Views: Library

Think of the Library as a "jukebox" for your music files, videos, imported CDs, and media from the internet. The Organizer helps you manage all the clips you have saved, imported, or downloaded. From the Library you can use clips to create your own custom CDs and DVDs, and put together your own custom playlists for quick playback. Clips in the Library can also be copied to an MP3 player or other portable device.

Open the Library by clicking on the Library tab. Select any of the media categories or options from the sidebar.

Organizing Your Clips

Categories

To help you find media clips quickly within your Library, RealPlayer sorts the clips into categories based on their media types and other properties (for example, Music, Videos, or Playlists). See Clip Categories for details.

Custom Categories

In addition to the default media categories, you can create and name custom categories to help you organize your clips. For example, you might create a custom category called "Party Favorites" that includes your favorite dance tunes, and another custom category called "Holiday Videos" for home movies of birthdays and other observances.  See Custom Categories for details.

Columns and Clip Info

Within each category, you can sort your clips by a variety of parameters (arranged as vertical columns across the Library Display area) such as Clip Name, Artist, Album, Genre Type or category: Rock, Classical, Country, Sports, Movies, News etc., My Rating, Length, and Format, or the dates they were imported into the Library. See Clip Info for more information about viewing and editing these properties. 

Search the Library

Your library of clips will grow rapidly as you use RealPlayer. Even with the Organizer to help, you may want to quickly search for specific or similar clips based on criteria you set. 

For instance, you can search or sort your clips by a particular artist, song, or album.

1. Open the Library.
2. In the Search field, located in the upper right corner, type a search term or terms. When entering multiple search terms, separate words with spaces only. Do not use commas. Search terms are not case sensitive.
3. Click or press [ENTER] to start the search.
4. Search results appear as a list of clips in the Library Display area. You can sort by clicking on any of the column headers.

Add Clips to the Library

Here are four ways to add media clips to your Library:

Import tracks from a CD

Import Clips on your computer into the Library

Download from the internet

Import from a portable device

Configure Columns 

To configure the default column headings in the Library:

1. Open the Library.
2. Click any column header to sort the list of clips in that category, A to Z. (Clicking again will reverse the sort, Z to A.) 
3. Click and drag any column header to rearrange the order of the columns.
4. Click and drag a header divider to change the width of a column.
5. Double-click a header divider to open a column to the width needed to view the longest entry.

To specify which columns are displayed in the Library:

1. Click and select Preferences > Library.
2. Click Configure Columns... This opens the "Column Settings" dialog.
3. Select the current view by category (All Media, Music, Videos, etc.).
4. Select the column fields you want displayed within the current view. Use the Move Up and Move Down commands to adjust their order, and the "pixels wide" field to specify their size.

To create new columns:

1. Click and select Preferences > Library.
2. Click Configure Custom Columns... This opens the "Configure Column Settings" dialog.
3. In the "Column Display Name" field, enter a name for the custom column you want to create.
4. In the "Show Info From" field, use the drop-down list of database categories to select the info you want the custom column to display.

See Also

Play Clips from the Library

Create a Playlist

Add Custom Categories

Print My Library

Download Video from the Web to the Library

Create My Own CD

Import Local Media Files to the Library

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