Title: SPACK
Author: David J. Stein, Esq.
Version: 1.5 - last updated Monday, May 07, 2007
Abstract: This application is a simple tool for creating HTML files that comprise a photo album. The utility allows the arrangement of photos in a desired order on a set of album pages, and accepts captions for each page and image. The utility then writes a series of HTML pages to display the images, and can resample the images to a different size if desired.
Installation Instructions: Simply run the enclosed installer. You may then run SPACK or consult SPACK Help from the Start menu. If you wish to change the operation of SPACK, you may edit the program options from within the application.
Operating Instructions: SPACK is intended to be as easy to use as possible. Its programming is based on three steps:
Allow the user to design a photo album, and to specify a destination folder for the files to be written (including one or more HTML files, each corresponding to one page of the album, and one or more images.)
Resample all of the images and save them in the destination folder.
Load an HTML template file, use it to create the HTML pages of the photo album, and save the HTML files to the destination folder.
From your perspective as a user, the process is similarly simple:
Design the HTML template on which your photo albums will be based.
Use SPACK to design a photo album. Give the album a name and description; add files for photo images, put them in the desired order, and give them captions; and organize the album as one or more pages, each with its own name and caption. Also, specify a destination folder where all of the HTML and resampled images should go.
Press the "Create Album" button, and watch SPACK create your album.
(If your computer can write to your web space as part of the Windows file system, you can select a folder on that volume as the destination folder - once the files are written, you're done! But if your computer can't write to the web space this way, then you'll have to save all of the files to a temporary local folder, and then move them to your web space via FTP or another transmission mechanism.)
The XML tags on which SPACK operates are the following:
<SPACK_Album_Title />
This tag is replaced with the title of the album. (Note that in this template, this tag is used twice - once for the title of the HTML page, and once for the text heading of the page. This is not required.)
<SPACK_Album_Description />
This tag is replaced with the text description of the album.
<SPACK_Page_Description />
This tag is replaced with the text description for each page of the album.
<SPACK_Images /><P />
This tag specifies that the images and captions go here. The HTML used for the image set looks like this, if it has no caption:
<IMG SRC="image.jpg" /><P />
or this, if it does have a caption:
<IMG SRC="image.jpg" /><P />caption<P />
<SPACK_Previous_Index />
This tag specifies a hyperlink to the previous page of the album. The HTML used for the previous page is:
<A HREF="index.html" />Back</A>
<SPACK_Next_Index />
This tag specifies a hyperlink to the next page of the album. The HTML used for the next page is:
<A HREF="index.html" />Next</A>
These latter tags depend on a predictable naming scheme for the album. SPACK simply calls the first page of the album "index.html", the second page "index2.html", etc.
SPACK allows some configuration (the location of the HTML template, and the size resampling ratio.) These options are available from the Program Options dialog.
For more detailed information, consult the "SPACK Help" file included in this setup package.
Comments: This application is a simple utility that was written in just a few hours. On reflection, it seems that using XSLT files would have been easier (and perhaps more dynamic), but this requires that the original HTML is true XHTML, which is not always the case.
Application History:
- Version 1.0 (11/13/2006): Initial release.
- Version 1.1 (12/1/2006): Added album save and load capabilities.
- Version 1.2 (12/20/2006): Added multithreading for report writer and some bugfixes.
- Version 1.3 (1/2/2007): Drag-and-drop functionality added to main photo list. Full-size image view added (just double-click the preview thumbnail.) Several minor bugs fixed.
- Version 1.4 (2/5/2007): Photo sorting options added. "Base folder" option added. Resampling options updated. Many bugfixes.
- Version 1.5 (5/7/2007): Small bugfixes.
Questions/Comments: Please contact David J. Stein, Esq. via email at djs10@po.cwru.edu.
Terms and Conditions of Use:
Please see the enclosed "License.html" file for terms and conditions of use of this software package.