Import albums made with our online album creator

jAlbum comes in three flavors: Online jAlbum, jAlbum for iOS (iPhone/iPad) and the desktop jAlbum application. The jAlbum desktop application requires you to download an installable to your computer, but once you've done that, a world of possibilities opens up for you compared to what you can do with albums made with Online jAlbum or jAlbum for iOS. With the desktop application, you can use any of the hundreds of skins available for jAlbum and the skins come with a multitude of settings so you can tweak the album experience to your liking. The desktop jAlbum application also enables you to organize massive amounts of images in hiearchies. Now you can present your stamp collection or favorite football teams in a well organized way :-), moreover, with the desktop jAlbum application, you can upload your albums to any web site, not just our hosting, but you can still share the albums on jalbum.net if you like.

Importer wizard

If you appreciate the added power of the desktop jAlbum application you probably want to import albums already made in Online jAlbum to it and continue working there. jAlbum (newer version than 9.3) features an import wizard that assists you with this! Just open jAlbum (the desktop application) and select "File->Import->Import Published Album...". A window will now open that lists all albums published to your jAlbum account. Select an album made with Online jAlbum and click "Download". If the wizard determines this to be made with Online jAlbum it will offer you to install it. Select "Ok" and you're done. Your recently imported album (project) is now listed to the left in jAlbum's window and opened so you can continue working with it.

Still one-way

When you're done updating the album, just hit jAlbum's "Upload" button. jAlbum will by default suggest to overwrite the old version of the album you initially made with Online jAlbum. Remember that by doing so, you will have to continue editing this album in the desktop application, this as the integration between these two products isn't two-way yet. If you feel uncertain, just pick a new name or location for the updated album and your original one will stay intact and still be editable online.

Details for the techies

Album projects made with Online jAlbum have a reverse directory structure compared with albums made with the desktop jAlbum application. Online jAlbum stores the original images in a subdirectory of the album project directory called "originals". The album itself is stored one level up, straight inside the album project directory. This has the advantage of making the originals available over the web without the need to make copies of them. jAlbum keeps this directory structure with albums imported from Online jAlbum. Open album settings for an imported album project to have a peek at the set-up:

jAlbum usually picks the name of the root image directory for the album name. This would however make all albums made with Online jAlbum called "originals", as that's in fact the name of the root image directory. To avoid this, the right name of the album is set in the album title field instead.

Other situations when you can use the import

You can use the importer for other reasons than described above. Maybe you have experienced a computer crash and the albums are gone, or maybe you just switched to a new computer and forgot to transfer the albums to the new computer, or maybe you want to download a very old album from your website that you have no idea where to find or maybe someone else made your album and now you want download it so that you can make your own changes to it?!

If you have just downloaded jAlbum to your computer and wants to import an album from your own website you will have to go and add your website as an account profile before you can do that. Click on the small arrow on the upload button and select "upload/manage". Image:UploadManage.png