Comparing jAlbum Skins

 

Comparing jAlbum Skins

Introduction

To evaluate and compare various jAlbum skins, I created several albums using identical image content. To highlight the differences between skins, I also included a web location pointing to a Wikipedia page, an MP4 video, a YouTube video, a 360° cylindrical panorama photo, and a 360° spherical panorama photo.

This review includes the skins bundled with jAlbum as well as four custom skins I developed. All of these skins can generate single-page web albums, featuring enlarged images displayed in lightboxes with optional full-screen and slideshow functionality.

You can view the comparison via this album of albums web page:

You see there the next jAlbum bundled skins:

Animatics

A full-window, responsive skin from the Tiger/Projector/Photoblogger/Lucid family. Unlike most skins, it begins with the first image in a lightbox rather than a thumbnail overview.

Lizard

A continuation of the Chameleon tradition, starting with a thumbnail view and a feature-rich top bar for navigation.

Lucid

Behaves like Animatics: if there are no folders, the album opens directly in a lightbox.

Photoblogger

A responsive, feature-rich skin offering social media integration, image sliders, a shopping cart, tag cloud, feedback, and maps. It starts with thumbnail view when folders are absent.

Projector

Also full-window and responsive, this skin emphasizes slideshow presentation. It starts with a theme image and a button to launch the slideshow.

Story

A single-page skin designed for a mix of images, videos, and text. You can add custom (HTML) content or dedicated text blocks.

Tiger

jAlbum’s most widely used skin. It inherits many Photoblogger features and presents a responsive layout, starting with a thumbnail overview when no folders exist.

Plain

A minimalistic skin utilizing the PhotoSwipe lightbox (also used by my PhotoSwipe skin). The demo album leverages `.inc` files for custom code insertion, as described in my blogger note,

Next to these bundled skins, I show these images in my 4 skins:

PhotoSwipe

Uses PhotoSwipe 5 lightbox, similar to Plain.

FancyBox

Employs fancybox-3 for sleek image display.

LightGallery

Built around the LightGallery library, supporting over 20 CSS3 slideshow transitions. It includes animated zoom effects on opening/closing the lightbox.

Slide Show 4

A successor to Improved Slide Show 3. All slide content is embedded in the index HTML file—there are no separate slide pages.

The last 4 skins are ideal for showcasing travel and walking tours, offering responsive thumbnail layouts and extra features like the display of Google Maps or OpenStreetMap maps, download GPS tracks, open other albums etc, which are implemented via buttons on the index page.

Feature Comparisons

Full-Screen Support

All skins support full-screen image viewing, but how it's implemented varies. For example:

• Tiger, Photoblogger, Projector: full-screen must be pre-configured; it can’t be toggled by viewers, although Photoblogger and Tiger allow adding a button for this.
• Animatics, Lizard, Lucid, Story: include a full-screen toggle button in the lightbox's top-right corner.
• Slide Show 4, PhotoSwipe, LightGallery, FancyBox: a full-screen toggle button can be be enabled from the lightbox settings window or the viewer may select it in the viewer settings window.

Slideshow Transitions

• Photoblogger, Story, Plain, Lucid: offer just one transition type.  The Story and Photoblogger skins allow the viewer to change the view time.
• Tiger, Lizard: support three types, but no viewer control.
• Animatics: supports four transitions, but the viewer can't change the type of transition or the view and transition time.
• Projector: supports eight transitions, but the viewer can't change the type of transition or the view and transition time.
• PhotoSwipe: doesn’t support transitions, but lets the viewer control viewing time.
• Slide Show 4, FancyBox: six transition types, all viewer-selectable.
• LightGallery: leads with a whopping >20 user-selectable transitions.

Background Music

All skins support background music. The Slide Show 4, PhotoSwipe, LightGallery and FancyBox skins are limited to a single MP3 file.

Web Locations & Videos

• Tiger, Photoblogger, Projector, Lucid, Animatics: web locations appear in separate sections of the index page.
• Lizard, Story, Plain: show them in-line with image thumbnails.
• Slide Show 4, PhotoSwipe, LightGallery, FancyBox: support inline web locations with an integrated “Back” button.

YouTube videos behave like web locations and share their display limitations.

360° Panoramas

• Spherical panorama images are supported in Photoblogger, Story, Tiger, PhotoSwipe, FancyBox, and Slide Show 4.
• Cylindrical panoramas auto-pan in Lizard, Story, Tiger—but not infinitely. The Slide Show 4, PhotoSwipe and FancyBox skins feature smooth, continuous panning both on desktop and mobile.

Maps

• Photoblogger, Story, Tiger: generate maps with all photo locations via built-in skin code.
•  PhotoSwipe, FancyBox, LightGallery and Slide Show 4.: support advanced interactive maps (via my Windows program MakeMap), which include GPS tracks, photo markers, viewer’s location, and Google Earth or OpenStreetMap support.
• These maps can also be made by MakeMap and  added to other skins (e.g., Tiger, Projector, Plain) using custom code as shown in the discussed albums.

Other Unique Features

• Shopping cart: Available in Tiger, Story and Photoblogger.
• Search feature: Found only in Tiger, Lizard, Story, Projector, and Photoblogger.

Smartphone Testing

I tested all skins on an iPhone 13 Pro (in portrait mode: 320×509 logical px). Here’s how they fared:

• Animatics: Issue when tapping the title bar.
• Lizard: Caption size is problematic, and the top bar could be more compact on small screens.
• Lucid: Similar caption issues.
• All other skins: Displayed well on the small screen.

How to display a location map on the Contact page of my jAlbum skins

The contact page of my FancyBox skin, my PhotoSwipe skin, my Lightgallery skin and my SlideShow 4 skin have been improved:

• Four new user definable links have been added.
• The width of the contact page image can be defined in px or %'.
• You can now add text and / or code to the contact page, for example to add a location map.

To add a location map, use the following procedure:

• Open the Google Maps web-page.
• Enter your address in the upper left search box or add a marker to the map by clicking in the map on the location you like to show.
• Next click on the 'Share' button.
• Select the 'Embed a map' tab.
• Click on the 'Copy HTML' link to copy the code to the clipboard.
• Open the Contact page in jAlbum and enter the code in the large lower text block via the keyboard combination ctrl+V or by clicking with the right mouse button in the text block and selecting 'Paste' in the menu.

You see now a text like this: 

<iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!..." width="600" height="450" style="border:0;" allowfullscreen="" loading="lazy" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade"></iframe>

Change the width "600" into "90%" to avoid problems on small smartA-phone screens .

You may add some text above the map by entering before the <iframe text a string like <h3>Location</h3>

To see the result open this example album and click on the 'Contact jAlbum' menu button.

It uses these Contact page settings:

You see here a width of  20% for the Contact image, so this image is adapted to the window width.

You see here also the 4 new link fields.

Instead of the embedded map page you can also use a link to open the location in a new window. Select in that case in the Google Maps page, after you clicked the 'Share' button, the 'Send a link' tab and next click the 'COPY LINK' link. Enter this link in one of the new link fields on the Contact page via the ctrl+V key combination and add a text like 'Location' in the corresponding text field.

New skin versions

My jAlbum skins have been updated:

FancyBox version 4.5.1.

PhotoSwipe version 5.7.2

LightGallery version 1.5.1

Slide Show 4 version 5.4.1

Survey of the changes:

• If a description is given in a folder tile, a possible link is removed, because a link in a link will not work.

• The description in a tile uses now also the 'Thumbnails text font-size', see this example album.

• The Map.htt template file is changed so that the close button is better visible, see this example.

• If a route map is shown with the OSM_Map.html web page made with my program MakeMap and the lightbox has been opened via a click in the thumbnail, you can now use the lightbox close button to return to the map, see this example. The latest version of MakeMap makes it also possible to disable opening the lightbox.

• PhotoSwipe library version 5.4.2 is now used in res\photoswipe folder of the PhotoSwipe skin.

• Style Blue has been added to the Slide Show 4 skin.

How to implement albums with a theme image with the FancyBox, the Slide Show 4 and the PhotoSwipe skin.

Both in the PhotoSwipe, in the FancyBox and in the Slide Show 4 skin is the possibility to add theme images implemented. This note describes the details to add theme images to your albums made with these skins.

You can use as theme image one of the images in the output slides folder, enter in that case in the Theme image field a string like "slides\Vecht_121027_1242-7.jpg" or you can put a new image to be used  as theme image in the output directory where also the index.html file of the album is located. As  an example we use the last method and put an image named “ThemeImageWithTitle.jpg” in the output folder. The original  theme image is processed in a photo edit program like Photoshop Elements, where we cropped the image so that the width is much larger as the height and we added the album title to the image. Finally we saved it as file “ThemeImageWithTitle.jpg” in the output directory (File > Save for web …) with a lower resolution,  a width of 2560 pixels and a height of 791 pixels. We created a first version of the album before we added the theme image, to create the output  directories.

Next we opened the Theme Image sub-tab of the skins Index page settings:

In the Theme Image field we enter the name of the theme image: “ThemeImageWithTitle.jpg”.

On the Index page / General tab you have the possibility to select in the 'Show Album title' group “Above the theme image”, “In the theme image” and you can hide the album title text “Hide Album title” In this example we did draw the album title in the image, so we selected “Hide Album title”.

If you let jAlbum write the album title in the theme image, the title may be unreadable if the Album title text color does not differ much with the colors of your theme image. Select in that case another color with the “Album title text color” color selector or put the title above the theme image by clearing check-box “Show Album title in theme image”.

In field “Theme image width” you enter the display width of the theme image. We recommend to use a width in % so that the theme image is scaled if the window size is changed. I use always 96%. If you enter a value like 600px, the width is fixed and the size of the image is not changed if the window size changes. If you enter nothing the natural width of the image is used.

It is also possible to use the Theme image as a background image. Set in that case check-mark 'Use Theme image as background' and fill the height textbox with the height of the theme image (791 in this example). However you should not do this if you set the album title in the theme image with an editor, because depending on the window size, part of the title may fall outside the window.

With the next 4 fields, you can design a border around the theme image.

At the end of the index page you can show another special image. I use that to show the height profile of a walk, but you can use that image for other purposes as well. Put that image also in the output directory and enter the file name in field “Profile image” of the Index page / Footer tab. This image is not scaled, it is displayed in its natural width / height.

If you are ready with entering settings and the special images are loaded into the output directory, you have to re-make the album, even if you did not change anything to the settings after you loaded a theme or profile image.

To see the above described album, click here.

If you make an album with folder directories with one jAlbum project file, it is also possible to add theme images to the albums in the subdirectories. The creating of a tree of albums with the Slide Show 4 skin has been described here.

The album creator has to enter the theme image filename in the Slide Show 4 index page settings and he has to put the theme image in the output directory before the final creation of the album. 

If no theme image is entered in the settings, no theme image is displayed.
If a theme image is entered in the settings, but the corresponding file is not found, no theme image is displayed.
If a theme image is entered in the settings and the corresponding file is found, a theme image is displayed.

If you put a file “ThemeImage.jpg” in the output directory of the top level index file and nothing in the output subdirectories, a theme image is only showed in the top level index file.

If you like to use a theme image in one of the subdirectories, you should put in that subdirectory also a file named “ThemeImage.jpg”. This file contains of course another picture. If you like you can give all subdirectories a theme image by putting a “ThemeImage.jpg” file, each with a different image, in all subdirectories.

However if you use jAlbum verion 15 or later version, you can use the new Folder panel as described in the skin manual. 

Slide Show 4 album embedded in a web-page

Click the picture to start the slide show here in this window, click here to start the slide show in new window.
Next push (on a PC) the F11 key to see it full screen!

This is the index page of this album which is skipped in an album with an automatically started slide show:

You can display a slide show embedded in your web-page with an iframe. To do that, check  the check-mark 'Start slide show automatically'  on the Slide Show 4 settings General tab. For the example above, I used the following html code in the web page:

<iframe src="https://www.andrewolff.nl/testjalbum/frame/index.html" style="border:none; overflow:hidden;" height="350" width="700" ></iframe>

The slide show starts with the first slide page (index# 0), but you can start at any other slide page in the album by adding '?x' where x is the index of the first image to show. However in that case the slide show does not start automatically; start the slide show with a long tap in the picture or by pressing the space bar or by clicking the play button (if visible) . For example if you like to start with the third slide,  use text index.html2

With the next code:

<iframe src="https//www.andrewolff.nl/testjalbum/frame/index.html?M0" style="border:none; overflow:hidden;" height="350" width="700" ></iframe>

the slide show is also not started automatically. Use swipes or the arrow keys to go to the next/previous picture or start the slide show with a long tap in the picture or by clicking the play button or by pressing the space bar. This mode shows always navigation buttons.

You start the slide show normally from the index page by clicking the play button in the upper left corner or by clicking a  thumbnail, but you can start the slide show with a link on your web-page. As an example click on the small thumbnail above. The html code for this link is:

<a href="https://www.andrewolff.nl/testjalbum/frame/index.html?1"><img src="https://www.andrewolff.nl/testjalbum/frame/thumbs/Berijpt_Almelo_071222_05.jpg" width="130" height="97" alt="start slide show" /></a>

You can also start the slide show in a full window without status bar, menu etc. Try this this with the first button above. The html code is:

<form>
<input type="button" value="Click here and next F11 to see the slides fullscreen"
onclick='window.open("https://www.andrewolff.nl/testjalbum/frame/index.html", "fullscreen","toolbar=0,scrollbars=0,menubar=0,location=0,resizable=0,directories=0,status=0,fullscreen=yes,width=" + (screen.width) + ",height=" + (screen.height) + ",left=0,top=0");'>
</form>

To open the index page of  an embedded album, add "?-1" after the URL. For example to open the index page of this test album, make a link to "https://www.andrewolff.nl/testjalbum/frame/index.html?-1".

The viewing time per slide, the applied slide transition effect and time are defined when the album is created, on the Slide Show 4 settings Slide page tab:

You should indicate here too whether the navigation buttons should always, never or only in the pause state be displayed on slides. If these buttons are not displayed, navigation should be done via the key board or with swipes and gestures on the iPad. Click on the help button on the index page of a slide show to see how this should be done.

For an example of a page with 4 embedded slide shows go to the Demo of embedded Slide Show 4 albums page. Use the 'View source' function of your browser to view the code.

If you like to show your embedded album on various devices, you have to make the iframe responsive with extra css-code. For an example of an embedded responsive slide show, see this web-page and see here for an example of an embedded index page. To fetch this code, use jAlbum menu item 'Album / Embed album'.

Click here to download the Slide Show 4 skin, click here to see an extended description and click here to see another example of an embedded slide show.

De presentatie van foto’s met jAlbum.

Het jAlbum programma

De laatste jaren presenteer ik mijn foto’s met het programma jAlbum. Dit programma maakt het mogelijk om webpagina’s te maken voor het presenteren van foto’s.

Het programma bestaat uit een kern gedeelte dat zorgt voor de omzetting van de oorspronkelijke foto’s in hoge resolutie naar JPEG files van dezelfde foto’s in een lagere resolutie voor publicatie op een website server. U geeft daarvoor op waar de oorspronkelijke foto’s staan, in welke folder de webpagina’s gezet moeten worden, de maximale afmeting van de wegpagina foto’s, de te gebruiken kwaliteit bij de omzetting etc. Omdat ik graag grote foto’s wil zien geef ik tegenwoordig als maximale resolutie de HD norm op: 1080x1920 en om de files niet te groot te laten worden gebruik ik een kwaliteit van 50% voor de omzetting. Dat is meestal voldoende. (De meeste oudere albums op mijn site zijn gemaakt met de resolutie 1024x1024 en 50% kwaliteit).

U geeft een titel voor de presentatie op en desgewenst een beschrijving. Ook geeft U op waar eventueel een beschrijvende tekst per foto opgehaald kan worden. Ik gebruik daarvoor uitsluitend de ‘EXIF image descriptor’, die ik vul met mijn programma EditPhotoInfo: het ‘Bijschrift’ venster rechts onder in het Viewer venster.
Omdat ik tegenwoordig het RAW formaat gebruik voor mijn foto's vul ik dat veld tegenwoordig meestal in het Adobe  Lightroom programma, waarmee ik mijn foto's bewerk en converteer naar het JPEG formaat dat jAlbum gebruikt.
Meestal kunt U ook aangeven of U muziek tijdens de presentatie wil laten afspelen, waarbij U zelf de MP3 files moet aanleveren.

Het uiterlijk van een presentatie kiest U door een Skin te kiezen in het jAlbum programma. Er zijn zeer veel skins gemaakt, die U kunt downloaden van de jAlbum website. Die skins kunt U soms heel gemakkelijk zelf aanpassen aan Uw behoeften.

Ik vind dat een presentatie vooral moet gaan over de foto’s zelf en heb daarom een voorkeur voor skins die de foto’s zo groot mogelijk laten zien zonder storende teksten en plaatjes rond de foto. Bovendien vind ik dat de foto’s in een Dia Show getoond moeten worden, zodat er weinig interactie nodig is en je de foto’s bijvoorbeeld via internet op een HD TV moet kunnen laten zien.

Ik gebruik momenteel mijn ‘Slide Show 4’  skin, de opvolger van mijn ‘Improved slide Show 3’ skin. Daarnaast gebruik ik mijn recent ontwikkelde PhotoSwipe  and FancyBox skins.

Als U zich registreert op de jAlbum site en een licentie koopt dan krijgt U ruimte op de jAlbum server waar U Uw presentaties kunt neerzetten. Het uploaden en onderhouden van die site gaat geheel via het jAlbum programma en is zeer eenvoudig te bedienen. U kunt de presentaties ook op een eigen server zetten, maar dan moet U Uw album met een FTP-programma uploaden en kunt U gebruik maken van een goedkopere licentie om van een reclame boodschap in Uw album af te komen. Met de nieuwste versie van het jAlbum programma kunt U dat ook doen met het ingebouwde FTP-programma, wat ik tegenwoordig meestal gebruik.

Mijn jAlbum skins.

De Slide Show 4 skin is een verbeterde versie van de eerste jAlbum Slide Show skin. Ik heb die wat verbeterd en aangepast aan mijn wensen. U kunt deze skin downloaden vanaf de Jalbum site waar ook een beschrijving gegeven wordt. Voorbeelden van albums gemaakt met deze skin zie U hier.

De PhotoSwipe skin heb ik weer afgeleid van de Slide Show 4 skin, waarbij de dia show vervangen is door de PhotoSwipe JavaScript gallery ontwikkeld door Dmitry Semenov. Voorbeelden van albums gemaakt met deze skin zie U hier.

De aanpassingen die ik toegevoegd heb hebben betrekking op het laten zien van de routes die we gelopen of gefietst hebben. Die routes worden met een GPS ontvanger opgenomen. U kunt de routes bekijken op een kaart in Google Maps en Google Earth. Er wordt ook aangegeven waar de foto’s gemaakt zijn en als U op een WayPoint (ballon of fototoestel icon) klikt dan krijgt U de foto ook te zien vanuit de kaart. Aan het einde van dit artikel wordt aangegeven hoe dit toegevoegd wordt.

Deze skins zijn aangepast om de albums beter op een iPad te kunnen zien en bedienen; U kunt daar gebruik maken van een touch interface. Er zijn overgangs effecten bij het wisselen van de dia's ingevoerd. Er wordt slechts één html file gebruikt; door het ontbreken van slide page html files is de code compact en zijn er geen flikkeringen bij het wisselen van de dia's.

Samen met jAlbum versie 12-14 is het mogelijk om ook video's in een album op te nemen. Een voorbeeld van een album met video's en foto's zie U hier. 

Het toevoegen van GPS informatie.

Met een GPS ontvanger kunt U zien wat de coördinaten (lengte- en breedtegraad) zijn van de plaats waar U staat als U bijvoorbeeld een foto neemt. Op mijn GPS pagina kunt U meer informatie vinden over de werking van een GPS. Veel GPS ontvangers kunnen tijdens het lopen of fietsen de route opslaan in een tracklog file. De GPS slaat dan voor elk punt waar men geweest is, het tijdstip, de lengtegraad en de breedtegraad op in de tracklog file.

Als U een foto neemt slaat de camera ook het tijdstip waarop de opname gemaakt is op bij de EXIF gegevens van de foto. Door datzelfde tijdstip op te zoeken in de tracklog file kan men de lengtegraad en de breedtegraad van de camerapositie ophalen en opslaan bij de EXIF gegevens.

Dit proces kunt U automatisch uitvoeren met mijn programma EditPhotoInfo programma door daar op de knop 'Tracklog' te klikken.

De files die gebruikt worden voor Google Map en Google Earth worden ook door het EditPhotoInfo programma gemaakt., maar U kunt daarvoor tegenwoordig beter mijn MakeMap programma gebruiken. Eerst haalt U daarvoor de coördinaten waar de foto’s gemaakt zijn uit de GPS tracklog file met programma EditPhotoInfo of met het Adobe Lightroom programma. Daarna maakt U de jAlbum presentatie met de Slide Show 4  of de  PhotoSwipe skin. Als U daarna in EditPhotoInfo het vierkantje 'Gebruik foto's van de website' aanvinkt en op 'Maak file' knop drukt, dan zal er een Google Earth file map.kml gemaakt worden in de hoofdmap van de jAlbum presentatie met voor elke foto die coördinaten bevat een waypoint die aangeeft waar de foto gemaakt is. Wordt die file geopend in Google Earth of Google Maps en klikt U daar op zo een waypoint, dan wordt de foto zelf ook getoond. Klik op het album voorbeeld hierboven op het zwarte vierkantje met de aarde in het midden om daarvan een voorbeeld te zien.

Als er een waypoints file gemaakt is, dan kunt U daarna op de 'Waypoints' knop klikken om de waypoints in Google Earth te bekijken. Heeft U ook de GPS tracklog file met mijn programma ConvertTrack omgezet in een KML file, dan kunt U ook die file in Google Earth zichtbaar maken en daar opslaan in dezelfde map als de Waypoints en het resultaat via 'Plaats opslaan als...' als map.kmz of map.kml file opslaan.  Klik op de rechter werelbol in het midden in  in dit voorbeeld album  om een voorbeeld in Google Earth te zien.

U kunt de waypoints en track ook in Google Maps laten zien. Dat gebeurt in de browser, er is geen speciaal programma voor nodig. U moet daarvoor de URL van de kml file in het zoekvak bovenin Google Maps zetten en daarna op de 'Zoeken in Maps' knop rechts van dat vak klikken. De links naar die pagina krijgt U te zien door rechts op de 'Link' knop te klikken. Klik in dit voorbeeld album  op de linker wereldbol om hetzelfde voorbeeld in Google Maps te zien. De link in dit voorbeeld is in het MakeMap programma gemaakt, maar het resultaat is hetzelfde.

Daarnaast is er in de Slide Show 4 skin een voorziening om door (360°-) panorama foto's  te kunnen scrollen.

Recept voor het maken van een Slide Show 4  of PhotoSwipe album

Voor het maken van een album voert U de de volgende acties in deze volgorde uit:

1. Als U een GPS track van het album heeft voeg dan de GPS locaties aan de foto's toe door eerst de foto map te openen met de knop 'Open...' en daarna op de knop 'Tracklog..' te klikken.
2. Als U panorama foto's heeft gemaakt, stel die dan nu samen met een stitching programma, b.v. Autopano pro of in Adobe Lightroom.
3. Open de viewer en verwijder de minder fraaie foto's. Voeg bijschriften voor onder voor de foto's in.
4. Wijzig desgewenst de foto namen etc. door op de knop 'Wijzig file data' te klikken.
5. Genereer het album met het jAlbum programma, waarbij U links onder 'Skin en stijl' de Slide Show 4 of PhotoSwipe skin selecteert. Pas de parameters bij de instelling aan naar Uw wensen voordat U het album maakt, meer info in de Slide Show 4 / PhotoSwipe skin handleiding.
6. Door de laatste actie worden de album mappen en files gemaakt. Indien U een waypoints file gaat toevoegen die U ook met Google Maps bekeken moet worden, dan kunt U het link adres ophalen door op de knop 'Link' te klikken. Plak dat adres dan in het URL veld op de 'Links' tab van de skin instellingen in het jAlbum programma. Genereer het album dan nogmaals met het jAlbum programma. Zorg er vooraf voor dat in het Opties venster de juiste gegevens staan in de velden 'Lokale folder' en 'Externe URL'.  Tegenwoordig kuint U beter mijn Makemap programma gebruiken.
7. Als de foto's GPS gegevens bevat en U wilt voor elke foto de locatie kunnen bekijken dan moet U bij de Slide Show 4 instellingen in het jAlbum programma het vakje 'Show location in Google Maps' aanvinken.
8. Als U ook panorama pagina's in het album wil opnemen, open dan de poanorama foto in de jAlbum Explorer, klik rechts op het driehoekje 'Panoramic image' en vink vervolgens 'Panoramic image' aan ( en indien van toepassing het '360° panorama' hokje.
9. Als de foto's GPS gegevens bevat en U wilt een waypoints file met alle camera locaties laten zien, vink dan in het EditPhotoInfo programma het vakje 'Gebruik foto's van website' aan en druk op de knop 'Maak file'. De file map.kml wordt dan in de index folder gezet. Zorg er vooraf voor dat in het Opties venster de juiste gegevens staan in de velden 'Lokale folder' en 'Externe URL'. Voeg in het Google Earth programma eventueel de GPS track toe aan de map.kml file en sla die file weer op in de index map.
10. Zet het album op Uw website.

Voor meer informatie zie de on-line helpfile van programma EditPhotoInfo of de on-line helpfile van programma MakeMap.
U kunt programma EditPhotoInfo ophalen vanaf mijn download pagina.

How to process pictures in subdirectories in jAlbum with the FancyBox, the Slide Show 4 or the PhotoSwipe skin.

Both the Slide show 4 skin, the FancyBox skin and the PhotoSwipe skin allows you to display pictures in subdirectories of the main image directory as sub-albums which are opened via links on the main album at the top of the tree. 

I will discuss here 2 methods, in two examples. I use in both cases the same directory structure: a root directory which contains the images of the top album and contains also all folders with additional albums, both for the image directory and for the output directory. The jAlbum project files are saved in the image directories.

Before version 3.1 of the Slide Show 4 skin, the main album did stay open if you opened a folder-album, so that possible music started in the top-album did continue as a folder-album was opened. With the start of version 3.1 and with the PhotoSwipe skin, the folder-album is opened in the same window as the top album. This means of course that background music played by an audio control in the top album is stopped if the folder-album is opened. To prevent that the music stops if you open a folder-album, the music can be played in a new Music.htt web-page, which runs in a separate window.

There are 3 ways to create a such a tree of albums, via one jAlbum project file for all subdirectories in the top window, with for each directory a jAlbum project file which is saved in the corresponding directory or with an Album of albums via weblocations (requires jAlbum version 14).

1. One project file for all albums.

In the first case you have to set the 'Process subdirectories' and 'Include subdirectories in index pages' check-marks in the jAlbum Advanced / General settings:

If you check the 'Chain directories' check-mark (requires jAlbum version 12.2 or later version and Slide Show 4 skin version 2.1 or later version, with PhotoSwipe in all versions), you can use the the green arrow buttons on top of an index page to open the album in the next / previous directory of the tree.

In the second case, if you use a set of project files to generate the albums, you should not check these check-marks.

Using one project file is of course the fast method to generate a tree of albums, but it has a number of disadvantages:

1. The thumbnails and slides of all albums do have the same dimensions, because the settings on the jAlbum Images / General tab are applied in all sub-albums.
2. If you use fixed shape thumbnails they will be used in all albums, it is not possible mix albums with fixed shape and non fixed shape thumbnails
3. The number of thumbnails columns is the same in all albums, except if you set check-mark 'Variable number of thumbnails per row' on the index page settings.
4. If the html code text-box contains html code, it is only executed for the top index page.
5. The button links defined on the Slide Show 4 Links tab are only displayed on the top index page. If you check check-mark 'Show these buttons too if subdirectories are processed' they will also be displayed on sub-albums, but it is not possible to use in that case different links for different albums. This is mostly not a big problem. However if you use as links in your sub-albums the same file for instance more_info.html, the link will only be displayed if such a file exist in the sub-directory. The contents of file more_info.html can of course be different for each subdirectory.
6. It is not possible to use for each sub-album a picture in the slides directory as theme image. If you like to do that you should use in each sub-directory an include file page-header_2 with a contents like this:
<div class="themeImage">
    <img src="slides/150619-125959_Norrfallsvikken-7.jpg" style = "width:100%" alt=""  ></div>
However it is also possible to enter in the the 'Theme image' field a string like 'theme_image.jpg' and save the theme image under that name in the root- and each sub-directory of the output destination directory. No theme image will be displayed if this file is not found.

 To enter the Title and/or Description of a sub-album, click with the right mouse button on the folder which contains the pictures of the album and select in the menu 'Edit':

Next you see this window:

Enter the title in the Title field at the right site and enter the description in the comment field below the folder image.

For an example of an album made by one project file click here  and to see the same tree of albums made by 13 project files click here 

The Slide Show 4 index page settings of the first album contains the next parameters:

You see here that it is possible to give the border folder thumbnails a special color, so that you see better the difference with normal image thumbnails.

If the top album index page contains slide picture thumbnails and thumbnail folder icons, the thumbnail folder icons are displayed in a second table of  thumbnail folder icons after the slide picture thumbnails of the top album:

However it is the responsibility of the album creator that the folders are located after all normal images in the jAlbum Explore. 


2. A project file for each folder album

This is only possible with the Slide Show 4 skin,It is sometimes easier and more flexible to use a separate project file for each directory where you define this information for each subdirectory in the corresponding project file. You are in that case free to chose for each album the optimal dimensions and shape of the thumbnails and the slides and the number of thumbnails columns.

If you do this, there are 3 points important:

1. In the Album settings Advanced / General tab, you should clear check-marks Chain directories, Process subdirectories and Include subdirectories in index pages.

2. For each project file in a subdirectory, you should fill the same link address '../index.html' in the 'Parent page URL' field on the Slide Show 4 Links tab:

3. The links to the albums in the folders should be defined in the html code text block on the Slide Show 4 Index page tab of the top window:

In this example the links are displayed as 2 horizontal menu bars at the bottom of the index page of the top album:

The CSS code is standard available in the common.css file in the res directory, because the same code is used for the top menu you see at the top of the index page. This menu is defined at the links tab:

After you created the whole tree of albums you should upload it to the jAlbum website via the jAlbum project file of the top album (or use a FTP program to transfer all output directories to your own web server).

Creating such a tree is rather simple:

• First make the root album in the top directory.
• Next copy the resulting project file JalbumSS4.jap to the first subdirectory, edit that file in jAlbum by adding the link to the root, edit the output directory, browse to the theme image, change the thumbnails size is useful etc. and make the first folder album.
• Next copy that file to the 2nd folder and change at least the output directory and I make the album.
• Do the same for the other folder albums.
• Finally open again the top album and upload it to the server. The albums in the folders are automatically uploaded with the top album.

With the information supplied by jGromit, see this thread on the jAlbum forum, you can save time by doing this with a batch file.

In the root directory I created a batch file RebuilFolderAlbums.cmd with the following contents:

cd "D:\Users\Public\Pictures\Texel\TopWindow\0-Zuiden_W2010_09_04"
java -Xmx800M -jar "C:\Program Files\jAlbum\JAlbum.jar" -projectFile "JalbumSS4.jap" -appendImages
pause
cd "..\1-Geul_W2011_09_29"
java -Xmx800M -jar "C:\Program Files\jAlbum\JAlbum.jar" -projectFile "JalbumSS4.jap" -appendImages
pause
cd "..\2-Hors_20140606-09_Mokbaai"
java -Xmx800M -jar "C:\Program Files\jAlbum\JAlbum.jar" -projectFile "JalbumSS4.jap" -appendImages
pause
cd "..\3-20140608_Bollekamer"
java -Xmx800M -jar "C:\Program Files\jAlbum\JAlbum.jar" -projectFile "JalbumSS4.jap" -appendImages
pause
cd "..\4-Dennen_W2011_10_02"
java -Xmx800M -jar "C:\Program Files\jAlbum\JAlbum.jar" -projectFile "JalbumSS4.jap" -appendImages
pause
cd "..\5-20140602_Alloo"
java -Xmx800M -jar "C:\Program Files\jAlbum\JAlbum.jar" -projectFile "JalbumSS4.jap" -appendImages
pause
cd "..\6-Bleekerij-20130401"
java -Xmx800M -jar "C:\Program Files\jAlbum\JAlbum.jar" -projectFile "JalbumSS4.jap" -appendImages
pause
cd "..\7-20140604_Oudeschild"
java -Xmx800M -jar "C:\Program Files\jAlbum\JAlbum.jar" -projectFile "JalbumSS4.jap" -appendImages
pause
cd "..\8-Muy_W2011_09_27"
java -Xmx800M -jar "C:\Program Files\jAlbum\JAlbum.jar" -projectFile "JalbumSS4.jap" -appendImages
pause
cd "..\9-Slufter-Muy_W2011_10_01"
java -Xmx800M -jar "C:\Program Files\jAlbum\JAlbum.jar" -projectFile "JalbumSS4.jap" -appendImages
pause
cd "..\A-Slufter"
java -Xmx800M -jar "C:\Program Files\jAlbum\JAlbum.jar" -projectFile "JalbumSS4.jap" -appendImages
pause
cd "..\B-NoordenF2011_09_30"
java -Xmx800M -jar "C:\Program Files\jAlbum\JAlbum.jar" -projectFile "JalbumSS4.jap" -appendImages
pause

Double click on file  RebuilFolderAlbums.cmd to make all albums in the folders. Next build in the usual way the root album directly with the jAlbum program and upload the album in the root. Because the other albums are in sub-folders of the root, they are automatically uploaded with the root album. 
You see the result here.

The music is in both examples played in the Music.htt web-page, but there is one difference: the link to this music web pages is in the first example showed in the menu of all albums, but in the second example only in the menu of the top album.

3. With weblocations


This requires jAlbum 14 and the latest versions of the PhotoSwipe and Slide Show 4 skin. 

It is a simple method: First open all the sub-albums from internet in your browser. Next start a new album, check the check-mark 'This is an album of albums' on the General settings tab of the skin and drag the button left of the URL  text-box in your browser into the jAlbum Explorer window.
Enter the title and possible comment for each album and Make the Album of Albums.

See also the PhotoSwipe Album of albums or the Slide Show 4 Album of albums example.

Click here to download and install newest version of the Slide Show 4 skin and click here  to open the Slide Show 4 skin manual.

Web page support with the FancyBox, the PhotoSwipe and the Slide Show 4 skin

In version the Slide Show 4 skin, in the FancyBox skin and in the PhotoSwipe skin it is possible to add extra web-pages in the standard jAlbum way as has been described in this blog. 

This note will explain how these pages are added to a photo album made with the jAlbum program where these skins are used.

To add an extra page, click with the right mouse button in the jAlbum Explore and select item 'New page':

Select one of the 4 possible types of pages:
About.htt, About_album.htt, Contact.htt, Map.htt and Empty_page.htt.

Don't select the 'Empty page' item on the first line of the New page pop-up menu!

After adding a page, add a title to the page, by selecting label type Title in the upper right corner of the jAlbum Explore and enter the title below the icon of the new page. This Title will be showed as link to the new page in a top menu bar, see the Slide Show 4 sample album.

About.htt page

The About.htt page is inspired by the Base skin. To use it, create a new About.htt page with the right mouse button in the jAlbum Explore and click on the Edit text of the new page icon. The about.htt page is opened:

If you like to show an author image or company logo on the about page, click the Select button and browse to the image you like to use.
Enter the image width you like to use in the next textbox. If you leave this field empty, the natural width of the image will be used.

If you like to use a title above the contents of the about text, enter your title in the Header field. You can leave that field empty, because you see also the title you have given in the jAlbum Explorere in the menu bar.

Enter the contents of the page via copy and paste in the next Text field. 

The contents of the page is best edited first in a text editor or even better in a html editor. 

For those who are not familiar with html code, I give here part of the text I used to compose the 'About me' page used in the Slide Show 4 sample album:

<p>Hi, I am André Wolff. </p>
<p>I was 30 years active in the software development for Philips in the Netherlands.</p>
<p>To keep my brains active, I spent after my retirement still some time in software development, but now for my hobbies: 
<a href="http://www.andrewolff.nl/FotoSerie/fotoindex.htm" target="_blank">digital photography</a> </p>

A paragraph of text should be surrounded by <p> and </p> tags and just a carrriage return/linefeed is made by a <br> tag.

A link to another web-page should start with <a href="Address_of_the_page" target="_blank"> followed with the text of the link followed by </a>

That is all the html knowledge required to compose the contents of the About.htt page and the other pages.

To see the about page made in this example, click here. The background, text colour etc. of this and all other template pages is determined by the Slide Show 4 skin style and settings.

About_album.htt page

The About_album.htt page is made in the same way as the About page, you can if you like add a centered image at the top of the page. This image is displayed above the text, with the same border as used for a possible theme image in the album. 

If you set the width to 100%, the image will be stretched so that it fills the whole page width.

Click here to see in the 'About this album' page of the Slide Show 4 sample album.

Contact.htt page

The Contact.htt page is inspired by the Turtle skin. If you click the Edit text of  the Contact.htt icon, the next page is opened:

As with the previous page, you can again select an image to be displayed at the top of the page and you can add an optional Title in the Header field.

The next fields are only displayed if you enter text in these fields.

You can define the prefix for the address, in this example 'My home page'. You can do that to for your web-site, in this example 'My home page'.

Click here to see the contact page of  the Slide Show 4 sample album made in this example.

Map.htt page

This page can be used to present a map where the photos in the album have been made. The locations of the photos should have been recorded as waypoints in a Google Earth kml file.

This note describes how to make such a kml file.

If you click the Edit text of  the Map.htt icon, the next page is opened:

You see the instructions to make a map page on this form. The Map page displays the contents of a Google Earth KML file (the KMZ file is not supported).

For the Slide Show 4 skin, you can make the KML file with my program EditPhotoInfo according to the instructions in the helpfile. 

The KML file is created in the output directory of the album,  for instance for the sample album:
http://andrewolff.jalbum.net/Vecht_Stegeren/map.kml

If you display the map in the Map.htt web-page, you can delete the optional GoogleMap.html page made in the output directory, however if you uses the Google Maps button defined on the Slide Show 4 links tab, you should enter the text 'GoogleMap.html' in the URL field after 'Open Route in Google Maps:'.

If you have a Google Maps Javascript API key, it is advised to enter that in the first text-box, but you may leave this text-box empty. Next select the type map style and finally enter the URL of the KML file. 

Next create the album and upload it to the server. A local preview will show no map, unless the KML file is already uploaded.

Click here to see this Map page in the Slide Show 4 sample album or click on the link 'Map' in the menu bar to see the map.

Empty_page.htt page

The Empty_page.htt page is made in the same way as the About_album page, without an image. This page is editted by a html editor in the sample album, to see the result, click on the 'More Slide Show 4 info and examples' link in the Slide Show 4 sample album.

Show other links in the menu bar

The menu bar is automatically created if you add one or more web-pages as described above. If the album contains also folders, the extra web-pages are only visible in the menu of the top (parent) album.

However you can use the menu bar also without extra pages to show the links defined on the links tab by setting check-mark 'Show these links in the menu bar':

As an example see my Hameln album. 

These links are only displayed in the menu of the top (parent) album in case folders are used, unless you set check-mark 'Show these links too in folders'.

If you have already a menu bar due to extra web-pages, these links are added after the links to the extra web-pages.

If the album contains folders, it is also possible to show the folder titles in the menu bar by setting check-mark 'Show links to folders in the menu bar' on the index page tab:

As an example see my Terschelling album. 

This example shows all links in the menu bar:

The link to the GoogleMap.html page made by program EditPhotoInfo is is also valid for the folder albums if such a GoogleMap.html file is also created for the kml file in the folder directory.

Click here  to download and install the newest version of the Slide Show 4 skin and click here to open the Slide Show 4 skin manual.