Stacks and Web pages

Question

Hi, I have a project with a lot of stacks. I want to export a selection of it to a Web page. I set up a smart album to populate the Web page. That works fine... in Aperture's Browser. In the actual Web pages (and the viewer), only one image per stack is used. I tried to select the images by rating or by color, same result. Stack picks only is unchecked.
Even if I don't use a smart selection, but add the images directly to the Web page, only one per stack is used. Stacks are all open.
This feels like a bug to me, but does anyone know of a workaround?
thanks!

Answer 1

Hi Grant. Stacks are, by design, collections within a Project which have one specified image as the "Pick" for each collection of images (Project or Albums) that includes the Stack. (Think of literally arranging photographs in a grid for review, and sliding pictures that are so similar that only one is of interest into a stack with the "pick" photo on top, the similar ones underneath, and the stack occupying one spot in the grid.) This general idea of "one important image per Stack per location" is how Stacks are implemented in Aperture -- as you've discovered.
This is from the Help file:
http://documentation.apple.com/en/aperture/usermanual/index.html#chapter=8%26sec tion=3%26tasks=true
When you drag a stack into a webpage album, web journal album, book album, or slideshow album, the entire stack appears in the Browser, but *only the stack picks can be used for publication in webpages, web journals, books, and slideshows*. {Emphasis mine.}
One is temped to use Stacks as a general subordinate organizing level within a Project (or Album). In my experience, this never works out. Stacks are a specific organizing tool for sets of images which have one "Pick". Whenever I have two or more photos I want to work with within a Stack, I split the Stack so that each important photo becomes either a Stack Pick or stands alone. This violates my organizing method, but works well in practice.
(I see the same (mis)behavior when dragging an image from one Stack to another even when the Stacks are expanded (Aperture merges the two Stacks). This happens whether the Stacks were created by splitting a Stack, or by independently creating separate Stacks. I suspect this is a bit of unknotted fringe on the edge of the code, otherwise known as a bug.)
I use Stacks regularly and find them invaluable. Just remember that each Stack can have only one "image to use" per container, and that that image must be designated the Stack Pick for that container. Since you cannot have more than one usable (roughly speaking) image per Stack per container, you must extract from the Stack images you want to use until all of these images are either Stack Picks or stand alone.
HTH.