Gallery modifications (hints wanted)

Question

Hi,
I'm a newcomer in the area of web development but I've spent
a few years in VB development so I thought I'd give the Gallery a
try.
I've setup up my own gallery based on the demo example and it
works just fine. The web is not public yet, but it looks more or
less just like the samle with china/egypt/paris.
I'd like to make a few changes to it and I hope someone could
give me a few hints.
How do I:
1. generate the
xml automatically? I have thousands of photos that I'd like
to add to the gallery and so far I've created the xml files
manually in notepad. This question goes both for the galleries.xml
and most important the photos.xml.
2. Make the
thumbnails grow even more when I hover them?
3. Modify the
size and appearance of the PREV/PLAY/NEXT buttons?
4. Keep the html/js/css code separated from my photos? I
already have all my
photos stored on another drive. Is it possible to load the
pictures from where they are today= I've tried, but failed a few
times - it seems like it can't reach the files on E:\Pictures\...
when the html codes lies on D:\Web\Inetpub\Photos\.
Sorry if the level of the questions is a bit low but I hope
to get up to speed once I've spent some time in code land!

Answer 1

Hi Mik,
To generate the XML automatically, use server side scripting.
What I do in ColdFusion is use CFDirectory to read all the images
in the photos directory. This makes a query that I can them use to
dynamically generate the XML.
I can use this query to either use the CF page as the source
for the data set or the CF can generate the static XML page. I
prefer the former as it lets me add new photos to the directory
without having to regenerate the XML. But, if you want more meta
data in the XML, generating a static file might be better.
<cfset
path="#GetDirectoryFromPath(GetCurrentTemplatePath())##url.id#\images">
<cfdirectory directory="#path#" action="list"
name="photos" recurse="yes">
<!--- Create an XML document object containing the data
--->
<cfxml variable="mydoc">
<gallery>
<photos path="<cfoutput>#url.id#</cfoutput>"
title="<cfoutput>#url.id#</cfoutput>" >
<cfoutput query="photos">
<photo caption="#name#" src="#name#" />
</cfoutput>
</photos>
</gallery>
</cfxml>
<!--- Displays the XML output. Use this option to use this
cfm page as the source.--->
<cfprocessingdirective suppresswhitespace="yes">
<cfcontent type="text/xml" reset="yes">
<cfoutput>#mydoc#</cfoutput>
</cfcontent>
</cfprocessingdirective>
<!--- Write the XML file to this directory. Use this
option to create a XML file. --->
<!---<cffile action="write"
file="#GetDirectoryFromPath(GetTemplatePath())#artists.xml"
output=#toString(mydoc)#>--->
Similar things can be done with PHP or ASP.
For the thumbnail size, check the gallery code. The initial
size is set in the IMG tag. The growth size is set in the
onMouseOver behavior. 'thumbwidth' and 'thumbheight' are stored in
the XML file and dropped in by Spry. They can be hardcoded or
stored in the XML.
The image style is done with CSS. Check the CSS for the
#transport a:link rules. If you have Dreamweaver, click on a button
and check the CSS Panel.
One of the goals of Spry is that the markup is clear and
styling is done with CSS.
To have your photos stored on another drive, you are going to
have to configure the webserver to see the other drive as part of
the webroot. Depending on how the virtual web folder is set up, you
will have to use an absolute path to the other drive. Just depends
on the config.
Hope this helps.
Donald Booth
Adobe Spry Team