I'm creating an External Tool (.bsh) that copies image- and video-files from an Album to an external directory. For this tool I need two paths:

1) The absolute path to the original image file, e.g.

E:\My Pictures\~Testpictures jAlbum\film10526.jpg

2) The absolute path to the (processed) image file in the output folder, e.g.

E:\My Jalbums\Testalbum\album\egypte\slides\film10526.jpg

After much trial and error I devised the following code (ao is the album object):

// Get filename
String itemFileName = ao.getName();	// = filename and extension
 
// Get path to original file
// example: E:\My Pictures\~Testpictures jAlbum\film10526.jpg
String pathToOriginal = ao.getFile().getAbsolutePath();
 
// Get path to processed file (NB: not correct for gif, tif and bmp files!)
// Example: E:\My Jalbums\Testalbum\album\egypte\slides\film10526.jpg
String pathToProcessed = rootOutputDirectory + '\\' + ao.getPathFromRoot().replace('/', '\\');
pathToProcessed = pathToProcessed.replace(itemFileName, 'slides\\' + itemFileName);

The code for the path to the original file seems OK.

The code for the path to the processed file is ugly. It is complicated and it doesn't always gives the correct path: gif-images are not put in the slides-subfolder and bmp- or tif-images are converted to jpg-files.

Surely there must be a better solution?

Note: I'm not a real programmer, but most of the time I can get some working code by copy/paste from this forum or from the internet, and a lot of trial-and-error. So a ready-to-use solution would be much appreciated

Thanks for the reply.

When I use

outputDirectory + "\\" + engine.getSlideDirectory() + "\\" + itemFileName

I get 'void\slides\film10526.jpg' as result. Did you mean 'rootOutputDirectory'? Then I get E:\My Jalbums\Testalbum\album\slides\film10526.jpg. But then I'm still missing the sub-folder 'egypte' where this photo is located. That is why I used the 'ao.getPathFromRoot()' variable.

I also considered to use switches for the different image types, but I hoped there would be some kind of jAlbum-variable that would handle the exceptions automatically.

To explain the purpose of my tool:

This External Tool copies all photos and videos from the album to an external directory, while each filename is preceded by a sequence number which reflects the order in which the files are ordered in the album (custom ordering).
When I use these numbered files in a slide-show program or on my TV, the photos are displayed in the same order as in my album (my TV displays the photos ordered by filename).

Initially my tool copied the original files, but then I wanted to add an option to use the processed files, which have a smaller file-size (loading faster), but still have enough quality to display on a TV.

I tried your suggested code.

After adding two missing closing brackets and replacing rootOutputFolder by rootOutputDirectory, I still get an error message:

groovy.lang.MissingMethodException: No signature of method: java.io.File.getFile() is applicable for argument types: () values: []
Possible solutions: getName(), isFile(), getPath(), listFiles(), getBytes(), getText() in 0 Test.groovy

I give up.

A complete tool that asks for the destination directory and if it should copy originals or slides.

I don't think there is an easy scripting method, it is the sort of thing a skin developer would have access to when processing template pages. Then you have access to variables like:
imagePath Path to the image that is shown in slides
originalPath Path to the original file. Only defined if one of the following is true:

Please rename header Skins to Skins and Tools to prevent future confusion. See screenshot.

One last comment, as I think it is not that complex.
GIF are always in the output folder.
You can check if images are forced to jpeg or not using engine.isForceJPEGImages()
If not set PNG stay as PNG, otherwise they are JPEG.
All other image types are converted to JPEG unless they are set to 'Use original'.
You can test for that using ao.isUseOriginal() where ao is the AlbumObject being processed, all originals appear in the output folder.
If video processing is checked, under Settings/Preferences/Advanced/Video support then they are all converted to MP4 and appear in the slides folder. You can check video processing using Config.getConfig().isVideoSupported();

Edited by: RobM on 17 Oct 2024, 20:12
corrected some texts

I’d forgotten about that API call, actual usage was discussed here to delete output files.