Generate Photo Gallery XML for Spry with Adobe Bridge

Question

Wanted to post a note to what I've discovered/worked out -- a
way to
generate a very useful photos.xml from Adobe Bridge. If you
use Bridge,
it's very easy to add titles, keywords, ratings -- all kinds
of metadata
that one might use in a photo gallery. Here it is in case
anyone wants
to use.
The script is based on one I found at the Adobe User to User
Bridge
Scripting Forum for exporting a CSV file.
Note 1: this particular script doesn't take into account
CDATA that
might exist in your metadata, like ampersands in your title.
I've just
avoided using those, but you could also have the script write
out a
CDATA node for that info instead.
Note 2: this script does not write out a thumbpath,
thumbwidth or
thumbheight attribute. But usually the thumbpath is the exact
same as
the regular "path" attribute, and the thumbwidth and
thumbheight are
just a ratio of the regular "width" and "height" attributes.
I added a
bit of JS to the gallery.js file to calculate those before
growing the
thumbnail on rollover.
Personally I'm using keywords as categories and titles as
captions and
sorting by rating (stars in Bridge), so here's the .jsx file
I created.
The script should be saved to the folder "StartupScripts" in
Program
Files/Common Files/Adobe.
Hope this is useful for others too!
#target bridge
if (BridgeTalk.appName == "bridge" ) {
// create menu
var menu = MenuElement.create( "command", "Export XML File",
"at the end
of Tools");
menu.onSelect = function(m) {
try {
// ask for the name of the output file
var f = File.saveDialog("Export XML file to:", "XML
File:*.XML");
if ( !f ) { return; }
// open filestream and write first line
f.open("w");
f.writeln("\<photos\>\r\r");
// get a list of all the visible thumbnails in Bridge
var items = app.document.visibleThumbnails;
for (var i = 0; i < items.length; ++i) { var item = items
f.writeln("\<photo path = \"" + item.name + "\"" + "\r" +
"width = " +
"\""+ getWidth(item) + "\"" + "\r" + "height = " + "\""+
getHeight(item)
+ "\"" + "\r" + "rating = " + "\""+ getRating(item) + "\"" +
"\r" +
"categories = " + "\""+ listKeywords(item) + "\"" + "\r" +
"caption = "
+ "\""+ getTitle(item) + "\"" + " \>" + "\r" +
"\<\/photo\>\r\r" ); }
f.writeln("\<\/photos\>");
f.close();
} catch(e) {
function getTitle(tn) {
md = tn.metadata;
md.namespace = "
http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";
var varTitle = md.title;
return varTitle;
function getWidth(tn) {
md = tn.metadata;
md.namespace = "
http://ns.adobe.com/tiff/1.0/"
var varWidth = md.ImageWidth;
return varWidth;
function getHeight(tn) {
md = tn.metadata;
md.namespace = "
http://ns.adobe.com/tiff/1.0/"
var varHeight = md.ImageLength;
return varHeight;
function getRating(tn) {
md = tn.metadata;
md.namespace = "
http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/"
var varRating = md.Rating;
return varRating;
function listKeywords(tn) {
md = tn.metadata;
md.namespace = "
http://ns.adobe.com/photoshop/1.0/";
var Keywords = md.Keywords;
var varKeywords = "" ;
for ( var i = 0; i < Keywords.length; ++i ) { varKeywords
= varKeywords
+ Keywords + ","; }
return varKeywords;

Answer 1

I updated the script so it exports an XML file from Bridge
with full
compatibility with the Spry Demo Photo Gallery, to use as
photos.xml.
It's at the same address:
http://www.imagicdigital.com/spry/bridge_export_xml.zip
To Use:
The script goes in the folder "StartupScripts" in Program
Files/Common
Files/Adobe.
Launch Bridge and browse to a folder that contains the files
you want in
your gallery -- the "source" folder, as it were.
Choose the menu command "Tools > Export XML for Spry
Gallery".
Type a name for your XML file in the Save dialog box, choose
a location,
and hit "Save".
In the dialog box that pops up, enter a max length/width for
your
thumbnails, in pixels. Some common sizes are "75" , "100" or
"125".
Hit "OK". You should see an alert pop up telling you "XML
file
successfully created!"