Community @ The Turning Gate

Thanks Rod.

I'll rely on the shadows.

Bye for today.

Tony

Thumbnail borders.

I see. They alter depending on whether one uses Masonry Rigid or Elastic. I think I prefer Rigid as it puts more space round the images - so I need to forget borders.

Tony

Thanks Rod,

I'll start using some colours.

I guess the clever thing is getting the gradient to work.

Tony

Thanks Matthew,

I'll redo that folder today and repost. Maybe that will suggest some more improvements.

Tony

Thanks Rod,

Some nice suggestions there.

About the red heading. I usually try to pick a colour from the first line of thumbnails. So it varies from folder to folder. It is a pity that the colour picker that comes up cannot register a colour from the image showing in Lightroom - but not a big deal as I can guess.

I'll tinker with the other ideas over the weekend.

Thanks again.

Tony

Thanks Rod,

I have run Four more tests (06.45 GMT).

Ben simplified the template. Yes, it is faster. 8 mins 30 secs for the same files.

Rod suggested making the files smaller. They did contain some large tifs. Dropping everything to jpgs no larger than 1800x1800 and 85% reduced the time to 7 mins and 13 secs.

That was using the template starting CRG-602.....

Taking those smaller files and doing the web creation locally (old fashioned method) took 2 mins 33 secs.

Finally I did the conversion to your server using the template starting gallery-614....

This was faster. 4 mins and 18 seconds.

I'm waiting to hear how much my FTP want to charge to move me to Linux.

And, yes, I still need to add the time needed to upload my locally loaded web folder by Filezilla to my FTP site to do the comparison fully.

One final factor not yet mentioned. Using the old method of creating the web folders locally and then uploading them with FZ means I have a replica of my FTP site held on this PC. If anything went radically wrong at the other end I would be able to recreate it almost instantly. Unless I am wrong using Publisher would necessitate me recreating each web folder individually.

Lots to think about.

Again. Thank you for your help and interest.

Tony

Thanks Ben.

If only my FTP supplier replied as quickly and efficiently!!

Tony

Thank you Ben.

You have spent more than a fair share of your time on a potentially unsophisticated customer. The ability to change design of galleries and add, remove and re-order images is something I am most unlikely to do.

You will have seen my main site. It is nothing more than a big photographic scrap book. It does the deed for the limited number of people it interests. I wanted swipe and autosize and you provided it. (Interestingly I sat next to a two year old girl at lunch last week and her mother told me with great pride that she knew how to swipe !!)

My interest in Publisher comes from that comment from Rod that web building is far, far, faster. As I was building my web folders on my studio machine there was a limit to the things I could do whilst it churned and churned. If I do the folder building on this PC in my home I can at least brew a cup of coffee.

If you care to set me up with Publisher access on your dev server I'll at least be able to see what Rod means by far, far faster. If there is a real difference I'll (a) see what my FTP guys say about moving me to Linux. If not then it really is not worth the effort as the 'system ain't broke' as it is.

Maybe sometime I may be tempted to redesign my galleries but I doubt it. I have ten years of negatives to digitize and add to my scrapbook - and doing that is, for me anyway, more important than making the existing ones a bit smarter.

Thanks again for your help. It is much appreciated and valued.

Tony

This is the host, Ben.

http://www.asp-host.co.uk/

Presumably you can work out whether they are running the software you say causes problems?

I'll look for the .php file.

EDIT. It is there.

EDIT. Does it need special permissions?

Tony

Thanks Rod.

Tony

Thanks again guys.

Brief spell between the two races. Oxford ladies beat Cambridge ladies. Chaps at 17.50..

Time to think.

I see what you are saying now about access to the FTP and working in a secure area.

What I could do is totally abandon LR on my studio PC and bring the folders of file to 'publish' via memory stick to my office PC with the internet link. In fact there would be an advantage as those files have no 'signature' overlaid. I need those clean files when my clients ask for copies and it will save time to have them on this machine - rather than going to the studio to collect them.

As long as I can cross hyperlink from one base folder to the other - and I am sure I can - I see no problem about having another base folder to my existing public_html one. I'd probably call the new one publisher_galleries to remind myself why it is there.

Now to re-look at that installation video - and of course it is much easier to use now it is viewable on the machine on which I am doing the installation.

Bye for the moment.

Tony

Hi Tony, are there any road-blocks in changing your workflow?  It's a reasonable assumption that to create web galleries that your PC actually be on the web.

Would you run an FTP site with a thousand plus folders on a root folder and new entries on another root folder?

Take a look at my main menu on http://www.tonygamble.org/hurllist/

It is not pretty but it works. I'd much prefer to put Monday's web folder at the top of the list rather than start another menu. And I want to start adding 'archive' entries at the bottom as I scan old negs and previously unpublished digital folders. I really don't want an old menu and a new one.

Catalogues are also central to the use of Lightroom.  Without them you're rendering LR to be little more than an image viewer (if even that).  The Publisher settings, album structure and contents of the galleries, are all stored in the catalogue.  This isn't just our approach, but integral to the way that Lightroom functions.

I only use it as an image viewer that has a web folder creating facilty that supports Matthew's plug in. Matthew is the only person I found who created web folders that swiped and autosized on pads and phones. I looked a jAlbum and WordPress but they all wanted me to use their web sites. Matthew lets me use my own.

I convert my RAWs with Qimage as it does it better than LR. I edit any shots in Picture Window Pro as it does it better than Photoshop. I had consigned Lightroom to the archived software until I came across TTG!

Tony