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Permlink Replies: 7 - Pages: 1 - Last Post: 28 Sep 17, 13:30 Last Post By: JeffTucker
rahvaluulearhiiv

Posts: 3
Registered: 22-Aug-2017
Opened widget bar hides image caption
Posted: 20 Sep 17, 15:51
 
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Attachment after.JPG (269.2 KB)
Attachment before.JPG (272.1 KB)
Hello!

I am using the jAlbum software together with the Turtle skin to have other people help me identify old photos. For this I like the commenting feature on Turtle but I do have problems with the widget bar in the bottom of the page.

Firstly... is there any way to increase or change the "+" button? I would like the commenting option to be more visible, especially for the elderly users my album could receive.

Secondly, I have added information about the photographs which can be seen in the caption/info, however, once you open the widget bar, the caption is hidden behind it. I've had people commenting on photos with the same information that I have already added to the caption so it is obvious they navigate through the album with the widget bar always open and they never see the caption. Is it possible to place the caption elsewhere, like on a side of the image or minimise the widget bar by default on each image?

Thirdly, is it possible to translate text in the widget bar or is this a matter not related to this subforum? As you see from the attached images, I have translated parts of the page but the bottom bar remains in English.

Thanks!

Edited by: rahvaluulearhiiv on 20-Sep-2017 15:52
RobM

Posts: 3,808
Registered: 4-Aug-2006
Re: Opened widget bar hides image caption
Posted: 20 Sep 17, 19:05   in response to: rahvaluulearhiiv in response to: rahvaluulearhiiv
 
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rahvaluulearhiiv wrote:
Firstly... is there any way to increase or change the "+" button? I would like the commenting option to be more visible, especially for the elderly users my album could receive.
Have a look at the attached file in this post it describes what css to change to customise the widgets.
Secondly, I have added information about the photographs which can be seen in the caption/info, however, once you open the widget bar, the caption is hidden behind it. I've had people commenting on photos with the same information that I have already added to the caption so it is obvious they navigate through the album with the widget bar always open and they never see the caption. Is it possible to place the caption elsewhere, like on a side of the image or minimise the widget bar by default on each image?
Not really, I don't think you can control the status of the widget bar on page load, at least not without extensive use of JavaScript to rewrite the page after loading.
Thirdly, is it possible to translate text in the widget bar or is this a matter not related to this subforum? As you see from the attached images, I have translated parts of the page but the bottom bar remains in English.
Pretty sure the answer is no.

Widgets are provided by sever side JavaScript on jAlbum's own severs, not from the server hosting your album.
rahvaluulearhiiv

Posts: 3
Registered: 22-Aug-2017
Re: Opened widget bar hides image caption
Posted: 28 Sep 17, 10:53   in response to: RobM in response to: RobM
 
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Thank you! But I can't seem to locate such options in the css files present in my album.
Can you give me further directions on where to look or how to include these custom options?
Sorry for being a dummy :)
RobM

Posts: 3,808
Registered: 4-Aug-2006
Re: Opened widget bar hides image caption
Posted: 28 Sep 17, 11:12   in response to: rahvaluulearhiiv in response to: rahvaluulearhiiv
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Turtle skin does not include any widget css files, most skins don't.
You need to add the code in the attachment here to either the 'HTML' section of Turtle's settings, as shown here

You can add the code in the HEAD or BODY section, the code needs to have an opening style tag <style> before and a closing </style> after it.

No need to apologise, this is not something many users attempt.
RobM

Posts: 3,808
Registered: 4-Aug-2006
Re: Opened widget bar hides image caption
Posted: 28 Sep 17, 11:23   in response to: RobM in response to: RobM
 
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If you want to change any of the icons then you need to include your own versions. One way of doing that is to check your project to see if it has a semitransparent 'res' folder. If not add a folder and rename it to 'res'.
Within that folder add your images as required (you will need to create them) subfolders 'images/widgets/'. For example, to change 'widgethide.png' you would need the image in the path
res/images/widgets/widgethide.png
rahvaluulearhiiv

Posts: 3
Registered: 22-Aug-2017
Re: Opened widget bar hides image caption
Posted: 28 Sep 17, 12:37   in response to: rahvaluulearhiiv in response to: rahvaluulearhiiv
 
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Thank you. I did manage to replace some of the icons, although it would be nice to add bigger ones than 16px.

I guess I'm going offtopic now but is there a way to enable longer comments? A warning pops up at some point, I guess there is a character limit but I haven't found where to change it.
RobM

Posts: 3,808
Registered: 4-Aug-2006
Re: Opened widget bar hides image caption
Posted: 28 Sep 17, 12:59   in response to: rahvaluulearhiiv in response to: rahvaluulearhiiv
 
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There is no way to change the length of comments allowed, I think the limit is about 369 characters - from a forum discussion many years ago.
JeffTucker

Posts: 8,037
Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Opened widget bar hides image caption
Posted: 28 Sep 17, 13:30   in response to: rahvaluulearhiiv in response to: rahvaluulearhiiv
 
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rahvaluulearhiiv wrote:
...I haven't found where to change it.

The widgets are often misunderstood. They are not part of the skin coding. They're not really controlled by the album at all. You can hunt and hunt in the files that constitute your finished album, and you won't find a single line of code about the widgets.

The widget script is provided directly by the jalbum.net server when the album is viewed, at which point the widgets are, in effect, superimposed on the album. The album doesn't even know they're there. That's why, for example, the skin can't adapt to the presence of the widgets and do something like moving the displayed image up and out of the way of an expanded widget bar - it can't "see" the bar. Generally the best a skin can do is leave an extra 30px of space at the bottom so that the widget bar, in its default one-line condition, doesn't impinge on things like the image and its caption.

There is a limited ability to control a few simple bits and pieces of the style of the widget bar, like choosing a light or dark version of it, but there's really no way to affect its behavior.

I generally advise people to skip using the widgets entirely - there's really no need to display a visit counter (why would your visitors care?), and there are usually better ways to provide album information (many skins provide good tools for this).

The ability to leave comments is problematic, for the simple reason that most web pages aren't really interactive. The visitor is supposed to look at what's there, not alter it. That's why even sites that offer some ability for give feedback generally shunt you off to a dedicated "message page" of some sort.

There are a few skins that allow you to do something like put a button in the caption area that launches a new message in the visitor's default email client, pre-addressed to you, with the file name of the image already embedded in the message. But even that is awkward because some visitors live in webmail, and don't have a default email client configured.

I don't know what the magic answer is, but it pays to understand what you're up against.
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