iMedia Browser: Quick Access to Media
If you live the iLife – that is, use Apple branded applications like iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie extensively, then having quick access to your media is essential. Certain Apple programs like Pages and Keynote already include a Media browser for Audio, Photos, and Video, but wouldn’t it be nice if you could have a similar browser available to all your applications? With Karelia Software’s iMedia Browser, you can.
The interface of iMedia Browser (see image below) is minimal, but not limited by any means. All the tools you expect are available: Spotlight searching, thumbnail resizing, and captions can all be easily accessed. Options for changing the way iMedia Browser is available (via the Dock or Menubar) and visible (Always on top, or automatically hidden) are found in the preferences. I would have liked to see the ability to map a keyboard shortcut to the application, but this is easy enough to work around.
While iMedia Browser recreates the Media browser used by Apple applications, the application adds a few tricks of it’s own. For one, the browser is not limited to Audio, Photos, and Video. iMedia Browser’s plugin capability allows users to browse other file types. For example, you could browse through your Safari or Delicious bookmarks (a third party plugin is required for the latter).
The neat thing about Karelia Software’s iMedia Browser is that the program is not just for consumers. The application is licensed under an open-source BSD-style license and an easy to use framework is available for developers. Much loved applications like Plasq’s Skitch and Pleasant Software’s Übercaster are already using the iMedia Browser framework to give users a super quick way to interact with their media.
I found iMedia Browser slightly unstable; the program especially had trouble with video, but for what I suspect would be it’s main use (photo browsing) the application is stable enough and is such a timesaver that it’s hard not to recommend it.
iMedia Browser is free and can be downloaded from Karelia Software.
Cool App! I’m going to try out the iDelicious plug-in later–that looks promising. If it would only let me post to del.icio.us as well then I’d really be sold on it.
Do you know of any additional iMedia Browser plug-ins?