Photos and the Future

As promised, I have finally implemented a decent photo gallery solution on sensory output called PhotoStack. In the words of the one developer, PhotoStack is:

an image organization system (written in PHP) featuring template driven layout, smart caching, automatic thumbnail creation, RSS feeds, picture level EXIF date extraction, and picture level descriptions, all without the need for an SQL like database.

I cannot even remember for how long I have searched for a photo gallery solution, vacillating between Gallery, flash-based SimpleViewer, the ever-popular Flickr, and even a home-brewed solution based on using a combination of PHP and the Javascript found at Couloir.org. I evaluated each, and each definitely had its own set of merits, but I found that none were completely right for me. I am not alone in this search, too. I can remember when and Barzeski of NSLog(); and Heilemann of binary bonsai solicited comments about solutions to this somewhat complex problem.

For my needs, I require an easy way to get information from iPhoto to the web-based gallery. For each of the above listed options, there are ways to accomplish such a task, but none are truly simple. Their complication arises from the very nature of their audience, a wide-swath of users trying to do many different things. This, of course, leads to many options that are unnecessary to me. I almost went with my home-brewed solution, and I was beginning to code the pieces to put it together. I had the Javascript done, and various PHP pieces coming together. Finally, last week, I began work on an AppleScript to process a selection of images from within iPhoto that would copy, scale, and save the images to a folder of a name of my choosing while also extracting title, comments and keywords into a properly formatted text file.

Enter PhotoStack.

Faced with the daunting task of writing a custom photo gallery solution, I came across PhotoStack in my dealings with my soon to be web host, TextDrive. I found the use of PHP and lack of SQL to be big pluses. The templates appeared to be benign and simple, yet powerful. Plus, the setup offered RSS out of the box! Once I looked at the required format of the text file that gives each album is description and title information, I was sold. Add in automatic thumbnails and a smart-cashing system as bonuses, and I was ready to go. My already-written AppleScript could be easily altered to output the correct format for PhotoStack.

After some CSS work, alterations of the built-in template, re-work of the automation thumbnail creation code, and much testing of my AppleScript, I have a great web gallery solution in place. Now, to create a new gallery, I just select the images in iPhoto that have titles, comments and keywords already assigned, and I drag them to a folder that has the AppleScript attached. The rest, as they say, is history.

There are still a few issues that remain, but they are minor, and will be dealt with in good time:

• Photos are supposed to be sorted by date, but appear at random.
• The AppleScript needs to replace non-HTML characters with the appropriate, corresponding entity

• Ideally, I should even have my AppleScript FTP the results directly to my web server

  I have been so excited to see this go that I have been working non-stop on this project for the last few days. I have been adding new galleries like mad today and yesterday, watching them, over and over, marveling at my creation. I must give credit to Dave Bowman for inspiring the use of the double roll-over trick that allows for those of you using a modern browser (i.e. Safari, FireFox, or Opera) to see chevrons pointing forward or back upon moving your mouse over the main image or the previous or next thumbnails. He referred to this as Progressive Enhancement, where those of you that have the foresight to be progressive in your choice of software see remarkable enhancements to your experience (i.e. like the web experience). I must say that Dave has an impressive photo gallery that he covered extensively in an article at Stopdesign entitled, New Photo Galleries, but I could not fathom forcing the use of WordPress or MoveableType for the management of photo galleries on the web.

  My unique combination of managing my photos locally with iPhoto 5 and exporting to PhotoStack via a custom-built AppleScript is working wonders. Painlessly, too.