hunting for ideas brings nothing new

R

Richard

I spent several hours last night going through numerous freeware and
javascript ideas for web galleries.
Most all of them were based on the same theme.
That is, thumbnails were displayed on a page, clicking on one shows the
larger image on the new page, which in turn, generates a new partial listing
of thumbs with a stock <previous.....index.....next> header.
Some opened a new window for the larger image.
All but one or two, used tables for display and the coding was nearly the
same.
The other one or two used frames.

I tried out one innovative technique found at dynamicdrive.com but couldn't
get the coding to accept my images.

I will eventually find the answer to make my idea work.

Column1.......................Column2......................Column3
List of "pages"..............Thumbnails..................Big picture.

All in divisions, of course.
 
S

SpaceGirl

Richard said:
I spent several hours last night going through numerous freeware and
javascript ideas for web galleries.
Most all of them were based on the same theme.
That is, thumbnails were displayed on a page, clicking on one shows the
larger image on the new page, which in turn, generates a new partial listing
of thumbs with a stock <previous.....index.....next> header.
Some opened a new window for the larger image.
All but one or two, used tables for display and the coding was nearly the
same.
The other one or two used frames.

I tried out one innovative technique found at dynamicdrive.com but couldn't
get the coding to accept my images.

I will eventually find the answer to make my idea work.

Column1.......................Column2......................Column3
List of "pages"..............Thumbnails..................Big picture.

All in divisions, of course.

http://digitalharmony.no-ip.com/subhuman10/gallery/

This is the one I put together with the help of a free Flash movie
called "SimpleViewer". It's really cool. I had to write a back end for
it to generate the XML (in ASP). Obviously only one bit of it works
right now, but the back end is fully functional.

--


x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #
 
S

Steve Pugh

I will eventually find the answer to make my idea work.

Column1.......................Column2......................Column3
List of "pages"..............Thumbnails..................Big picture.

All in divisions, of course.

Are you really saying that you want the whole gallery to be contained
in one HTML file? So all the thimbnails and all the full size pictures
need to be downloaded in one go?

Steve
 
R

Richard

SpaceGirl said:
This is the one I put together with the help of a free Flash movie
called "SimpleViewer". It's really cool. I had to write a back end for
it to generate the XML (in ASP). Obviously only one bit of it works
right now, but the back end is fully functional.


I'll take the redhead any day.
Sorry, but I don't want to use flash.

I had a brief meeting with the "Kinks" once at a college show.
Working as a security officer they came in at my door and I had to really
look up to the gal.
She stands like 6'6" easily.
 
R

Richard

Are you really saying that you want the whole gallery to be contained
in one HTML file? So all the thimbnails and all the full size pictures
need to be downloaded in one go?

Only the thumbs would be loaded which would only be 2kb in size.
If need be, other pages could be created.
The stuff I saw either opened in a new window, which I do not want, or
posted the larger image in the center of the screen with a few thumbs above
it.
I do have a thing called "tooltip" which can overlay the larger image over
the current page.
But I'd rather have the image displayed in a seperate division.
 
P

paul

Richard said:
I spent several hours last night going through numerous freeware and
javascript ideas for web galleries.
Most all of them were based on the same theme....

I've got my PHP driven gallery working pretty well now:
http://www.edgehill.net/1/

It's not intended for distribution, I'm an ameteur programmer but maybe
gives you some ideas.

It gives only 6 thumbnails on top & the big picture below which should
fit on most screens without scrolling & not require much to load.

It's designed for many frequently added galleries in nested folders in
categories and is pretty easy to navigate IMO. I only need to resize my
pics & create thumbnails in a 'thumbs' subfolder using irfanview then
dump them up on ftp. The PHP scripts format it all from there.

The URL's are still awfully long unfortunately.

At home I have a form interface for creating annotations with simple
text files that match the jpg file names. I manually create index.txt
files where I want some additional info to appear for the whole page and
title.txt files where I want a bit more control of the folder name. If
there are no pictures or index, it lists the file contents, if there is
an index.htm, it makes a link to that. For folders with no pictures,
only subfolders, I create a thumbs subfolder with one small pic to give
it a thumbnail image.

It would be possible to have php resize the images & create the thumbnails.

I did use some tables to get around some formatting problems but it's
mostly CSS based with wrapping shrinking divs.

If you had only a few galleries, it would be possible to run such a
script on your PC & direct the output to static html pages. Someone
could set up a web page to generate this for people from the web also.

Here's another example of a similar approach:
http://www.porjes.com/bruciebugs/bugs.php?style=02
 
S

Steve Pugh

Only the thumbs would be loaded which would only be 2kb in size.

So the big picture would not be on the same page. So why describe it
as being displayed in a column on the same page?

If you are planning to use a JavaScript that only calls in the big
picture when it's needed then you'll have a delay before it can be
displayed. If you're planning to preload all the big pictures then
you're back to a huge initial download.

A page containing the big picture plus minimal links (with a
stylesheet and furniture images that will already be cached) will only
be a slightly larger download than the image alone and will work when
JavaScript isn't available.
If need be, other pages could be created.

Good idea. Or use a server side language so that pages can be created
on the fly using a common template.

You were pointed towards brucie's butterflies demo back in January.
Simply rearrange that as you like, adding multiple galleries and
styling it into columns.
The stuff I saw either opened in a new window, which I do not want,
Okay.

or posted the larger image in the center of the screen with a few thumbs above
it.

So what? That's pure presentation. No need to look for an entirely
different technology just because you want to change the way something
is laid out.
I do have a thing called "tooltip" which can overlay the larger image over
the current page.
But I'd rather have the image displayed in a seperate division.

The difference is purely presentational. I'll bet that your 'tooltip'
is a <div>.

Steve
 
P

paul

Ah, I didn't notice your name at first, we've had this converstion
already <grin>. Anyways I'm curious if anything else comes up.
CodedColor is another gallery generator & image browser which is not
quite free, it has a pretty fancy menu for nested galleries & automatic
slide shows, resizing, CSS control, etc but it's still awfully klunky
looking without major adjustments.
 
R

Richard

paul said:
Richard wrote:
I've got my PHP driven gallery working pretty well now:
http://www.edgehill.net/1/
It's not intended for distribution, I'm an ameteur programmer but maybe
gives you some ideas.
It gives only 6 thumbnails on top & the big picture below which should
fit on most screens without scrolling & not require much to load.
It's designed for many frequently added galleries in nested folders in
categories and is pretty easy to navigate IMO. I only need to resize my
pics & create thumbnails in a 'thumbs' subfolder using irfanview then
dump them up on ftp. The PHP scripts format it all from there.
The URL's are still awfully long unfortunately.
At home I have a form interface for creating annotations with simple
text files that match the jpg file names. I manually create index.txt
files where I want some additional info to appear for the whole page and
title.txt files where I want a bit more control of the folder name. If
there are no pictures or index, it lists the file contents, if there is
an index.htm, it makes a link to that. For folders with no pictures,
only subfolders, I create a thumbs subfolder with one small pic to give
it a thumbnail image.
It would be possible to have php resize the images & create the
thumbnails.
I did use some tables to get around some formatting problems but it's
mostly CSS based with wrapping shrinking divs.
If you had only a few galleries, it would be possible to run such a
script on your PC & direct the output to static html pages. Someone
could set up a web page to generate this for people from the web also.
Here's another example of a similar approach:
http://www.porjes.com/bruciebugs/bugs.php?style=02


Your gallery is the same basic design as the others only done in php.
Brucie's approach is similar to what I had in mind, but many freesites like
geocities don't like php.
 
O

Oli Filth

Richard said:
paul wrote:





Your gallery is the same basic design as the others only done in php.
Brucie's approach is similar to what I had in mind, but many freesites like
geocities don't like php.

The two websites are exactly the same principle, just different layout!
If you want a different layout (e.g. using DIVs as you've said
previously), make one! It's no different to making any other page that
uses DIVs.

If you don't want to use PHP (or ASP or whatever), then you'll either
have to make a load of static HTML pages (one for each image) which is a
huge waste, or you'll have to go with some JavaScript idea, which won't
degrade nicely.

Your best bet is to go with PHP, either be prepared to pay something for
the functionality you want, or find a free host that has PHP (they do
exist).

Oli
 
C

C.W.

Your gallery is the same basic design as the others only done in php.
Brucie's approach is similar to what I had in mind, but many freesites like
geocities don't like php.


From my understanding GeoCities will handle PHP. They won't handle CGI
though.

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/geo/
This link, found under Yahoo! GeoCities Basics, shares the list of
file types supposted:
http://us.geocities.yahoo.com/v/filetypes.html

Right now I use the method found on alistapart to pull off something
similar to Brucie's butterfly or bugs effect; after January I will be
tinkering to use his method on those pages.

Carol
 

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