave sounds.

== Supported file formats ==
[EventIDE] automatically recognizes and supports a vast range of file formats that may contain stimulus materials. A file format is get recognized by an extension of the loaded files. The following formats are recognized:

{| border="1" bgcolor="Gray"
| Format
| File Extensions
|-
| Bitmap graphics
| <nowiki>*.bmp;*.jpg;*.jpeg;*.png</nowiki>
|-
| Vector graphics
| <nowiki>*.xaml;*.svg</nowiki>
|-
| Audio clip
| <nowiki>*.wav;*.wma;*.mp3</nowiki>
|-
| Video clip
| <nowiki>*.wmv;*.avi</nowiki>
|-
| Custom data
| <nowiki>*.*</nowiki>
|}

== GUI ==

Learn how to control Material Library via [Library Panel]

== Practical Use ==

=== Adding Items ===

Library items can be imported into the library from external files using the main menu command '''Library-Add Items'''. Alternatively, you can simply drag and drop files into the Library Panel from a Windows explorer (and, visa versa, if you need to export an item to a file). The XAML items can be created directly without loading a file (through the Main Menu). Once item is created in Library, it can be selected and previewed.

=== Making Use of Library Items ===

Library items need to be assigned the designated element. Use drag and drop from the [Library Panel] to the [Element panel]. To initiate the drag and drop, press the left mouse button and hold it pressed over the selected items. When the mouse cursor changes its shape, move a mouse to the element in the Element panel and drop the dragged items. You can see which items are currently in the element list by expanding it with a toggle button next to the element title.

=== Updating Items ===
The content of any Library item can be updated from an external file without breaking its assignments in an experiment. Select an item or items and call Update Items command in the Main Menu. Thenm select new content files in the open file dialog. If multiple items/files are selected they will be updated one by one.

=== Editing XAML items ===

Library items with the XAML vector graphics can be edited in a popup text editor. Select the XAML item and press the Edit icon next to item's title.
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