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We built several collections in jAlbum 3.6 with images of items in Windows file-explorer representing folders\sub-folders for Manufacturer\Model\OtherFeatures (descriptions, notes etc)
An Excel sheet is keeping track of each item with a set of parameters, a php script writes these to their jpg IPTC tags.
These collections are 'dynamic' and all updates are done in the Windows file structure and excel datasheet, they can change several times a week - an external tool and MakeAlbum are the only functions run in jAlbum. Some ideas, which would make this 'easier' in order of impact priority:
1) 'Update': Folders are 'linked' in jAlbum, such that changes in the file structure get reflected in the album. This does only work partially - adding folders/files to the top level in file-explorer will not be reflected in the album, in this case a new manufacturer has to be added manually. With the 'linked' option, jAlbum generates it's folders among the original data, which can get confusing when working in the data-source file structure. We solved this by copying the data-source and running jAlbum on the copy
-> let's discuss further, but I would like an option in which one uses jAlbum to copy the data and then has a means to update those based on the current files in the original location, fixes both issues
2) 'Read Excel': Being able to assign the headers in an .xlsx data-sheet to user variables with the 'import data' tool, would make things really 'clean' without having to run the php script
3) 'Indexed-sort': in which the user defines a sequence of keys which are either found in an image tag or the filename (currently looking into this)
4) 'Duplicate weblocs': I tried to make a set of webloc links (with custom thumbs.thm) available in different albums by copy/paste - it did not quite work
5) 'Advanced search': more options to search: multiple 'and', 'not', specify variables to search in etc
6) 'Pre-flight' checks for missing files/folders (red X) - some external tools crash on a missing file
thanks for reading, Wolfgang
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