Photography site - layout pictures or use extension

[©®]

I am wanting to do a small photographic site (using Studio MX) whereby
on the left-hand side there is a grid of say 25 thumbnail pics (5 x 5).
When you click (or hover) on the thumbnail, it would then show the
enlarged pic on the right-hand side of the page.
Is there an extension that would help make this easier to do?
Now to make it even more difficult, I was hoping to have the 25
thumbnails be chosen randomly from a pool of the total pics on the site
(e.g. 100 - hey, it's a small site) and when the page is refreshed the 5
x 5 grid changes as well (and still, when you click/hover on the
thumbnail it is shown enlarged).
I am not the most advanced DW user so any pointers, tips, examples,
extensions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you

 

[hywel.jenkins]

I am wanting to do a small photographic site (using Studio MX) whereby
on the left-hand side there is a grid of say 25 thumbnail pics (5 x 5).
When you click (or hover) on the thumbnail, it would then show the
enlarged pic on the right-hand side of the page.
Is there an extension that would help make this easier to do?
Now to make it even more difficult, I was hoping to have the 25
thumbnails be chosen randomly from a pool of the total pics on the site
(e.g. 100 - hey, it's a small site) and when the page is refreshed the 5
x 5 grid changes as well (and still, when you click/hover on the
thumbnail it is shown enlarged).
I am not the most advanced DW user so any pointers, tips, examples,
extensions would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know if there's DW extension for this, but I'd say you need
some server-side scripting to handle it. With PHP, that's a trivial
task with the file system functions.

A 5x5 grid of thumbnails will mean that the thumbnails will be tiny,
wouldn't it?

If you're interested, here's my gallery: http://photos.kibo.org.uk/ I
tried the thumbnail route - I wrote my own and looked at others. I
hated them all. IMO, this one is much smarter, even though dial-up
users probably can't be arsed to wait for the photos to load.

It does all that is evil in web design: it uses JavaScript; loads loads
of images at the same time; it's got a right-click context menu for
navigation. I'm not bothered whether it's accessible in browsers with
JS disabled or missing, so the idea might not suit you.

 

[mbstevens]

I am wanting to do a small photographic site (using Studio MX) whereby
on the left-hand side there is a grid of say 25 thumbnail pics (5 x 5).
When you click (or hover) on the thumbnail, it would then show the
enlarged pic on the right-hand side of the page.
Is there an extension that would help make this easier to do?
Now to make it even more difficult, I was hoping to have the 25
thumbnails be chosen randomly from a pool of the total pics on the site
(e.g. 100 - hey, it's a small site) and when the page is refreshed the 5
x 5 grid changes as well (and still, when you click/hover on the
thumbnail it is shown enlarged).
I am not the most advanced DW user so any pointers, tips, examples,
extensions would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.mbstevens.com/howtothumb/
....may be of some help. I'm not much taken with scripts that automate
thumbnails, because in most cases each image needs its own particular
care and feeding.

 

[Travis Newbury]

I am wanting to do a small photographic site (using Studio MX) whereby
on the left-hand side there is a grid of say 25 thumbnail pics (5 x 5).
When you click (or hover) on the thumbnail, it would then show the
enlarged pic on the right-hand side of the page....

google "javascript slide show" for examples

 

[Neredbojias]

With neither quill nor qualm, (e-mail address removed) quothed:

I don't know if there's DW extension for this, but I'd say you need
some server-side scripting to handle it. With PHP, that's a trivial
task with the file system functions.

A 5x5 grid of thumbnails will mean that the thumbnails will be tiny,
wouldn't it?

If you're interested, here's my gallery: http://photos.kibo.org.uk/ I
tried the thumbnail route - I wrote my own and looked at others. I
hated them all. IMO, this one is much smarter, even though dial-up
users probably can't be arsed to wait for the photos to load.

I never could get the "mouse-moves-the-pic" system to work in anything
but IE. (-Used to use it for scrollbarless fullscreen pic scrolling, or
better: movement.) Anyway, I like it. Why do the images have white
borders in Moz and not IE?

 

[hywel.jenkins]

With neither quill nor qualm, (e-mail address removed) quothed:


I never could get the "mouse-moves-the-pic" system to work in anything
but IE. (-Used to use it for scrollbarless fullscreen pic scrolling, or
better: movement.) Anyway, I like it. Why do the images have white
borders in Moz and not IE?

Dunno - the image just has bit of padding and a white background, then
the black border. IE has collapsed the padding, or the margin, I can't
remember. I'll fix it one day.

Glad you like it.

 

[Neredbojias]

With neither quill nor qualm, (e-mail address removed) quothed:

Dunno - the image just has bit of padding and a white background, then
the black border. IE has collapsed the padding, or the margin, I can't
remember. I'll fix it one day.

Glad you like it.

There's a certain elegance in the simplicity, and, as you allude,
thumbnails are common. I may take a stab at something related the next
time I feel like, uh, working hard. (-Yeah, right.)

 

[dorayme]

http://www.mbstevens.com/howtothumb/
...may be of some help. I'm not much taken with scripts that automate
thumbnails, because in most cases each image needs its own particular
care and feeding.

Looks nice mb! Yes, it needs to be thought out well, so many
thumbnails are no better than a text description. Nice idea,
btw, about a detail from the larger on occasion...

I was asked and (a bit reluctantly agreed to do) a randomised
pic, just one from a pool of about 10. I used javascript and
sort of wrote it (I am certain it was reinventing the wheel but
it was fun!), it worked well but I will only dig it out if the
OP is likely to benefit... needs to show appreciation of load
time issues, able to operate on source code direct etc etc (I
know nothing about MX)

 

[Chris Beall]

©® wrote:
(snip)

Now to make it even more difficult, I was hoping to have the 25
thumbnails be chosen randomly from a pool of the total pics on the site
(e.g. 100 - hey, it's a small site) and when the page is refreshed the 5
x 5 grid changes as well (and still, when you click/hover on the
thumbnail it is shown enlarged).

©®,

Um, I think there's a logic problem here. If the set of thumbnails is
always randomly selected, what happens if I come to the site a second
time, looking for a particular image that I recall from my first visit?

There's a 1-in-4 chance that the image I want appears on the page. In
theory, if I refresh the page 3 times I should have a good chance of
seeing it, but Murphy's Law states that I'll have to refresh several
more times than that, with no guarantee that the desired image will EVER
appear.

Randomizing can be good if you are just trying to create variety on
consecutive visits, but if someone is actually looking for something, a
logically-ordered arrangement would be better.

Chris Beall

 

[mbstevens]

dorayme wrote:
Nice idea,

btw, about a detail from the larger on occasion...

Nielsen has quit a lot more than I wrote about this point on
his site.
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9611.html
He goes into 'relevance enhancement' which I don't touch on.

(A search for thumbnails on his site leads to 35 other hits, too.)