Eleanor's Travels

Photo Galleries for
Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver Extensions

Quotes are from the material about the extension or from the author's site. Permissions have been acquired.

>>JustSo PictureWindow 3

This Dreamweaver behavior opens a popup window which can be either full-screen (no matter the screen resolution) or instead "hug" the borders of an image, with or without a margin of your choice of bgcolor or bgimage. The image itself is displayed full-size or sized downwards if needed to fit on lower resolution monitors. So one always gets to see the full image no matter the monitor resolution, with aspect ratio maintained.

Among other advantages of this Behavior is that you can display a nicely formatted image without needing to store a zillion pages on your server, one for each of your images. The popup window for each image is created on-the-fly with your carefully crafted appearance, including control via Cascading Style Sheets!

JustSo PictureWindow 3 now offers support for Opera7 and Safari1.x, and a host of options:
# Captions
# Control position on screen
# CSS controlled appearance, including Background images
# Filename encryption
# Blocking of MSImagebar
# Timed auto-close
# Click-anywhere-to-Close and/or a Close button
# Show image when javascript off
# Window title and alt tag text
# Block jspw image resizing - allows scrollbars
# Allow multiple windows open
# Opens gif, jpeg, png or Flash movies

Live Examples of jspw3 in action can be seen at: http://www.valleywebdesigns.com/vwd_jspw3/vwd_jspw3_examples.asp
(Also from Valleywebdesigns: http://www.valleywebdesigns.com/vwd_Vdw.asp)

>>JustSo PhotoAlbum 3

Create an online Photo Album without the need to create a separate page for each image, and without ASP or other server-side processing. This command creates thumbnail images for you and displays them on your own page, with each thumbnail having a JustSo PictureWindow 3 (jspw3) behavior attached - to popup the fullsize version of your image. It uses all the power of jspw3 to create popups with many options, including CSS control of their appearance.

Note that JustSo PhotoAlbum 3 requires purchase and installation of JustSo PictureWindow 3 Extension to run (and also needs Macromedia's Fireworks - used to create the thumbnails and may be used to create the fullsize images as well.)

JustSo Popup windows, although they do not allow for navigation from image screen to image screen, do mean that sites with several hundred images need not have a separate page for each, simplifying ongoing maintenance and dramatically shrinking site size on the server.

JustSo Photo Album3 adds the thumbnail images to the current document rather than creating a new page. The benefits:

* This broadens the application of this Object to situations other than just massive photo albums. You can use it to create and add just one or a few thumbnails to any page.
* You have complete control over the appearance of the entire page to which you are adding the jspA3 table - it is YOUR page to which it is applied, not one created using someone else's rules.
* being able to apply this even to template-based pages adds additional control and broadens its application even further.

Live Examples of jspw3 in action can be seen at:
http://www.valleywebdesigns.com/vwd_jspA3/vwd_jspA3_examples.asp
Here's an example from my site: Sheffield, Tasmania

>> Web Photo Album 2.1.8 for Dreamweaver MX "automates the process of putting digital photographs on the Web. It allows you to easily and quickly build template-based web photo albums. If Fireworks MX is installed, you can optimize, rotate, add captions to and create thumbnails of your photos through batch processing." Here's an article on the Macromedia site: "Creating a web photo album with Macromedia Dreamweaver MX and Macromedia Fireworks MX" (http://www.macromedia.com/support/dreamweaver/programs/photoalbum/ )

Create a Web Photo Album with Dreamweaver and Fireworks - from Community MX
Shows how to add your own template to the album and its pages! $2.00 unless you are a member.

>>Building a Photo Album in Dreamweaver Part 1: Using the Web Photo Album Extension; an article from Macromedia (Sept. 2004) :
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/dreamweaver/articles/photo_album1.html
 There will be more to come:

>> Project Seven (PVII) If you aren't acquainted with the various products from this company you should explore their site. Building an Image Gallery with PVII ShowPic. Here you can download Extensions and Work files, install the PVII extensions you'll need and learn how to build a Gallery Page.
Here's an example from my site: Entiat Valley (Washington) in the Winter

>> inTensa Design Gallery by Kaosweaver:

He states: "inTensa Design Gallery is the foremost professional development tool for displaying photographic galleries in Dreamweaver and Ultradev. inTensa, a term from Latin that is the vehicle on which the people paraded their images of the gods on, can do everything seen in the galleries without the need for extra extensions.
What does inTensa do?

inTensa creates a photographic gallery of your images that is easy to use and unlike the vast galleries seen in use today. Easy navigation, light page weight and quick loading make inTensa easy for the browser. Editability, CSS manipulation and positioning of layers within the extension, plus integrated scroller, rollovers and gallery popup options make it easyfor you.
inTensa features:
* Display image sets using a thumbnail, main image and full size image, even add an optional rollover!
* Assign tooltip text to the thumbnails.
* Create captions for each image.
* Full image popup in a new window with a ton of settings, including the Kaosweaver noRightClick script, close onblur, close in a customizable number of seconds, add scrollbars or even turn the popup images off!"
Kaosweaver Site for this gallery builder.
Here's an example from my site: Spider Meadow/Spider Glacier

>> Linked Slide Show by Marja Ribbers (FlevOOware)
"Linked Slide Show can be used to create image slide shows, with the option to add hyperlinks and descriptions to the slides.

Features:
* specify the images to be used in the slide show and their display order;
* the slide show will preload the next/previous slide image while the current slide is visible;
* images can have different sizes;
* specify the pause between slides;
* optionally add a hyperlink to any image within the slideshow;
* optionally add a text description beneath any image within the slideshow;
* possibility to use navigation controls (e.g. text links or images) to move to the next/previous slide;
* possibility to jump to a specific slide;
* possibility to let the slide show auto-play."

Explore her site for more extensions.

>> The XML Flash Slideshow Creator is an extension for Dreamweaver, which allows you to
easily create high-impact Flash-based slideshows.  It doesn't matter whether or not you know
how to use Flash - the wizard does all of the work for you.  The slideshows are highly customizable,
and can fit the look and feel of your site exactly.   To see a full list of features, go to:
http://www.dwuser.com/flashslideshow/features.php , or to see samples go to:
http://www.dwuser.com/flashslideshow/samples.php .

>> Bloom Image Viewer by Eddie Traversa of FourLevel.com
The Bloom Image Viewer Extension allows users to quickly and easily create a stunning DHTML picture gallery. Intended for those that want their pages to stand apart from others, Bloom allows you to select from three different types of DHTML effects. Best of all the code is compact and light, making for quicker loading pages.Also included is a DHTML Scroller widget to help scroll those lovely pictures you have taken. The Bloom image viewer comes complete with documentation, a step by step tutorial and a printable PDF.

>> nCubed Free Image Gallery
The nCubed.com Free Image Gallery allows you to rapidly deploy a dynamic image gallery to any ASP/VBScript page in your site. From a single image gallery to a hundred image galleries (or more!) can be driven by a single page. Here's the link: nCubed and you can find more information at Dreamweaver FAQ .

Flash Album Generator
Ever wanted to have a nifty flash gallery for all your photos? This extension will resize your photos with Fireworks, create thumbnails and put them in an amazing Flash Album. The album is generated from Dreamweaver within a few clicks! All your photo's will be displayed online instantly in a cool Flash Photo Viewer. The album is fully customizable to your site design. You need Fireworks to use this extension. By George Petrov
Info from the DMX Zone

>> Be sure to take a look at Picasa a FREE program from Google with many, many possibiblities, including some rather nice, but simple layouts for slide shows. the program is capable of basic image editing as well as being a powerful organizing tool. See this page for more information. You'll be surprised at how good this is!

Another useful image tool:

>> Thumbnail Builder by Joseph Lowery "creates a thumbnail from a selected image, replaces the original image with the thumbnail and then creates a link to the larger image. Thumbnail size may be specified by the width, height or percentage. A variety of border attributes (HTML, bevel and drop shadow) are available).
The original image can appear in the current browser window or, if you have E. Michael Brandt's Just So Picture Window installed, in it's own window. The only place I know of to find this extension is in the Download section of information about Joseph Lowery's book. It's in Chapter 7 and well worth the trouble of acquiring it!

Here's the link to Macromedia's Dreamweaver Exchange Be sure to explore it!

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Slide Shows not necessarily made for Dreamweaver

>> I highly recommend JAlbum to be found at www.datadosen.se/jalbum. At the site you will find good screen shots, 14 sample styles, a tutorial (!) and Owner's Manual. Beyond that, there are even scripting examples (don't let that scare you off), an FAQ, forum and directions for customizing the look and behaviour with new "skins". I very successfully used this program's 'Old Album' for a CD of old family photos for Christmas gifts last year. Here's an example from my site: Smith Rock State Park in Oregon   And another: Abel Tasman N.P., New Zealand
Update to version 5.0.2

>> Arles Image Web Page Creator: "Use Arles Image Web Page Creator to quickly and easily create image collections on the web. Arles creates high quality thumbnails, modifies images and automatically creates HTML pages. You can either use the default settings or fine-tune images and HTML options to your needs. Users have total control over the design of the generated web pages by using templates. You can fine tune images and HTML pages using one the many available options or use templates for full control over the pages. Arles supports 20+ image file formats and includes the Arles Image Explorer for easy image management. All image data is automatically stored in a database allowing you to sort, select and provide titles for all images on your computer." I have only tried this program once but realize that it does have good possibilities once you learn what can happen in each of the numerous dialog boxes. There is plenty of good help, screenshots, tutorials, an FAQ and forum as well as plenty of examples. It isn't as automatic as JAlbum but it does have more options.
Arles Image Web Page Creator 5.8.5

>> Adobe Photoshop Elements v.2/3 works well also. There are 15 styles from which to choose and Options for the Banner, Large Images, Thumbnails, Custom Colors and Security (an advanced feature). Very complete instructions can be found here. An example for a client. He made the initial gallery and I made 8 changes to each page to configure it the way we wanted it to look. Icicle Valley Photography  It was quite a chore! There are really too many photos involved here. The thumbnails ended up at 2 kb each (2kb x 46), so they don't look very good. Any larger thumbnail and/or file size and the page would never open.

>> Adobe Photoshop v.7 or CS . It's hard to find the slide show capability until you look at File> Automate> Web Photo Gallery. There are only 11 styles, the directions are fairly straight forward but it can become quite advanced if you get into the options for Security. The Options are the same as Photoshop Elements.

>> Ulead's Photo Explorer builds a nice HTML slideshow. This is a marvelous program that you should not be without!!! Open a folder of photos and go to Internet> Output Web Slideshow and you will have General Options and instructions for a Thumbnail page, your Images, adding Text and finally a choice of Style/Color. $29.95 is the price and it is well worth every penny. I use it every day. Click Here
Here's an example from my site: Tasmania Coastlines

>> Ulead's PhotoImpact v.8 has a slideshow possibility but the directions don't seem very helpful. I did find this wonderful, very complete tutorial at East of the Sun (Absolutely Everything PhotoImpact).

>> ThumbsPlus by Cerious Software allows you to built a very simple page of thumbnails in a table. Click on the thumbnail and open the large image (not on a page ... just the .jpg file in the top left).
Here's an example from my site: Bruny Island, Tasmania.

Here's an example of a slide show made using frames: (Norfolk Island (Australia) This was really too tedious. I would do it differently ... but I was trying to learn how to make frame sets work properly.

>> Neither Fireworks MX (but which IS needed for several of the Dreamweaver items above) nor Paint Shop Pro offer anything for making slide shows. Jasc's Photo Album program does offer slide show possibilities. I recently went to a Digital Days workshop put on by SONY and Jasc and was pleasently surprised at the capabilities of this 'album' program ... a challenge to Ulead's Photo Explorer (see above) which I have been sold on for years!

That said, I just read (December 11, 2003) an article by Kim Cavanaugh on the Community MX site entitled "Quick and Easy Photo Galleries in Fireworks and Flash"

Important for professional photographers is whether or not you can build your own templates or drop a table full of thumbnails onto your own page design. Often the premade templates are very amateurish. Some programs do allow for changing the CSS files! I won't go into all the details here - you can poke around and find out which program or extension will fit your needs.

Scripts for Photo Galleries and Images gathered by Charles Peifer of Yellowecho.com
He says: "Over the past several years I have used various scripts to showcase my photography. Some of the scripts below are very easy to install while others require a database and are a bit more advanced. Below are links to my site and then below each link is a link to that script or program used on that page. I feel a picture says a 1000 words and so does an example of a script. There is some basic information written under the links but it best to read the script information on the developer's website if my installation and experience interests you."

Now the fun begins!

>> At Dynamic Drive go to their DHTML Image Slide Shows section and you'll find 14 possibilities! You will find good descriptions, examples of each and the code you will need to import into the HTML of your page. You will need to change the image names in the code to your actual image names. Even though the directions are good, remember to copy and paste the code into Notepad before copying and pasting it into your page's code. Read the directions and have patience with yourself. Here's an interesting site that I just found while preparing to write this tutorial: Dynamic Web Coding This isn't for beginners, but there's lots of good material there, even about tooltips etc. Another good article I found is from this very interesting site with lots of helpful information:  Lucid Images Wildlife Photography - Copyright - Image Protection (and so much more).

Pauline Kenny of Tabby Web Design has written a very thorough article about photo galleries and particularly recommends AutoSiteGallery from Brizoft.com  She has a nice travel photo gallery example: One Week in Engelberg. I looked at what they offer for customizing page layouts and I wasn't too pleased ... but Pauline Kenny has done a good job!. There are several other interesting and useful articles on her site.

Now do just as I did: a Google Search may find more good ones! Be sure to let me know!

Photo Gallery Considerations - things to consider if you're going to use photo galleries on your site - size of thumbnails, size of larger images, backgrounds etc.

Contact me if you need to.

Visit my site which is Eleanor's Travels ... more of my photographic journeys.

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