infrastructure

[egypturnash]

Playing with Gallery. I've been doing this on and off for the past few weeks.

I think I've finally extracted just about all of the horrible table-ology that's built deep into their code. Some was easier than others. A few more things need to be done, and then I'll really have no excuse for putting off website revamp to better reflect who I and my art are now. Including, probably, setting it up at a more memorable URL.

I'd looked around at other image gallery scripts but none of them offered the code features I want (display of images in arbitrary order, image descriptions, image titles divorced from the filename, support for motion formats, interactive thumbnail cropping, comments) and did nice, templated, non-table-infested output... so I've picked up just enough PHP to modify it.

Other crap I'm putting off by doing this:

• resuming discussion on having prints sold online
• telling the landlord we're moving out
• roughs for doctorpinkerton
• thinking abour packing
• get some tape for closing up boxes
• rendering out some images for my mom to print at home

Comments

[protocat.livejournal.com]

You will be my hero of the week if you manage to make Gallery look like something other than ass. I've not set myself up to the task, but I'm glad someone else has.

[milkpanzer.livejournal.com]

I'm interested in seeing what you've done with Gallery. I rather like Gallery...number one because it's free. ;D Also because it's really easy to toss pictures into a Gallery directory. I am soooo lazy.

When I was installing it I was having troubles with the second instance of gallery and resorted to using the support forums. Everyone there was surprisingly helpful. I wasn't expecting much assistance with a free application. So they won some loyalty points from me by being friendly and helpful to a clueless n00b like myself. ^-^

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*g* I'm doing horrible things to the code... I'm about at the stage where layout's just a matter of writing some CSS, and there are almost no uses of tables for layout! (I am so done with table layout.)

Everything that's, logically, a list, now is... list of next/previous links, list of images... ugly right now but it'll be easy to mark up, and change should I decide on that.

(Admittedly, I don't know what'll happen if I try to use features like auto-displaying EXIF data in photos... but if I was displaying photos I'd probably hide that data anyway. Things I don't need are kinda getting pulled out of the code when I happen to come near them for something else.)

[tarmle.livejournal.com]

By the time you're done with this you'll have enough experience with PHP to throw out the gutted Gallery and write your own from scratch.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Nah, I don't want to have to work up my own Java image thumbnailer or learn to talk to the image-abusing toolkits or anything... changing view_album.php to generate a nice unordered list instead of the worst tables in the world (seriously: it'd loop through generating a row for the tops of the frames around the images, then a row of the left/right borders and the actual thumbnails, then a row for the frame bottoms, then a row for the title, a row for the image size, and so on, instead of just having a little sub-table for each image with border/thumb/all info) was the majority of the PHP hacking, especially when I realized that a lot of the table-nastiness in the general framing was in files in the 'layout' sub-directory... I'm mostly getting by on basic knowlege of How to Read And Write Source Code that applies to any language higher-level than assembly.

Besides, a while back I realized that Rule #1 of Successful Hacking is "resist the temptation to reinvent the wheel."

More detail than you'd ever want, I'm sure. Pardon my venting.

[mzmartipants.livejournal.com]

:) Funny you should mention gallery. I'm kinda ticked off at it because of how lame its security is. I have have some of my more ....*cough*"adult"*cough* pics only available to logged in users. Thing is, the album folder itself (when the direct url is keyed in) is accessible. I used .htpasswd to protect it, but in gallery it asks for name and password for every pic. It's driving me batty :)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Huh, I have a login-required image folder, and it's quite simply inaccessible if you try to type the direct URL. I'm using mod.rewrite, and the URL the stuff shows up at is close to, but not quite, the URL at which the files actually live...

I didn't even think to check if the URL worked when not logged in. My collection of finished naughty images is one piece, so far, and I'm not planning on putting photos of myself in along with it or anything.

[mzmartipants.livejournal.com]

well, I have a nosey ex that just looks for a chance to "expose me."

are you using the alpha release?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

No, I'm using the current stable release, 1.4.4. I'm geeky enough to dig into some of the code and re-write the parts concerning layout to my standards. Since there's no docs yet on making layout templates for G2, it's no less a pain in the ass to do it with either version.

[mzmartipants.livejournal.com]

I'm not THAT geeky ;) I'll probably just do my adult page in straight html...its just such a pain in the ass.

Thats what I get for using my LJ for cheap therapy :) (I have body image issues and it helps me deal to get naked.) Odd huh?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Well, I think you'll still have the problems of people being able to swap around URLs. *shrug* I can go directly to an image URL in my current setup, but I can't see the page around it, or the album. It's all in the normal code, too, not a result of anything I changed - all I changed is the HTML it makes.

I understand body image issues all too well. I'm not sure if I should be glad my lack of a digital camera of any kind makes it impossible to post NAKED DICKGIRL PHOTOS.

[mzmartipants.livejournal.com]

Well, I have learned how to secure the pages via htaccess. You think someone could hack that easily?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Dunno, I've never really fooled with that. I think you've got to be able to ftp or shell access to find out what's stored in .htaccess...

hey, check out these naked photos of my ex. login/password is special/secret.

That's what you have to worry about. I've seen naked photos I shouldn't have quite seen due to that.

[mzmartipants.livejournal.com]

I wish it were that easy.... its more of her using them against me in court. I do live in indiana, after all. :)

With each passing shoot i get less and less uncomfortable......

anyhow...thanks :)

[mzmartipants.livejournal.com]

LOL...on the ND photos. I just find that since being on mones ( tomorrow is my 3 year anniversary on em.), I am feeling more and more comfy with who I am and where I'm going, ya know?