jAlbum/Preview

Revision as of 25 April 2018 00:43 by RobM (Comments | Contribs)

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Preview album

The preview option is only available once an album has been made, so for new projects you must click on 'Make album' first.

From version 15.4 there is a choice of three preview modes, Windowed, Integrated or External, the mode is set in jAlbum Preference/General

Windowed opens the album in a resizable window, allowing a full sized browser view without having to maximise the application's own window

It also provides a quick way of seeing how your album will look on various devices, to select a device to emulate click on the 'mobile devices' icon and select a device/size from the dropdown list. You can rotate the 'device' by clicking on the rotate icon, toggling between landscape to portrait orientation.

Integrated opens the preview within the applications 'explore' pane.

External opens the album in your machine's default browser.

Clicking on the preview button to select the preview mode, the rendered ‘Home page’ of your selected project is shown in an embedded web browser. You can now navigate your album. You can change skins, styles etc. to try out different 'looks', to keep the changes either use the 'Save project settings' file menu or change to another project and when prompted save the changes, if you don't want to keep the changes click 'No' when prompted to save changes. Note that any changes made affect the album output and will overwrite the existing files by performing a 'Make All' operation, you will need to restore the settings and remake the album if you don't want to keep the changes.

Some skins may have options that require the album be fully built before you can properly preview it. It is also possible that some skins may use serverside technology or have features that prevent local previewing. If you have preview issues make sure the album is fully built before previewing; check the skin's page/manual for warnings; try uploading it to your website. If you still have problems you can ask for help in the forums or, if you have a current license, send an email to jAlbum support.

Note, when you exit preview you will return to the same location as when you entered it. That is, you do not necessarily exit to explore mode at the point in your album you were viewing.
Warning! If you have previewed more than one project and you use the integrated browser’s back/forward buttons to change pages you may end up looking at pages from another project. Exiting at that point does not return you to explore mode in that project.
Note, this built-in browser is not a full-featured browser - like Chrome or Firefox - therefore some functionality or plugins might not present. Notably there's no OpenGL support - which is required for the 3D viewer and no PDF viewer plugin either. If you find something odd in the preview, you might want to check the page in a normal browser too, (although skins use JSON database need special treatment to work with local albums).

Address

Shows the path to the displayed page.

Open in external browser

Switches from jAlbum’s integrated browser to your default browser. This opens the same page as is currently displayed in the integrated browser. You can also hold Alt/Opt while clicking the normal preview button (to the right of the Make button) to open in an external browser.

Open local album folder

Opens the album folder of the selected project, that is the designated output directory for your project.

Upload album

Initiates the upload process, you can change the default settings before committing the upload action.

Share menu

Clicking on this button opens a drop down menu from which you can select a method of sharing your album from E-Mailing to embedding in another site or sharing via a selection of social media sites. Note you can only share an album that has been uploaded to your website.

Local Album

View the local version of the album.

Published album

View the published/uploaded version of the album.