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Features

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Requirements

These templates currently require Movable Type version 3 or higher, and support on your server for PHP.

The templates assume data for each photo exists as its own entry, with data belonging in specific fields. The perfect combination of tools for Mac users is Apple’s iPhoto and the iPhoto export plugin, Photon. Photon enables automatic creation and upload of images and thumbnails, plus configurable export of all photo data directly to MT.

The style sheet provided with these templates assumes a default 4:3 (or 3:4) ratio for all photos. If your camera shoots at 1024x768, 1600x1200, 2272x1704, or some other equivalent 4:3 ratio, you’ll be fine. The included style sheet supports 480x360 (landscape) or 360x480 (portrait) for regular-size images, and 90x68 or 68x90 for thumbnail-size images. Other ratios or sizes require changes to style sheet values.

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Required MT Plugins
Name	6A	Developer	Use
Arithmetic	Info	Info/Download	Setting variables with other MT tags as values, and incrementing variables
Category	Info	Info/Download	Allows access to category archive tags from individual entries
CategoryOfArchive	Info	Info/Download	Used on gallery pages to access data in the Category Description field, and other category tags
Collate	Info	Info/Download	Grab latest entries from each category, then sort categories by most-recently-updated
Collect	Info	Info/Download	Collect width and height attributes of <img> to determine orientation
Compare	Info	Info/Download	Used programmatically for if/then statements and general comparisons
DirifyPlus	Info	Info/Download	More advanced options for auto-dirifying, including use of dashes instead of underscores
Entry	Info	Info/Download	Singles out one entry ID to use that entry’s image for Index and Title pages Note: Only needed if using the “auto” versions of Gallery Index and Gallery Archive templates.
Expressions	Info	Info/Download	Required by Arithmetic plugin Note: Pay attention when installing, as this goes in a different location than other plugins.
FilterCategories	Info	Info/Download	Used to exclude “Favorites” category from index/archive pages
FirstNWords	Info	Info/Download	Summaries of Most Recent Galleries on index page
Grid	Info	Info/Download	Group index and archive listings by threes
KeyValues	Info	Info/Download	Meta data for each gallery (category description field) Note: Pay attention when installing, as one file goes one place, the other goes another place. Note: These templates do not require the “regex” plugin Brad mentions might be required on his page.
PreviousNextInCategory	Info	Info/Download	Ability to go forward or backward within the same gallery (category)
RelativeURL	Info	Info/Download	Eliminate host/domain from certain file paths
Optional MT Plugins (recommended)
Name	6A	Developer	Use
SmartyPants	Info	Info/Download	Typographically correct curly quotes, em-dashes, and ellipses Why: Appropriate punctuation is better than ASCII equivalents.

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MT Settings

The following instructions are provided as MT 3.2+ now arranges the settings. If you’re using MT 3.0 or 3.1, most of these settings are still present distributed within the Weblog Config section under Core Setup, Preferences, and Archive Files.

Note: Only important settings or those different from the defaults are specified below.

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Upload template files

“Photos root” below refers to the same directory on your server that you specify under Settings or Weblog Config.

1. Download and unzip template package.
2. Upload entire directory meta to photos root.
3. Create new directory comments in photos root.
4. Create new directory galleries in photos root.

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Adding Templates to MT

You need to decide if you want the title image to be AUTO-CREATED, or if you would like to MANUALLY CREATE them yourself. If AUTO-CREATED, the title image will be determined either by the most recent image from that gallery, or by your choosing. If you have title images AUTO-CREATED, the Gallery Index and Gallery Title pages will look similar to the following:

• sample Gallery Index with auto-created images
• sample Gallery Title with auto-created images

Alternatively, you can choose to MANUALLY CREATE each title image to match (in size) what is visible on these pages:

• sample Gallery Index with manually-created images
• sample Gallery Title with manually-created images.

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Template Configuration

This section explains how to configure MT to publish specific gallery templates at certain URLs. MT calls this Archive Mapping. Modify the following by going to back into Settings > Publishing, then scroll down to “Archive Mapping”.

iPhoto: Grouping & Labeling Photos

The easiest way to group photos in preparation for export is to create a new album. Add the photos you want in a new gallery to that album. If you want simple meta information about each photo, add a title and a description.

You can also “tag” photos by adding keywords to them. For iPhoto 5, add keywords within Preferences. Apply keywords to individual photos or a group of photos by using “Get Info”. Keywords will be applied as class values to the list item element, styling each slide with a tiny graphical label. For galleries at dbowman.com/photos, labels are used to indicate the general location where the photo was taken. You can use them for whatever you want or not at all.

Keep in mind, to apply styles to a single class value, the value needs to be one word, or it needs to be hyphenated. So “San Francisco” either needs to be SanFrancisco or San-Francisco if you want to apply styling to the class value as one unit.

A set of label images, based on those needed at dbowman.com/photos are provided and stored in meta/labels/. A standard horizontal image file and a vertical image file exists for each label. The Photoshop file used for creating extra labels can be found in the art/ folder. The font used is “Silkscreen”, by Jason Kottke:

Any new label images you create also need corresponding CSS rules in meta/css/labels.css. Follow the same format that already exists, ensuring the new CSS selectors are lower-case versions of the new Keywords you’re using in iPhoto.

Photon Setup

Once Photon is installed correctly, it should be available as a new tab named “Weblog” under iPhoto’s Export Photos dialog box. Click “Settings” to create a new weblog, and enter everything requested under the Account Information tab. If you need help with any of the fields, refer to the Photon FAQ

If you’re using MT 3.2+, there’s a new API Password on your own Author screen that needs to have a value. Use this for your password in Photon instead of your standard MT login password.

Entry API

If you’re not using Photon to export entries to Movable Type, you can still use these templates. You’ll just need some other means of getting your photos to the server and your data into MT. You’ll need to know the type of data for each entry, and where it belongs in MT. Use the following as a guide for where to place data in MT, and how it should be formatted.

Note: If you’re using Photon to export photos from iPhoto, you don’t need to worry about this section. Configure Photon as specified above, and your data will end up in the right places.

MT Field	Data
MTEntryTitle	[Full title of photo]
MTEntryDate	[Date photo was taken]
MTEntryCategory	[Gallery to which photo belongs]
MTEntryBody	<img alt="[title of photo]" title="[title of photo]" src="[full URL to normal-size photo, including domain name]" width="480" height="360" />
MTEntryMore	<img alt="[title of photo]" title="[title of photo]" src="[full URL to thumbnail-size photo, including domain name]" width="90" height="68" />
MTEntryExcerpt	[Optional text for description or caption of photo]
MTEntryKeywords	[Optional keyword(s) indicating some other classification, like location or group]

MT Categories (Galleries)

The templates use MT’s categories to group photos into galleries. The only means of adding additional meta data (description, longer title, custom css, etc.) to a Category in MT is to use the Category Description field. The templates take advantage of Brad Choate’s KeyValues plugin to break this field into multiple separately-accessible chunks.

Meta data is assigned by declaring a VALUE, labeled with a corresponding KEY. They work exactly like any of MT’s entry fields and corresponding field titles. Each key/value pair is defined on its own line, starting with the key name, followed by an equals sign (=), then the key value, with no spaces on either side of the equals sign, and no quotes around the value. For example:

color=red

fruit=apple
  

If you want a description for a particular gallery, type the text as normal into the Category Description field. If you have additional Key/Values you want to add — they’re all optional — just make sure you start each Key/Value pair on its own line below the gallery description.

FAQ

MT Setup

Can I set different locations for my site and archive URLs in Core Setup?

Yes, if you’d really like to. With this option, it’s important to use an Archive Path that points to the same directory used to publish the Gallery Archive template (“galleries”). This prevents revealing the default directory listing of your Archive directory, and by extension, prevents revealing the location of any galleries you’ve marked as “hidden”. Thus, if your Site Path/Root is /home/username/mydomain.com and your Site URL is http://mydomain.com, you’ll probably want to make your Archive Path/Root /home/username/mydomain.com/galleries and your Archive URL http://mydomain.com/galleries/.

Templates

What’s the deal with the Donate Now button above?

The design and supporting templates are provided for anyone to use, free of charge, according to the terms of the Creative Commons License specified. However, I would really appreciate a donation if you find the design and/or templates useful. I suggest a donation of US$25. Donations help cover the cost of many hours that went into design and creation of these templates, and adding in features that I thought others would appreciate. Donations may also help fund future template creations. Your support is greatly appreciated. Many thanks!

Can I enable dynamic publishing for these templates?

As far as I’m aware, these templates all need to be built with Static publishing because of the static-based plugins they require. Dynamic publishing should NOT be enabled.

Why am I getting a permissions error when attempting to create or save any of these templates?

You might not be running MT under cgiwrap or suexec. That’s ok. In this case try setting permissions of 777 for everything on the server within meta/templates/. Then go back and try to create/save the same template.

Are there templates for feeds other than RSS 2.0?

“Atom Index” and “RSS 1.0 Index” templates are not provided. You’ll need to customize them on your own if you want to provide either feed. If you choose not to provide either feed, you’ll probably want to disable automatic rebuilding of these two templates — or better yet, delete them entirely — in order to speed full-site rebuilds and avoid revealing photos from hidden galleries in your feeds.

If I’m AUTO-CREATING title images, can I choose a specific photo to be used for that gallery’s title image?

Yes. You need to know the MTEntryID for that image. In the Category Description field, use the titleimgid Key Value, and set it equal to the Entry ID of the photo you want to use. This will override the normal AUTO-CREATION of title images, using the photo you chose instead of the most recent photo from that gallery. The Entry ID for each photo is in a comment just below the footer on the Individual Photo page.

How do I change text in the Footer of every page?

In Movable Type, navigate to Templates > Modules. Click on the Footer template module. Edit to whatever you want to appear here. Save.

How do I change the Description text that appears on the Gallery Index?

The description is taken from the MTBlogDescription field. In MT 3.2 or higher, this field is under Settings > General. In MT 3.0 - 3.1, it’s under Weblog Config > Preferences.

Galleries/Categories

By declaring a gallery as hidden, will this completely prevent access by people I want to keep out?

No, this does not actually protect this gallery from being accessed. It’s only a security through obscurity option. A hidden gallery still exists like any other gallery, but visitors will need to know what the exact URL of the hidden gallery is, since it won’t be linked from anywhere else within the gallery system. If you want more protection for any gallery, you’ll need to configure according to whatever additional server security options are available to you.

Note: If you deviate from the recommended settings for Site and Archive paths/URLs (as the same location) and you don’t use an Archive Path that points to the same location as the directory where the Gallery Archive is published, you risk exposing those galleries to anyone who manually views your archive URL. Additionally, you could expose those galleries if you add any extra Feed templates, or change the existing Feed templates, without paying attention to the means with which the existing Feed templates are created.

Can I eliminate the Gallery Title page and link straight to the gallery of thumbnails?

Yes. This change would require altering the Archive File Template path for the Photo Gallery and Individual Photo templates to publish them one level higher. It would also require a few changes to those templates, so that the breadcrumbs in the <p id="path"> area point back up to appropriate pages.

If I’m MANUALLY CREATING title images, where do I put them?

Save all the large title images as title_img.gif, and the small title images as title_img_sm.gif. Create an img/ directory in the same location where the Gallery Title page is published for that gallery, and place both images for that gallery in the img/ directory. For example, my Vancouver gallery was assigned a category in MT named “Vancouver03”, which results in the Gallery Title page published to vancouver03/ relative to the Archive URL (usually same as Site URL) I specified in MT’s weblog settings. So the large and small title images sit in the vancouver03/img/ directory.

Keywords

I have several keywords on one photo. They all show up on the Individual Photo page, but only one graphical label shows up on the Photo Gallery page. Why?

First, from a design view, there’s no more room to add multiple labels on the Photo Gallery page. Second, from a CSS view, anything in the Keywords field gets added as one single class for each photo’s <li>. Since each keyword is a class at the same level, each successive class value overrides the preceding value. So whatever keyword is last will be the keyword that affects the pseudo-slide image. If you want to ensure one particular keyword shows up on that slide on the Photo Gallery page, just make sure it’s the last keyword in the group for that photo.

Photon

What radio button option is best to select on the Image Upload tab?

This button determines how your new image files will be named when they’re exported to the server. I’ve found that using the time stamp for each file works best for me. This prevents overwriting should I ever export an image with the same title or original file name. Time stamp file names go down to the second. So it would be very rare to ever overwrite another image, unless you’re uploading a set of multiple burst photos.

What do I use for the Upload path on the Image Upload tab?

Upload path is relative to the Site URL you entered under MT Setup. For example, if you want all your image files to be stored at http://mysitename.com/photos/files/ and your Site URL is http://mysitename.com/photos/, enter files/ for the Upload path.

I entered 90 for the thumbnail max width and height, so why are some of my thumbnail images getting published as 89x67 instead of 90x68?

Good question. I assume there’s a small bug in the way either Photon or iPhoto reduces photos, thus the measurements aren’t quite right. Don’t worry though — one pixel off won’t affect your gallery pages in a negative way.