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Developer Center » Skin development » Sample scripts
On this page
  1. Extra slide pages for original images
  2. Adding voice annotations
  3. Multilevel parent links
  4. Reading captions/comments from separate text files

Sample scripts

This section will show examples on how scripts can enhance your album in really cool ways. The examples here makes use of the huge library of ready-made java classes that Sun has provided for free and are directly accessible. To better understand the examples and to assist in the writing of your own scripts we strongly recommend that you first read through skin documentation, then bookmark the jAlbum API and Java API from Sun and use them to look up classes and their methods. If you are new to Java it's recommended that you look at these tutorials first and that you then concentrate on the "java.lang", "java.util" and "java.io" packages. They are the ones that are most commonly used. Remenber that you can turn to the forum to get help and to help others!

  • Extra slide pages for original images

    When clicking on an image in a slide show, you may get to the original image, but it is not displayed in a html page of its own. The downside of this is that the surroundings for the image doesn't match the skin (usually displayed on white background) and you have to use the back navigation button to return. Take a look at the new "Smart" skin in the extras section that addresses this issue by some lines of BeanShell scripting. The skin has an extra template file called "originalslide.htt". The following simple adjustment to the "slide.htt" file will make sure that the "originalslide.htt" file gets processed if needed:

    <%-- Image, maybe with link to original --%>
<ja:if exists="originalPath">
    <%-- Create a slide page for the original image too and link to that one  --%>
    <%-- instead of linking to an image --%>
    <%
        String originalPage = originalPath;  // Default if no extra template page
        File template = new File(skinDirectory, "originalslide.htt");
        if (template.exists()) {
            originalPage = label+"_orig"+engine.getPageExtension();
            engine.processTemplateFile(template,
            new File(outputDirectory,"slides/"+originalPage));
        }
    %>
    <a href="<%=originalPage%>">
        <img src="${imagePath}" />
    </a>
</ja:if>

  • Adding voice annotations

    Many digital cameras allow you to add voice annotations to images. The camera usually puts a wav file next to the image bearing the same base name as the image. This script will make JAlbum look for these wav files and insert a BGSOUND tag if there is an annotation. Put the script just after the body tag of a slide.htt file.

    <!-- add and play voice annotations (.wav files) if they exist -->
<%
  import se.datadosen.util.IO;
  File sound = new File(imageDirectory, label+".WAV");
  if (sound.exists()) {
    // Make a copy if needed
    String soundPath;
    if (!outputDirectory.equals(imageDirectory) && engine.isCopyOriginals()) {
      IO.copyFile(sound.getAbsolutePath(), outputDirectory, true);
      soundPath = "../" + sound.getName();
    }
    else soundPath = IO.relativePath(sound, new File(outputDirectory, "slides"));
    out.println("<BGSOUND SRC=\"" + soundPath + "\">");
  }
%>

  • Multilevel (breadcrumb) parent links

    You might have an album with many nested folders (animals/mamals/cats...). In this case it helps a lot to have all folder names displayed like this: animals » mamals » cats (being in the "cats" folder), with links to each parent folder. Copy and paste the scriptlet below for this effect:

    <%!
  void makeBreadcrumbs(AlbumObject folder, String prefix) {
    if (folder == null) {
      return;
    }
    makeBreadcrumbs(folder.getParent(), "../");
    String title = folder.getTitle();
    if ("".equals(title)) title = folder.getName();
    out.println("<a href=\"" + prefix + firstIndexPage + "\">" + title + "</a> » ");
  }

  void makeBreadcrumbs() {
    makeBreadcrumbs(currentFolder, "");
  }
%>

<% makeBreadcrumbs()%> <%-- sample call from index.htt --%>

<% makeBreadcrumbs(currentFolder, "../")%> <%-- sample call from slide.htt --%>

  • Reading captions/comments from separate text files

    Some people wonder if it is possible to have jAlbum insert the contents of a text file having the same base name as an image but with ".txt" extension, for example "hiking.jpg" will get text from "hiking.txt". This is simple to do with the following scriptlet:

    <!-- Extract text from textfiles carrying the same base name as this image -->
<ja:include page="<%= new File(imageDirectory, label+".txt") %>" />