Create a library
The New Library sheet: the folder, what the library will hold, and the description, properties and tags the app drafts from that, edited in place.
Choose File › New Library… (⇧⌘N), or click New Library… on the welcome screen. One sheet does everything; the tags half of it is optional.
Name, place, and what it will hold
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Name | The library's name. It becomes the folder's name. |
| Where | The folder the library is made in. The default is ~/Movies/BetterLibrary. Click Change… to pick another parent folder. |
| What will this library hold? | A sentence or two: the footage, who is in it, what it is for. |
The library folder is always named after the library and made inside the folder you chose. If a folder with that name already exists there, the sheet says so and waits for another name.
If Change… lands on a folder that is already a library, the sheet offers to open it instead, or to copy its properties and tags into this one.
The description matters more than it looks. It opens every AI tagging prompt and the Ask planner's prompt, so the tags and the answers come back in your words. Three example chips show the shape of a good answer; click one to start from it. You can edit the text later in Settings › General.
Continue (⌘↩ from the text) is the way through; it needs a folder and some text.
Under the examples, two links offer the other ways in: start from a properties.jsonc file, or from another library's properties and tags. See Starting from a file.
Generate Description and Tags
Generate sends what you wrote to the model and the sheet widens: the form stays on the left, still editable, and on the right land a written-out description and the properties. The description is two to four sentences in your words, the text the AI reads before every clip it tags; edit it as you like, it is saved as you leave it. The AI can only pick from the tags in the properties. This call is not charged.
What comes back follows a few rules:
- Three to five properties, each with three to eight tags and a one-line description saying when the tag applies.
- A property the AI fills is one the model can decide from silent, downscaled video: what is visible, how it is shot, its feel.
- Facts the video cannot show (client, country, shoot date, approval) come back as manual properties. At most one.
- Single-select when the tags exclude each other (shot type, energy), multi-select when a clip can be several things (exercise, scene).
- At most one yes/no property.
- Never the clip's own fields, Name and Description, and nothing called Tags: loose keywords have their own place.
The properties can be edited, or removed one by one, once they land: a library with none is still a library.
Edit the list
Everything the Properties tab can set is here, before the library exists.
| To | Do |
|---|---|
| Drop a property | Untick its checkbox. It greys out and can be ticked back. |
| Rename a property, edit its line | Click the name or the line under it and type. ↩ in the name moves to the line. |
| Change a property's type | The menu on the row: Multi-select, Single-select, Yes / No, Scale, Text. Switching to Scale turns Manual on. |
| Mark a property manual | The Manual checkbox. The AI never fills a manual property; you set it on each import. |
| Pick a scale's shape | The Shape menu under a Scale property. |
| Make a text property a paragraph | The Paragraph checkbox under a Text property. |
| Reorder properties | ⌥↑ ⌥↓ while in a property's name. The order is the sidebar's. |
| Add a property | + Add property at the bottom. |
| See or change what a tag means | Click the tag. A card opens with its name, its "when it applies" line, the colour swatches and a Property menu to move it to another property. ↩ closes the card. |
| Drop a tag | The × on the tag, or Remove in its card. |
| Add a tag | Type in the dashed + tag field and press ↩. The field keeps focus for the next one. A comma-separated list adds several. ⌫ in the empty field removes the last tag. |
| Get more tags for a property | Suggest more, under any property the AI fills. Three to five new tags, marked with a dot. Not charged. |
| Ask for a change | Type it in the field under the list and press ↩: "a property for lighting", "fewer exercise tags", "in Spanish". The list is rewritten around your request; anything you added, renamed, described or coloured is kept, and the pills say what changed. Not charged. |
A tag with no description has a dashed amber edge until it gets one. The library is still made with it.
The greyed Description row at the bottom is the one thing every clip has without a property: a few sentences the AI writes from what it sees. It is always there and cannot be removed.
Starting from a file
The ⋯ menu above the list has three items:
- Import properties.jsonc… reads the file the Properties tab exports (see Properties as files). Ids in the file are ignored. A preview shows what it adds before anything changes: a property already in the list gains the tags it doesn't have, any other property is appended. A refused file lists every problem, with Copy Problems.
- Copy from Another Library offers your recent libraries, or Choose Library… for any other. Its properties and tags come into the sheet; its clips stay where they are.
- Save as properties.jsonc… writes the draft as a folder with
properties.jsoncandINSTRUCTIONS.md, to keep as a template or to hand to Claude Code.
Both imports work without a network connection.
Create
Click Create Library. The library opens on In Progress, ready for the first import. The ticked properties are created in the order shown, with their tags, colours and descriptions.
If the model can't be reached, the sheet says why and offers Try Again, or Create without AI. The description is kept either way, and properties can be added any time in Settings › Properties. See Properties and tags.
Cancel keeps what you typed for the rest of the session, so reopening the sheet doesn't start blank.