Back from vacation
August 7th 2005
Just got back from a wonderful camping trip in Yosemite tonight. I’ve had a lot of time to think, and some of that thinking was about zenphoto, photography, and how they fit together for me. I’ve read all the comments on the last post and I’ll address a couple points before I go to sleep…
1. Themes – I actually got internet access halfway through (I had to—waiting for an important e-mail) so I got Jonas’ comment about per-album themes, and decided to implement it all on paper. So I did. I think it’ll work, but I haven’t actually tested it on a computer yet. My brain does pretty well, but it might take some translation time.
In short, themes will be in 1.0, and because it’s easy, so will per-album theme overrides. I think it’s a nice feature, and it’s purpose is obvious enough in context that it doesn’t detract from anything.
2. I’m going to sleep. I think I was going to have a second item, but I forgot it. Camping got me on a sleep schedule something like: “sleep when dark, awake when light.”
More later, including pictures from the high Sierra. 
Welcome back.
Hey! Welcome back!
I’m just trying to find out if there is any downloadable version of Zen Photo for testing?
Thanks! Soon. Probably this week or the next.
Welcome back. I was gonna say “hope you had a nice vacation”, but you said that in the post.
Looking forward to seeing your theme implementation.
Ah
pretty funny the item #2. I went camping and backpacking to Yosemite recently, I still love that place after all the times I’ve been there so I understand that you’re quite happy.
Also, I can do the French localization if there’s a need for that. Let me know… I’m kind of excited to be able to download and try Zenphoto!
Anyway, just wanted to say that I was quite amazed at the project you started (Zenphoto). I’ve been looking around for a week or two for this kind of web album solutions, tried several of them, and ended up removing all of them from my server… I’ve read what you wanted to do and it looks pretty sound. Congrats! ...even though it might not be done yet. I think theme is essential because people will develop all sorts of themes and you’ll probably be surprised at what will come out
Jerome – Yes, Yosemite is my second home.
I am delighted to hear that you like where the project is going. I tried exactly what you did—installing and uninstalling several album programs—and after settling on Photostack but wanting more, decided to start something new and better. I hope it ends up being helpful to you and everyone else.
Like I said, I’ll have something soon.
Hey Tristan, how hard would it be to get navigation and tricks like this incorporated?
http://gallery.beseku.com/1/
Rather than just themes you could also provide a section that you add other things in there like navigation, loading stuff etc.
Khaled – That’s all possible within themes, I promise. You could make a theme that uses AJAX to get the next image instead of reloading the page… very possible.
Plugins are a thought, but for other things like comment text handling (textile, etc), stats, ratings, and maybe (if you’re lucky) image processing. Navigation and design tricks are best done in the theme.
Ok, I just thought of a possible feature. I’m sure it could be accomplished with an extension, and I’m not sure it’s use would be widespread enough to merit inclusion in the base application. Nonetheless, I’ll throw it out there…
Many of use our websites to display photos to family and friends. Many of our friends want copies for themselves. With most photo albums, your friends have to go through and save every photo in an album. What if they could just download a zip file of the entire album?
If a file named “album.zip” existed in the album directory, then a download link would be made available. It’s up to the content publisher to ensure that the zip file contains all of the images.
Again, easily done in an extension, I’m sure, but I wanted to throw it out there while it was fresh in my mind.
Derek – Thanks! That was actually on the list already, or if not then at least on the one in my head.
Plogger has this feature standard, so I’ll take a look at how it’s done there.
Tristan et al – I’ve released the code used to make my gallery, so if you want to take any/all of it to add as a theme to your software, feel free.
Fantastic news. I love it when a plan comes together. getting some ajax to preload stuff in would be completely awesome, that would be a fantastic feature item, and having two themes from the outgo again would be another major plus for the program.
Sounds like something someone else can do when they have more time… I’m gonna leave it at that and focus on getting the core done.
Thank you Ben for your generosity though; it’s very much appreciated and I hope someone eventually does make a theme based on your work.
That’s it, when you release it I’ll try (with a little help for sure)to get that theme in there, it’ll be a different kind of gallery, but one that will expand the use of zen photo, I think :).
That’s the beauty of zenphoto
It can be a completely different front-end to the same system.
And sure, I’ll help. I’d love to see some great interactive themes like that.