While you can still browse collections in LUNA without a registered user account, you won't be able to fully take advantage of LUNA's advanced tools. Creating a new user account is the best way to customize your viewing preferences and the only way to create Media Groups , presentations , use the My Uploads feature and External Media Search or add annotations .

On this page:

Registration Overview

The best way to explore collections in the LUNA Viewer is to first create a user account from the Register link in the upper right corner:

Registering for an account allows you to save your work and preferences, search external media, create Media Groups and Presentations, customize your settings, create annotations, and upload your own content.
Upon registration you can select default viewing settings. These settings (thumbnail size and number of thumbnails per page) will stay intact each time you login until you change them.
Upon registration an Active Media Group will automatically be created, titled "My First Media Group". This group will be private until you choose to change it's properties.
Your user settings will also determine your default collections. You can view other collections than these as you browse by selecting them from the Collections page, but each time you login you will by default be viewing the collections selected here.

Registration and User Settings

Create a user account in the LUNA Viewer:

Click on the Register link in the upper right corner near the search box.
Select a Username and Password to use in order to log-in to your account.
Enter your First Name, Last Name and E-mail address.
Select how many thumbnails per page you want displayed: 50, 100, or 250.
Select the size of the thumbnails displayed: small, medium, or large.
Select either "Full" or "Minimal" animations. (If you have a good graphics card and like to see features like the Advanced Search box and Active Media Panel fade in and out as opposed to popping open, select “Full Animations”.You’re not missing out on any features by selecting “Minimal Animation”, this option simply makes tabs and windows within the LUNA Viewer application pop open).
Click Save.
By registering a user account you've also automatically created an Active Media Group, titled "My First Media Group". You can then browse LUNA and add media to this Active Media Group, and edit the properties of this group at any time.

Edit Settings and Defaults

To personalize and edit your User Settings , click on the Edit Settings/Defaults link in the upper right corner of the LUNA Viewer after log-in.

Edit your username and password
Choose your Default Collections
Choose your Viewing Preferences

Select how many thumbnails per page you want displayed: 50, 100, or 250
Select the size of the thumbnails displayed: small, medium, or large

Choose your Client Side Effects

Full Animations: If you have a good graphics card and like to see features like the Advanced Search box and Active Media Panelfade in and out as opposed to popping open, select the “Full Animations” option in the user preferences.
Minimal Animations : You’re not missing out on any features by selecting “Minimal Animation”, which simply makes tabs and windows within the LUNA application pop open.

Which option is best for me?

When you register "Minimal Animations" is selected by default and can easily be changed to "Full Animations". The “Full Animations” option requires slightly more CPU’s (central processing units) which could slow performance down a bit if, for example, you had a lot of images in the LUNA Workspace. If you feel the performance of LUNA has slowed down due to this change, simply change it back to "Minimal Animations".

Choose your Active Media Group
Show or Hide Help Tip Boxes

Default Collections

Select from the collection list in the user settings which collections you would like to access each time you login to LUNA .

The selected collections will be the collections immediately available to you each time you login and will be included in your subsequent searches. These collections can be from your institution, and/or collections from the LUNA Commons .

The LUNA Commons ( www.lunacommons.org ) contains additional free content from other LUNA collections. The media in these collections is available for you to use in your Media Groups and Presentations .

Active Media Group

A Media Group allows you to save select media into a group for later use, or to share with others. As you browse LUNA and select media to save into a Media Group , you'll be saving this media into your Active Media Group .

Upon registering a user account, an Active Media Group is automatically created. This group is private, you can always change the properties of this group to make it public later.
You can only add media to your selected Active Media Group.
When you create a new Media Group you have the option of selecting it as your Active Media Group.
There are several ways to check which of your Media Groups is your Active Media Group: in your user settings; by opening the Active Media Group tab in the lower left corner while browsing; and from the Active Media Group pull down menu located near the Keyword search box.
You can only have one Active Media Group selected at a time.
To quickly change the Active Media Group during your LUNA session, go to the pull down menu located near the Keyword search box and select a different group. Or, go to Edit Settings/Default and select a new Active Media Group from the pull down menu.

Show and Hide Help Tip Boxes

Tip boxes appear on most pages of the LUNA Viewer. Users have the option to:

Hide the current tip
Hide all tips
Show more of the tip (will expand into a larger window)
Pop-out the tip (will launch tip in a new window)

You can also control whether or not these tips boxes appear in your User Settings.

In the example below the Help Tip will appear every time you perform an Advanced Search, create a Media Group, or create a presentation.