Photo Gallery Templates

Release Notes

Even though these are just templates, I’m keeping track of versions and changes for my own sanity and check of progress. These notes may help others keep track of status updates and what’s been added or changed in the most recent version now that the templates are out in the wild.

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v1.0.4: 19 Oct 2005

  • Corrected text and link at end of paragraph on Comment Pending page that pointed to a CGI script revealing a default MT template. The link now points back to the Individual Photo page, since that’s where comments are displayed and created.
    Files affected: t_comment_pending.html

v1.0.3: 10 Sep 2005

  • Corrected position of <MTIfNotEmpty> conditional for tags in the Individual Photo template, so the “tags” list item element won’t render if no Keywords exist for this photo.
    Files affected: t_photo.php
  • Corrected Recent Comments and RSS: Recent Comments templates so link to the comment points to relevant Individual Photo page, and anchors to that comment.
    Files affected: t_comments.php, t_comments.html, t_rss_comments.xml
  • Modified Favorites module on Gallery Index and template code for Favorites Gallery Page and Favorites Gallery Feed to prevent accidentally revealing images from any galleries marked as “hidden”. Thanks to Kevin Story.
    Files affected: all files prefixed with t_index_. Also: t_gallery.php, t_gallery.html, and t_rss_bygallery.xml
  • Modified RSS: Photos by Gallery template to prevent getting a Category '' not found error reported in comment#88. Thanks to Sujay.
    Files affected t_rss_bygallery.xml
  • Various compatibility bug fixes to PHP function files (based on changes suggested in Comment#89). Thanks to Shawn.
    Files affected: catorder.php and gallerylimits.php

v1.0.2: 24 Aug 2005

  • Fixed a problem where part of “No comments yet” would squeeze up beside vertical (portrait) photos.
    Files affected: photos.css

v1.0.1: 24 Aug 2005

  • Public release of templates.
  • Swapped position of modules at bottom of Gallery Index page to be more balanced.
    Files affected: any template file prefixed with t_index_
  • Fixed “Recently Updated Galleries” header on Gallery Index and “All Galleries” header on Gallery Archive. The header was getting chopped off in IE/Win after the page was scrolled. No longer happening.
    Files affected: photos.css

v1.0: 23 Aug 2005

v0.8: 18 Aug 2005

  • Fixed issue with comments not working in IE because images were used for Preview and Submit buttons. 6A has been notified of this bug in IE which might be possible to account for in MT. Until MT is updated, regular HTML submit buttons need to be used for comment forms.
  • Completed bulk of documentation.

v0.7: 12 Aug 2005

  • Pulled comments and the comment form onto the Individual Photo page.
  • Discovered a cool way to hide/show the comments with some unobtrusive JavaScript that avoids the flash of “visible content that gets hidden after the onload event”.
  • Default state of comments is hidden. If visitor clicks on “Show”, comments are displayed (toggled) under the photo, and a cookie is set to remember the preference from photo to photo. Likewise, if the visitor clicks “Hide”, the same cookie is also set to remember the preference.
  • Hid the Comment Form with unobtrusive JavaScript as well. The form is only shown once a visitor clicks the “Add a Comment” button.
  • “Add a Comment” button is not visible if a photo has one or more comments and the comments are hidden. Button will only display once comments are shown, and will appear below existing comments. This is to prevent visitors from leaving comments without at least scanning the comments already given for that photo.
  • Good news. As of beta-4 of MT 3.2, Photon is working with MT again.

v0.6: 17 Jul 2005

  • Added concept of “Favorites” to photo galleries. Any photo can be marked as a Favorite by selecting a “Favorites” category as the secondary category. Favorite photos also show up in a special Favorites gallery. All thumbnails in the Favorites gallery link to the Individual Photo page as it lives in its primary category (its main gallery). The Favorites gallery does not have its own Gallery Title page.
  • Added last 6 favorites to Gallery Index page.
  • Added small “Gallery Data” table to Gallery Index page that provides a convenient way to link to global pages and feeds for Recent Galleries, Photos, Comments, and Favorites. The table provides a quick summary of the total number of each of these items.
  • Began testing with the beta version of MT 3.2. Doesn’t look good, as Photon isn’t able to grab the list of categories for a given blog. Something may have changed in mt-xmlrpc.cgi with regards to Categories and how they’re accessed. Sent a message to Jay Allen @ 6A about the possible problem.

v0.5: 10 May 2005

  • Added page to track the last 15 Recent Comments from any non-hidden gallery.
  • Added RSS feed for Recent Comments that updates with the last 15 comments from any non-hidden gallery.

v0.4: 25 Apr 2005

  • Added RSS feed for Recent Galleries that updates with the latest 5 photos from the last 10 galleries.
  • Added RSS feed for Recent Photos that updates with the last 15 photos from any gallery.
  • RSS feeds exclude any galleries marked as “hidden”.
  • With the idea that these templates might be released publicly, I realized that not everyone will have access to PHP on their server. Created MT templates for a non-PHP version that publish static HTML pages. Required simplifying a tiny bit, and eliminating a few features from the original PHP-enabled templates. The HTML version of the templates will be kept in sync with the PHP version as much as possible.
  • With the HTML-only version, the challenge was auto-obtaining the orientation of photos. Ended up using the Collect plugin to gather the <img> element’s attributes, and the Compare plugin to compare the width and height values.
  • Eliminated popups for Comments. Comments remain on separate pages. But I’m using one window for all gallery browsing and comment functionality now.

v0.3: 11 Feb 2005

  • Automated creation of Gallery Index page by using the Collate plugin to gather data about each gallery and sort them by last updated using the date from the most recent photo of that gallery.
  • FirstNWords is used to truncate the gallery description to a reasonable length, and add an ellipsis if the description was truncated.
  • Revised the image used for Remote Rollovers on the Individual Photo page to be more subtle.
  • Added ability to declare gallery as “hidden”, preventing it from showing up on index pages. Hidden galleries still publish as normal, but aren’t linked from any public page. Useful for sharing galleries with a limited audience who are given the exact URL of that gallery.

v0.2.2: 30 Jan 2005

  • Whoah! Photon is now free, which makes the idea of exporting via iPhoto even more attractive to a wider audience.
  • With the update to iPhoto 5 and Photon 1.1, I now have the ability to export a photo’s “Keywords” directly to MT. Woot! Means I no longer need to enter Keywords by hand for every photo. Now, basically the entire export/publish process is automatic, and needs no intervention once I hit the export button.
  • Noted that there’s some kind of bug in Photon which prevents creating a new category from Photon. Must go to MT, create the new category and any description info, then return to Photon to select new category and export. Only part of the process that isn’t automatic.

v0.2.1: 17 Jan 2005

v0.2: 10 Jan 2005

  • Implemented custom style sheets for each gallery. Each gallery automatically links to a “custom.css” file that lives in same directory as the Gallery Title page for that gallery. (?: What if there are no custom styles for this gallery, and no “custom.css” exists? Should be an option.)
  • Now publishing the thumbnails on the Photo Gallery page to an array in PHP. This lets me allow the visitor to choose (via a pull-down menu) how many photos to display per page, which might be a consideration for slow connections, or slow server response times. Will default to only showing 25 photos per page, with the pull-down allowing the visitor to choose between 25, 50, 100, or ALL photos. If less then 25 photos in the gallery, pull-down control will not appear.
  • Implemented Comments in popup windows for now. I’m not happy with the popup solution, but I didn’t want comments and comment forms cluttering nice gallery pages, and creating unecessary vertical scroll bars. Want Comments implemented when this galleries are launched publicly, so this will have to do.
  • Implemented “Photo X of Y” on the Individual Photo page. The Y was easy, but X was the difficult part. There was no accurate way to get a position within a count that only included entries in one category. So instead, I created another Category Archive template that publishes a Gallery Info file to the same directory as the Gallery Title page. The file contains an array of entry IDs for this gallery. This file is accessible to every other gallery page via a PHP include. Now I can check the array published to galleryinfo.php for a match of the Entry ID to determine that photo’s exact position within the gallery.
  • Added a graphical keyword to every “slide” that mimics the way people used to put colored dots and hand-written labels on real slides to keep them categorized and organized. I’m using the keywords to indicate the general location (city, region, etc.) where the photo was taken. For now, these keywords need to be hand-entered after the gallery is exported via Photon. It’s a real pain-in-the-ass to enter everyone of these by hand, even with copy-paste and accesskey shortcuts hacked into MT. (This won’t be sustainable.)
  • Wrote a PHP IsVertical() function that determines whether photo is vertical or horizontal in orientation (landscape or portrait). Just need to pass the entire <img> element to the function, and it reports back true if the photo is vertical.

v0.1.1: 18 Dec 2004

  • Added Hong Kong gallery. Played a little with the idea of a custom style sheet just for this gallery so it can use slightly different colors than other galleries.

v0.1: 10 Nov 2004

  • Basic gallery designed. Includes Individual Photo, Photo Gallery, Gallery Title, and Gallery Index pages.
  • HTML/CSS construction for four pages basically complete and working everywhere except IE5.x (Win/Mac).
  • Using Remote Rollovers to visually aid navigation by clicking on left or right portions of photo on Individual Photo page. Works in all browsers except IE/Windows.
  • Positioned previous thumbnail image to the left, and next thumbnail image to the right to create true sense of browsing through a physical gallery space from left to right, and in chronological order; similar to what might be seen in the viewer’s peripheral vision: the main piece directly in front is in focus, while the pieces to either side are still visible, but less so.
  • Style for title images finalized. Long narrow image with “slides” of key thumbnail images laid over top at angles, with subtle shadows and effects to make images appear transparent as true slides would be.
  • Photos that are vertical in orientation need a mannual “v” added to the MT Keywords field. This is slightly time consuming, but only needs to be done for vertical photos.
  • Gallery Index in a very rough design state. But good enough for now. Is currently a static page that I must update manually each time I add a new gallery — this must be automated. Teases the three galleries I already have exported to MT, and briefly describes the process I use.

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