webAlbum 2.4 - USAGE Copyright (C) 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 Armando L. Caro, Jr. www.armandocaro.net ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Preliminaries: - webAlbum expects a hierarchical tree structure of "albums" and "collections" of albums. - The "albums" are located at the leaves of the tree, and contain the actual images and/or videos. - The "collections" are located at the interior nodes of the tree, and are used to organize the albums into logical groups of "albums" and nested "collections". - An example tree structure could be: Vacations (collection) / \ / \ Arizona New York City (collection) (album) / \ / \ Sedona Grand Canyon (album) (album) - webAlbum expects to be executed on a "collection" directory only AFTER it is executed on at least one of its children (either a "collection" or "album" directory). In other words, once the directories are in place, webAlbum should initially be executed on the tree structure bottom-up; then more "albums" and "collections" can be added later. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Usage: 1. Enter an album or collection directory. 2. Execute webAlbum and select an option: (1) Generate an album of images and/or videos (The first time webAlbum is excecuted, it expects to find the images and/or videos in the album directory.) (2) Generate a collection of albums and/or collections (3) Prepare album/collection for burning a Windows autorun CD 3. Follow the prompts (explained below). Note: webAlbum stores meta-data in a hidden directory (.webAlbum) in each album and collection directory. Do not delete the .webAlbum directories unless you want to redo everything from scratch! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) Generate an album: 1. "Enter the title:" - Provide a title for the album, which will be displayed at the top of all the album's pages and will be used to list the album in the parent collection (if one exists). - If a title already exists (i.e., webAlbum has been executed before), webAlbum will ask if you want to edit the title. 2. "Set the date? (y/n) [n]" - Decide if a date should be set for the album, which will be displayed at the top of all the album's pages and will be used to list the album in the parent collection (if one exists). - If you choose "y", webAlbum will prompt you for the date. You may enter the date in whatever format you please. - If a date is already set (i.e., webAlbum has been executed before), webAlbum will ask if you want to remove, edit, or keep the date. 3. "Add a comment? (y/n) [n]" - Decide if a comment should be set for the album, which will be used to describe the album when listed in the parent collection (if one exists). - If you choose "y", webAlbum will bring up a text editor for you to enter the comment. - If a comment is already set (i.e., webAlbum has been executed before), webAlbum will ask if you want to remove, edit, or keep the date. 4. "(I)nherit ancestors from parent or (b)uild from root? (i/b) [i]" - Choose method in which the ancestor tree for the album will be created. - If you choose "i", webAlbum will use the parent collection's ancestor tree to derive the album's. The album will be set as the root of the ancestor tree if there is no parent collection or the parent collection doesn't have its ancestor tree setup yet. If this is not desired, the album's ancestor tree can be fixed when webAlbum is executed on the parent collection. - If you choose "b", webAlbum will prompt you for the path to the root directory. (Note: Using ~ to specify the home directory in a path does not work.) Then webAlbum will traverse the ancestor tree from the root to the current album, prompting you to enter/edit the title, date, and comment of each ancestor. webAlbum sets the ancestor information for each node that is traversed in this process. - If the ancestor tree is already set (i.e., webAlbum has been executed before), webAlbum will ask if you want to re-create it. 5. "Set the orientations? (y/n) [n]" - Decide if the image orientations should be set. - If you choose "y", webAlbum will go through all the images sequentially and provide a menu of choices per image. - If webAlbum has already been executed on this album before, webAlbum will ask if you want to "skip already oriented images". If you choose "y", webAlbum will skip over any images whose orientation has already been set. 6. "Skip existing thumbnails, medium-sizes, and info? (y/n) [y]" - Since thumbnails, medium-sizes, and info of the images and videos are required, webAlbum goes directly into generating them without asking you. - This prompt is a little misleading, because it implies that webAlbum has already been executed before. However, this prompt appears even on the first execution of webAlbum. - If you choose "y", webAlbum will not re-create anything that has been previously created. 7. "Write captions? (y/n) [n]" - Decide if you want to write captions for any of the images or videos. - If you choose "y", webAlbum will go through all the images sequentially and provide a menu of choices per image. - If webAlbum has already been executed on this album before, webAlbum will ask if you want to "skip images with captions". If you choose "y", webAlbum will skip over any images that already have captions. 8. "Re-create this album's icon? (y/n) [n]" - This prompt doesn't show up on the first execution of webAlbum. On the first execution, the album's icon is created without user interaction. - The album's icon is the representative image used in the parent collection's listing (if one exists). The parent collection's list has an icon next to each album/sub-collection's date, title, and comment. - Since the album's icon is create using the first image and first video, you may want to re-create the album's icon if the first image and/or video is changed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) Generate a collection: 1. "Enter the title:" - Provide a title for the collection, which will be displayed at the top of the collection's list page and will be used to list the collection in the parent collection (if one exists). - If a title already exists (i.e., webAlbum has been executed before), webAlbum will ask if you want to edit the title. 2. "Set the date? (y/n) [n]" - Decide if a date should be set for the collection, which will be displayed at the top of the collection's list pages and will be used to list the collection in the parent collection (if one exists). - If you choose "y", webAlbum will prompt you for the date. You may enter the date in whatever format you please. - If a date is already set (i.e., webAlbum has been executed before), webAlbum will ask if you want to remove, edit, or keep the date. 3. "Add a comment? (y/n) [n]" - Decide if a comment should be set for the collection, which will be used to describe the collection when listed in the parent collection (if one exists). - If you choose "y", webAlbum will bring up a text editor for you to enter the comment. - If a comment is already set (i.e., webAlbum has been executed before), webAlbum will ask if you want to remove, edit, or keep the date. 4. "(I)nherit ancestors from parent or (b)uild from root? (i/b) [i]" - Choose method in which the ancestor tree for the collection will be created. - If you choose "i", webAlbum will use the parent collection's ancestor tree to derive the current collection's. The current collection will be set as the root of the ancestor tree if there is no parent collection or the parent collection doesn't have its ancestor tree setup yet. If this is not desired, the current collection's ancestor tree can be fixed when webAlbum is executed on the parent collection. - If you choose "b", webAlbum will prompt you for the path to the root directory. (Note: Using ~ to specify the home directory in a path does not work.) Then webAlbum will traverse the ancestor tree from the root to the current collection, prompting you to enter/edit the title, date, and comment of each ancestor. - If the ancestor tree is already set (i.e., webAlbum has been executed before), webAlbum will ask if you want to re-create it. 5. "Propagate new/changed ancestor info down to children? (y/n) [n]" - This prompt only appears if the current collection's ancestor tree has been modified. - If you choose "y", webAlbum will propagate the changes down to all the collection's children, but webAlbum will only recognize children that have been properly configured (i.e., they have been run through webAlbum themselves). 6. "Re-create this collection's icon? (y/n) [n]" - This prompt doesn't show up on the first execution of webAlbum. On the first execution, the collection's icon is created without user interaction. - The collection's icon is the representative image used in the parent collection's listing (if one exists). The parent collection's list has an icon next to each album/sub-collection's date, title, and comment. - Since the collection's icon is create using the first image and first video of the first album/sub-collection, you may want to re-create the icon if any of these change. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- (3) Prepare for burning a Windows autorun CD: - no prompts