Choosing file and folder names can be a minefield. Names that contain punctuation, special characters, and diacritical characters may create problems with uploading and/or with displaying an album. jAlbum will URL-encode links - this can cure many of the difficulties, but is not necessarily a cure-all.

Rather than wrestling with the problem, it's easier to stick to some simple naming rules for your files and folders, and not wander into dangerous territory:

• Use only simple ASCII characters: a-z, A-Z, 0-9, underbar, and dash.
• Avoid spaces, commas, apostrophes, quotes, and any other special characters, like !@#$%^&*()=+[]{};:?/\|.
• Avoid diacritical characters, like é, ä, ø, and so on. These are less of a problem than they used to be, but there are still no guarantees that your web host can handle them.
• Avoid names that begin with an underbar or dash.
• Do not use multiple dots/periods.
• Windows file names are not case-sensitive, so mydog.jpg, Mydog.jpg, and mydog.JPG are all the same. But macOS and most server operating systems are case-sensitive, so those three names refer to different files. Habitually using only lower case can prevent errors.

To provide your site visitors with readable text, use jAlbum Titles and Comments for images and folders. Hover over a thumbnail in the main jAlbum editing window, and choose Edit. A Title may be entered on the upper right, and a Comment may be entered in the large area below the image. You can also tell jAlbum to show you the Titles or Comments for objects below their thumbnails, rather than the raw file names - in the Explore view, see the options at upper right. You can then enter Titles or Comments directly under each thumbnail. In these fields, you have much more freedom to use characters beyond the simple ASCII set.

Different skins make use of these fields in different ways, but most skins will use them in place of the raw file and folder names for display on the album pages.

Even here, however, some special characters can create problems with some skins, depending upon how those skins use the fields. Things like apostrophes and quote marks can be particularly troublesome. Problems can often be avoided by using HTML character encoding for special characters, like using & instead of the ampersand character itself, or " instead of a quote mark. Google for html character codes to find some helpful charts. Experimentation is called for.