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Permlink Replies: 13 - Pages: 1 - Last Post: 11 Mar 19, 11:50 Last Post By: JeffTucker
Testshoot

Posts: 5
Registered: 7-Mar-2019
Newbie needs help with album structure
Posted: 7 Mar 19, 23:35
 
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I attempted to find my answer and found references to sections and neighbors, etc. which I couldn't find in my dashboard. Let me just ask if jAlbum and/or Tiger can do what I am looking for. I am an event photographer I want a home page that displays categories, preferably with a thumbnail and category names like Civic, Ceremonies, Parties, etc. Then under the category, like Civic, it might have a City name. Then under that city would be event 1, event2, etc. Categories and sub categories could be alpha sort, as could the final albums.

It might also be nice to have the thumbs for all the categories, but maybe one row of thumbs showing latest additions.

I have hundreds of albums and hundreds of thousands of images.

I have my own server. I just downloaded jAlbum last night and put my first gallery up, and that was pretty easy, although I would want to tweak the album more later. I was a former Gallery user, went to a couple cloud sites, just tried another program and found it too limiting not to mention a bunch of problems, so then I ended up here.

Lew
Newbie in Progress
JeffTucker

Posts: 8,039
Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Newbie needs help with album structure
Posted: 8 Mar 19, 00:33   in response to: Testshoot in response to: Testshoot
 
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An interesting problem. jAlbum, unlike a lot of other "web photo album" generators, is not a server-side, database-driven system, so the way you set things up initially can make a huge difference.

The typical scheme is to have one big album project with folders (each of your categories), subfolders (your city names), and sub-subfolders (your events).

That's fine if things don't spiral out of control. I have my family album set up that way, but we're talking about fewer than 5000 objects (images and videos), so it's manageable. Adding a bunch of new images, the album rebuilding takes seconds. If I create a new skin version, or want to change some of the project settings, I can reprocess the entire album in about 20 seconds. Even if I need to reprocess all the images (larger image bounds, for example), we're still in the sub-10 minute category.

An example, my own "travels" page, in which each destination is just a folder within a single, all-encompassing album project: https://jefftucker.org

But I wouldn't want to do that with hundreds of thousands of images, especially not with a skin like Tiger, which uses a JSON file to organize things. Unwieldy, to say the least.

The other approach is to treat each of the lowest-level beasties as a separate, independent album, and to use "web locations" to point to them. A quick example:

https://jgromit.com/pluto/

That page is built with the Gromit skin. At the top level, there are just three items, thumbnails that link to three entirely separate, independent album projects, each built with the Pluto skin.

This frees you up to do things like using different settings, or even different skins, for the lowest level (your events). On the other hand, from the top level you can't search for things in the separate albums. The top level has no idea what's down there - it just knows that at the bottom, it's got pointers to some other web pages.

With your requirements, and sheer volume of material, I think I'd be inclined to create one master project that consists only of categories and cities. At the "cities" level, I would use web locations to hook to the "events" albums, each of which stands on its own.

In the skeletal top-level project, you could provide whatever thumbnails you like. In my "Pluto" page, for example, those thumbnails don't actually occur in the albums to which they're pointing - I just use some screenshots (the trick in jAlbum is to add the image you want to use as the thumbnail, exclude it - not delete it - then select it as the representing thumbnail for that folder).
RobM

Posts: 3,815
Registered: 4-Aug-2006
Re: Newbie needs help with album structure
Posted: 8 Mar 19, 00:53   in response to: JeffTucker in response to: JeffTucker
 
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You can read about using web locations to link albums here
Testshoot

Posts: 5
Registered: 7-Mar-2019
Re: Newbie needs help with album structure
Posted: 8 Mar 19, 01:36   in response to: JeffTucker in response to: JeffTucker
 
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Hello, I have had that basic file structure with all those albums and photos on three systems and don't know if I would have reached a limit??

I appreciate that there is a solution, or work around, doesn't that still leave me with both the step to create the album, but then having to edit the album for the category to add the new sub-album? I think what isn't a hassle with an album a week vs. starting by creating and uploading a 100 or whatever albums to get caught up. I had already uploaded 5 years worth on another site when I realized it wasn't going to work out, but not for capacity issues.

Tiger was one of few skins I saw as available with a few filters, shopping cart, process image data, etc. I like the watermarking in the skin, haven't gotten far enough to test shopping or picture ordering features. I don't know enough to know the subtleties about how the operate under the hood. Appreciate the tip.

I am at the stage I am too new to know what to ask or do. I start with my images in Lightroom 5, then I put in all the meta data, and then try to save as much of that data, something I haven't figured out yet either. Anyway, then I just want to get them online as easy as possible and only adding an album title, caption, and upload :) Out of laziness and expedience, I want a system that allows me to work with a tree and I can upload to any location on the tree, not likely going more than 4 levels down.

I apologize for my newbie mode...I am just trying to figure out how to use the tool, if I can.

Really appreciate the tips you both gave!
JeffTucker

Posts: 8,039
Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Newbie needs help with album structure
Posted: 8 Mar 19, 01:57   in response to: Testshoot in response to: Testshoot
 
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Yes, if you follow my suggested scheme, doing a new event would entail creating the album for that event (it's easy to import the settings from another album project, so that's quick work), uploading it, and then modifying the master album by inserting a link to the newly-created event, from the appropriate spot on the tree. It's like adding something to a table of contents. And because you're just pointing to each separate event, those event albums could be literally anywhere.

By keeping the events separate, you would virtually never run into any sort of capacity issues, as long as you've got the hard drive space. The master album, since it would contain only the pointer thumbnails, would be tiny, and each event album would be only as large as its own contents - thumbs and slides.

If you need a shopping cart, that very much restricts your choice of skins. Other skin developers (like me), tend to avoid it, because it's a minefield. If you hit the "skins" page (https://jalbum.net/en/skins/new) and check the box for Integrated shopping cart, you're immediately down to seven skins, and of those, I'd label five of them "obsolete" (the oldest five). Tiger and Photoblogger are the only realistic options.

Things like watermarking are at the jAlbum core level - they're not skin-dependent. Quick way to tell - if a setting is on the "Tiger" tab in the settings, it's skin-specific. Otherwise, it's a function of the jAlbum core, usable with almost any skin.

Metadata is a messy subject. Suffice it to say that jAlbum can extract image titles and comments from various metadata fields. Best choice is to use xmp metadata, which is more future-proof than things like IPTC. For an image title, use xmp.dc:title[1] and for the image comment, use xmp.dc:description[1]. If the title and comment are in those fields in the original images, jAlbum can use them directly when those images are added to a project, with no mucking about.
Testshoot

Posts: 5
Registered: 7-Mar-2019
Re: Newbie needs help with album structure
Posted: 8 Mar 19, 04:53   in response to: JeffTucker in response to: JeffTucker
 
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Dear esteemed JGromit,

My one concern with this cascading album effect is SEO. Will the robots go from album to album to album, putting them all in the greater Googlesphere? It would also assume that each category album should have SEO for it's own role in the overall tree.

For shopping cart, even something simple like a PayPal link ought to suffice. Not sophisticated, but other gallery apps have shopping carts and connections to photo labs for printing, prints to shopping bags.

I just made another attempt at getting Lightroom set right. I kept trying to find the XMP files and it turns out, for JPEG output, it embeds the XMP data.

Thanks kind sir for helping this beggar make some headway!
JeffTucker

Posts: 8,039
Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Newbie needs help with album structure
Posted: 8 Mar 19, 14:02   in response to: Testshoot in response to: Testshoot
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If a search bot can examine the album (it needs to be able to execute Javascript, since the links to the images in a Tiger album are not contained in the raw page HTML), it should make no difference whether it's a single all-encompassing album, or an index with pointers to the event albums.

If you're sitting in the Civic > Camptown folder, and there's a thumbnail that takes you to the Camptown Races 2019 event, it doesn't matter whether that event page was created as part of the index album, or created as a separate album project. In fact, if you use relative links for your "web location" items, the link to the Camptown Races 2019 page will be exactly the same, in either case.

jAlbum can't read metadata that's stored in sidecar files. It can handle only metadata that's embedded in the JPG itself.
Testshoot

Posts: 5
Registered: 7-Mar-2019
Re: Newbie needs help with album structure
Posted: 9 Mar 19, 05:00   in response to: JeffTucker in response to: JeffTucker
 
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Really appreciate the extended explanation. I have been so spoiled by programs that handle the tree structure for you, not something to be concerned with.

Honestly, I didn't worry as much about metadata in the past. I found when trying to get some XMP files in Lightroom wasn't working as it was embedding the data in the JPGs. if jAlbum can read the metadata from the JPG, that is awesome.

Despite all of these feature issues, I am stumbling with the interface. Not sure how to save my defaults so that I can reuse them. I keep having to reenter my data. Took forever to create my first and only album and I am not sure it is how I wanted it.

I have to decide if this is the right tool, and if so, get over the obstacles that are keeping me from implementing it.

Thanks so much!
RobM

Posts: 3,815
Registered: 4-Aug-2006
Re: Newbie needs help with album structure
Posted: 9 Mar 19, 09:43   in response to: Testshoot in response to: Testshoot
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There is extensive help for jAlbum, a good starting page is this one. jAlbum also has context sensitive help, at any time just hit the F1 key or click the ‘help’ icon at the top right of the application window to get the help page for the currently focused element of the GUI.

The help pages are searchable too, entering ‘metadata’ in the search box gives this result. And if you use the help pages search menu you will see what wildcards can be used when searching.
Testshoot

Posts: 5
Registered: 7-Mar-2019
Re: Newbie needs help with album structure
Posted: 11 Mar 19, 03:28   in response to: JeffTucker in response to: JeffTucker
 
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Hello..I am trying it your way...I grabbed Pluto and tried to make my first album, the "top" or index file. I entered a lot of data that would become a :"template", if I could figure that out.

I tried to use the "make album", assuming that was what I was supposed to do. that led to an error

An unexpected error occurred. Please see detailed description below:

java.lang.RuntimeException: Error processing E:\PHOTOS\jALBUM\homeindex
at se.datadosen.jalbum.AlbumBean.registerVariables(AlbumBean.java:2375)
at se.datadosen.jalbum.AlbumBean$RegisteringTask.call(AlbumBean.java:5589)
at se.datadosen.jalbum.AlbumBean$RegisteringTask.call(AlbumBean.java:5570)
at java.base/java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(Unknown Source)
at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)
at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: null representing file for E:\PHOTOS\jALBUM\homeindex
at se.datadosen.jalbum.AlbumBean.addImageLinks(AlbumBean.java:1819)
at se.datadosen.jalbum.AlbumBean.registerVariables(AlbumBean.java:2351)
... 6 more

I keep trying to make my first Pluto album and having these issues...I did make a Tiger album, didn't have this issue. Help please.
JeffTucker

Posts: 8,039
Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Newbie needs help with album structure
Posted: 11 Mar 19, 03:37   in response to: Testshoot in response to: Testshoot
 
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Um, what is "homeindex?"
JeffTucker

Posts: 8,039
Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Newbie needs help with album structure
Posted: 11 Mar 19, 05:06   in response to: Testshoot in response to: Testshoot
 
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Testshoot wrote:
I keep trying to make my first Pluto album and having these issues...

I think you're just not getting the basic jAlbum model, here. Start simple. Choose File, New Album Project, and give it a name. Now choose the Pluto skin. Then click the little Add button, and choose a dozen images from your PC. Make Album, and preview the result.

Now create a couple of folders in the project. Click the New folder button (just to the right of the Add button), and give the folder a simple name. Repeat to add another folder. Now double-click the first folder (to open it), and add some images. Go back up a level (the little up arrow below the Add button), open the second folder, and add some images to that one. Now Make Album and preview the result.

That's the "single album with folders" model, the most common type of album. That's all I do for my personal travels album, linked above.

But you can also create an album that has links to other web pages. Those other pages can be almost anything, including other jAlbum-created albums. Continuing with the test album you've just created, go to the top level, which should now be showing a dozen images and a couple of folders. Right-click in the clear somewhere, and choose New Page > Web location. In the URL box, enter https://jefftucker.org and click Update. jAlbum will try to extract an image from that page. For now, stick with that one, but be aware that you can choose any image you want from your PC, instead. Click OK.

Notice that the thumbnail in the main jAlbum album window has a "globe" overlay, which tells you that this isn't a simple image in the album - it's a link to something outside. Now Make Album, preview it, and see what happens when you click on the thumbnail for that web location.

A jAlbum skin consists of templates that are used to generate the actual pages of HTML, CSS, Javascript, and so on. But these are coded by the skin developer. You can't roll your own!
JeffTucker

Posts: 8,039
Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Newbie needs help with album structure
Posted: 11 Mar 19, 05:30   in response to: JeffTucker in response to: JeffTucker
 
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BTW, one important fact: the built-in browser in jAlbum can't handle a Pluto album. It makes a mess of the parallax theme image at the top. You need to preview the album in a real browser, like Chrome or Firefox (Edge also makes a hash of it, but for a different reason - Edge can't do smooth scrolling, so it looks like crap).

Turn off the embedded browser: Tools, Preferences, General, Preview Mode, choose External browser. Then, when you hit the Preview button, it will show your album in your default browser.
JeffTucker

Posts: 8,039
Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Newbie needs help with album structure
Posted: 11 Mar 19, 11:50   in response to: JeffTucker in response to: JeffTucker
 
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(Thread moved - other than the availability of a shopping cart, none of this is skin-specific.)
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