Flock Browser - Sharing Photos Online

In this section:

Flock's Media Bar lets you view online videos and photos. You can tell the Media Bar to find your friends' photos, and have it notify you when your friends upload new photos. Of course, you can view your own photos, too.

What are online photos and video?
What's an online photo service?
Viewing online photos or videos
Viewing photos or movies in your online account
Working with the Media Bar
Searching for media
Having Flock notify you about new media

What are online photos and video?

The simplest way to show your digital photos with other people is to publish the photos online. It's much easier than dragging your friends over to your computer's screen, or sticking your laptop in people's faces.

Flock makes it easy to view, share and upload photos to online photo sharing sites. Once a photo is online, you can share it with friends, mark it as private, or add it to a blog post.

Online Video sharing sites allow you to upload short video clips and share them with your friends and family. Flock includes built in tools to help you keep track of the videos that you, or your friends, upload.

What's an online media service?

An online media services allow you to store, sort, search and share your photos on your own personalized web page. Flock supports three online photo services - Flickr, Piczo and Photobucket - and two online video sites - YouTube and Truveo. All of the services offer free versions of their service, and upgrades for a nominal fee.

Even without an account at an online service, you can enjoy media that other people have published. Flock allows you search and subscribe to individual users media sites, or to specific streams.

A stream is like a collection of media that all share a common aspect - such as a word or a tag. When you search for content in the Media Bar, Flock will display the results in a stream. If a page that you are viewing contains a stream, Flock will display the stream icon, next to the Favorites star, in orange.

Viewing online photos or videos

Flock's Media Bar lets you view your own and your friends' photos. To see the Media Bar, click the Media Bar button, or press CTRL+SHIFT+M on your keyboard.

You can tell the Media Bar to find your friends' photos, and have it notify you when your friends upload new photos. Of course, you can view your own photos, too.

Viewing photos or movies in your online account

If you already have a photo or video account, and have setup your account in the Accounts and Services menu, follow these steps to view the media in that account.

To view photos or videos from an account in your Media Bar

If the Media Bar isn't already open, click the Media Bar button, or press CTRL+SHIFT+M on your keyboard.
Click the Media Streams button at the top of the Media Bar.
Select My accounts and then the media account that you'd like to view.
Only those accounts that you have previously set up in the Account manager will show in this menu.
The photos or videos that you want should appear in the Media Bar.
Mouse over each photo to see a larger version appear as a pop-up.

Working with the Media Bar

Flock lets you browse through media streams quickly and easily using the Media bar. While viewing a photo stream you can navigate through photos, view online movies, or share photos with friends.

Use the arrows on the right and left sides of the Media Bar to navigate through a media stream.
Move your mouse over a photo to see a larger version of the image.
As you mouse over a photo or video, you will see an arrow appear on the bottom right of that image. Clicking the arrow will bring up additional options to share or copy the media.
- A link to the person that uploaded the media appears on the top right of the information panel. Clicking this link will take you to their media stream.
- From the Share menu you can choose to email media to a friend, or post a link to the media on your blog.
- From the Copy meny, you can choose to copy the HTML that will allow you to link to the video in an email or a forum post.
- If you are viewing a video stream, you can select the Mini View button to open the video directly in your browser.
You can move the Media Bar to the bottom of the Flock window by clicking the Media Streams button, and then selecting Settings > Move to Bottom.
Click the Media Streams button, and select Settings > Move to Top to move the bar back to the top of your browser.
To access the advanced features of the Media Bar, click the Media Streams button, and select Settings > Show Advanced Controls.
- The Display Mode button allows you to toggle on and off the display of additional media meta data such as the media author, or posting date.
- The Large View button allows you to set which size of thumbnail image you would prefer to view.
You can close the Media Bar when you are done working with it by click the X on the top right of the Media Bar. Be careful to close the Media Bar only, and not the application.

Searching for Media

Many people tag their photos with keywords, and add titles and descriptions to them. You can search for these photos using the search field on the top right of the Media Bar. The results of your search form a media stream. You can browse a media stream, or mark a stream as a favorite. If you mark a stream as a favorite, it will be updated in the My World page whenever you open Flock.

To search for photos

If the Media Bar isn't already open, click the Media Bar button, or select View > Topbars > Media Bar.
Enter your search terms in the Search field within the Media Bar.

Tip: You can search several different services from within the Media Bar. To change services, click the icon on the left of the Search field and select the new service from the drop-down list.
Press Enter (Return) on your keyboard.
Photos or Videos matching your search terms will appear in the Media Bar, grouped by user.
You can mark a stream as a favorite by clicking the star on the top left of the Media Bar.

Having Flock notify you about new photos

Flock can tell you when new photos are added to your friends photo sharing sites.

To enable photo update notification

If the Media Bar isn't already open, click the Media Bar button, or press CTRL+SHIFT+M on your keyboard.
Visit the photo stream that you would like to receive notifications for.
For information on how to access a particular photo stream, see Finding photos online.
When the friend's photos show up in the Media Bar, click the Star icon in the top left of the Media Bar.

From now on, Flock will alert you when your friends upload new photos.