Running Zoom Studio

When Zoom Studio starts you will first see a splash screen and after a few seconds the program starts.

Configuring Zoom Studio

When running Zoom Studio for the first time you’ll need to set it up for your system. Go to the edit menu and select preferences.

The Preference dialog appears with the tab Files active.

The HTML editor text field contains the path to the program that will be launched to edit HTML files. By default this will be set to Windows Notepad. If you want to use another HTML editor click the Browse button below the text field. This will open a file browser dialog where you can select the new HTML editor program. The image editor text field contains the path to the program that will be launched to edit images. By default Zoom Studio searches for Adobe Photoshop, if the search fails the text field will be left empty. To select another program click the Browse button to locate the program you want to use.

Tip: To restore the default programs, clear the text fields, close the preferences dialog and open it again.

Your selected preferences will be stored by Zoom Studio and used every time the program is run. Selections made will not affect the rest of your system, i.e. the image editor you use with Zoom Studio does not have to be the same you use in other contexts.

Zoom Studio is now setup and ready.

Workspace Overview

The Zoom Studio workspace is divided into four main views. The Directory View, the File View, the Info View and the Output View. The Directory View and the File View both display files and directories on your computer and are sometimes refered to as the file views.

Directory View
The Directory View shows the directory structure of your computer, i.e folders on your local drives, removable media drives (floppy drives, CD-ROM drives etc) and Network drives. The Directory View is a quick way to navigate the directory structure. The Directory View displays drives and folders - it doesn’t display files. Contents of the currently selected directory in the Directory View are displayed in the File View.

File View
The File View displays images and HTML files of the currently selected directory. Image files are scanned and displayed with a small preview image, a thumbnail. HTML files are displayed with a static icon. The File View only displays images recognized by Zoom Studio and HTML files. A directory that appears empty can in fact contain a lot of files of different types since Zoom Studio only displays recognized media files. Right-clicking any file in the File View presents a menu with file-specific operations.

Info View
The Info View contains one or two tabs. The first tab, Info, displays information on the currently viewed image or HTML file. The second tab displays the user interface for the current work mode i.e. Gallery, Animation or Inzomify.

Output View
The Output View displays either an image or an HTML page.

Arranging the views
Depending on the nature of your work and your Windows desktop settings (screen size) you will want to change the size of the different views in the workspace. Move the cursor to the bar between any of the views and it will transform into a cursor with two bars and two arrows or into four arrows. Click and hold the left mouse button and move the cursor to change the size of the views. It is often useful to hide the file views when they aren’t needed. In the View menu use Hide file views and Show file views to hide and show the top two views in the workspace.