Noob Help w/Sharing- iTunes and iPicture

[carfac]

Hi:

Just getting a new iMac 20 to work. As suggested here, I started with a user "Master", and then made "Regular" accounts for my wife and I. *Glad I spent some time reading here before getting the iMac, so a "Thank You" to all the wonderful posters here!)

Anyway, I set up my account, and popped my music into iTunes and 1000's of pictures into iPicture (sorry, forgot what it's called, I am sure you know what I mean!). Anyway, I turned on sharing for both, but my wife's account can't see either!

So, probably stupid, but what I did was move my iTunes foder to /hd/users/shared into a folder I made there called Music. I pointed both iTunes to this directory, imported the music, and we seem to be OK. But somehow I think this is wrong...

The same idea did NOT work for iPictures. No matter what I do, I cannot seem to get my wife's account to see the pictures. We are talking Gigs of pictures, I would REALLY not like to have two copies on the computer.

ANy help in these would really be appreciated! Thanks!

Dave

 

[GimmeSlack12]

Alright Dude, welcome to MacRumors, congrats on the Mac.

Although I think the Master account and regular user accounts method is unneccesary. I accept different ways of doing things.

Anyway...
Onto your question. We can fix this no problem. You need to give access to your music and picture folder to the user files that and your wife use. You'll need to be in the Admin account to do this.

Note these steps will be for your Music Folder.
1. Select folder and "Get Info" on the folder (Press Apple-I, or Cntrl-Click and select "Get Info").
2. At the bottom of the window you'll see Owner and Permssions, and Details. Owner should say "Read and Write". Hit the triangle next to details so that it drops down and select "Read and Write" for the 'Others'. This enables that any other account can read and write to the folder. Now go into your account and open iTunes and go to the preferences>advanced. Now you make the library point to the main music folder. I know that was a quick description, any questions let me know.

EDIT: Do not follow my instructions for iPhoto. It doesn't work the same. I'll get back to on that process.

EDIT 2: To get the photos to work you will need to setup the same permissions for your iPhoto Library folder in your "Pictures" folder. Then in your and your wife's accounts you will need to make an alias of the master iPhoto folder and place it in your Pictures folder. iPhoto will find it and read all of your pictures accordingly in you and your wife's folders.

Now I know that could have been written a little more clearly so if you have more questions as you try the photo's folder please let me know.

 

[carfac]

Thanks GimmeSlack.

After giving this a little more thought, I had another question. Is it possible to set up a "Master" iTunes install (either in my username, or as the Admin) and have all the iTunes on the machine "echo" that install? That way, I can just set up play lists once, in one place, and we can all use them?

dave

 

[GimmeSlack12]

Yes.

You can share whatever Music folder you want from whatever account. As long as the permissions in the "Get Info" box are set for others to access them then there shouldn't be any problems. Hope that makes sense.

Again I will say that I don't find it necessary to have so many accounts and if anything I'd say that you use the Admin account and then have another account for your wife. Having many accounts can (and will) get confusing.

 

[carfac]

GS:

Cool- thanks!

>>> I don't find it necessary to have so many accounts and if anything I'd say that you use the Admin account and then have another account for your wife. Having many accounts can (and will) get confusing.

You may be right, and as a user with more experience than me on Mac, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Probably for most users, it is. I use a similar routine on my web servers- I have 10-15 accounts on each, some root/su, some admin, some user- and I keep them all straight, so it seemed good to use that routine on my Mac. (I have administered FreeBSD servers since well before it was part of Mac OS). So, for me, I am not too worried, and I like the added security.

Thanks again for your help!

Dave