TTG SimpleViewer Gallery

[theturninggate]

TTG SimpleViewer Gallery has been updated to version 1.8.

• Updated to SimpleViewer 1.8.5, including support for the new navPadding, vAlign and hAlign options.
• Thumbnails are now saved to the folder thumbnails, to make the gallery more TTG XML Auto Index friendly.
• I’ve dropped the HTML version of this gallery; I have other plans.

TTG SimpleViewer Gallery offers the following advantages over Adobe's SimpleViewer gallery included with Lightroom:

• Watermarks
• Gallery background image
• Up-to-date with the latest version of SimpleViewer, 1.8.5.

 

[mrbolano]

background images

How do you set them?

I assume with the 'backgroundimagepath' field but a little more information on how to choose that 'path' and what a 'path' is would be appreciated.

cheers.

 

[mrbolano]

okay, so I worked out where the path should draw from by putting in the image location stream from Finder, next problem, how do you keep the image one size because it has automatically fitting the image to my 23"screen and I specifically chose a 128'x8'' image for the background.

 

[theturninggate]

You'd have to specify a set width/height for the gallery. If the gallery dimensions are set to 1''%, then the gallery will stretch to fit the screen and will stretch its background too.

 

[MichaelAC]

Hello.

Output sharpening is not supported in SimpleViewer - however the newest version of ShadowBoxViewer does support sharpening.

Any plans to include sharpening also in SimpleViewer?

Or - the other question: is sharpening really meaningful, with all the automatic resizing?

Regards, Michael

 

[MichaelAC]

Any plans to add output sharpening to the SimpleViewer - like done recently to ShadowBox Gallery?

 

[theturninggate]

Nevermind ... see below.

 

[theturninggate]

Drum-roll, please ... !!!

Badda-badda-badda-badda-bah!!

Ladies and gentlemen, The Turning Gate proudly presents TTG Simpleviewer 2.'!!!

TTG Simpleviewer has been completely recoded, slimmed down and beefed up! The gallery is now a Lua/XSLT hybrid. The gallery has lost a full 28kb, but adds these new features:

v2.'
+ Output sharpening!
+ Auto indexing ready!
- 28kb!
- "Gallery" = Sweet new name!

The new hybrid also carries over these new features, from the previous, days-old release:

+ Background-color now displays in LR preview!
+ Upgraded to Simpleviewer 1.9!

TTG made it first and TTG still makes it best; TTG Simpleviewer contains the following features, excluded from the Airtight Simpleviewer engine packaged with Lightroom:

• Gallery description support
• Gallery background image support
• hAlign and vAlign settings
• Separate controls for stage and navigation padding
• Image watermarking
• Output sharpening
• Enabled for auto indexing by TTG XML Auto Index

Hurray!!!

 

[Andrew Hayton]

Great work Matt

 

[Kiwigeoff]

What a champion Matthew, have the long dark nights given you plenty of time??

 

[theturninggate]

No, there's never time. I just shoved my schoolwork aside for most of a day so that I could focus on something "fun". The long, dark nights have made me a little punchy, though.

 

[Wako Niko]

I have an issue with the latest version of the plugin (2.'), but actually it seems to be common to all airtight plugins, even from Adobe. When I select one of the Airtight plugins on the right, it keep reloading the preview every second or so, and will never enter a stable state. It's as if I was changing the options every second and it tried to reload itself to show the change, except I don't change everything. It's very annoying, and I can't use the export function while it's doing that.

Any idea?

Thank you.

 

[theturninggate]

The galleries reload every time you change something in the settings. That's just the way it goes for the Flash galleries, I'm afraid. A good rule of thumb is to establish a small working group of images -- emphasis on small -- to use when setting up your gallery. This will keep your reload times to a minimum. When finished, save a template preset, then load the full collection of images and apply the preset.

Also note that Felix Turner, developer of all things Airtight, advises on his website that galleries be kept to about 5' images. The Airtight galleries aren't really setup to handle larger loads than that.

Change one option at a time, and the gallery should finish reloading and be ready to go for the next change.

 

[Wako Niko]

Thanks for the reply but I'm afraid I was misunderstood. I meant to say that the flash keeps reloading even when I don't change any options. Actually, I do have a User Template and after loading this template, the preview keeps reloading again and again with no user interaction. This would not really bother me other than visually but it is preventing me from using the export function. If a reload happens right after my clicking of the export button this will somehow cancel the order and the export dialog doesn't even show up. I have only 23 pics...

 

[Sean McCormack]

Haven't heard that one before!..

Here's the trick though: hit export, then click Library.. At least that was my trick with early SlideShowPro when stopping the slideshow was required to export. If you hit export just after an image load and went to Library, it would export as a running slideshow.

 

[parintele]

yes Sean, that happened to me few days ago when i tried to test some galleries... do not remember exactly which engine/template but were the same behavior...just like it woudl restart the previewing process inside LR every few fraction of a second or so..sometimes it stopped and everything was fine, i tried modifing something and retry ...continuos loop , tried another gallery, worked just fine, back to the one with the problems, same bahavior..i thought is something about that specific engine/template...

didn;t paid too much attention as it was just a testing to see how some of those galleries worked...

today i tried again all the engines/templates i have intalled and all work just fine...

i have no repetitive patern so i can't associate that with anything special...could be about the content of the gallery, a memory problem, a LR issue, a windows issue, etc...

 

[theturninggate]

Wako Niko, that's odd and not something I've heard before. Can you fill your system and software specs into your signature so we know what you're running? Helps us to sort out issues.

 

[MichaelAC]

Wako Niko, that's odd and not something I've heard before. Can you fill your system and software specs into your signature so we know what you're running? Helps us to sort out issues.

I have the same behaviour - exactly as Wako Niko has reported.

I am using ttg simpleviewer 2.' - with 1.8 there was the same.

My work-around:
Step 1: I select only 1 (one!) picture from the selection. (German: "Ausgewählte Fotos")
Step 2: I enter my gallery parameters. Most often I select the preset and change the album title and descriptions.
It's very fast - because refresh is processing only one image.
Step 3: I select "all images" (in German: "Alle Fotos des Filmstreifens"). Immediately, LR starts to refresh the gallery, exactly in this loop, making several refreshes per second.
(My guess here is, that LR performs the preview refresh per image. But I am not sure.)
Step 4: I ignore this for a moment - a click on "Export", an start the export.
(My impression: the export does not start)
Step 5: I select again only 1 image.
Result: the refreshing loop stops, the export starts.
And - all images are exported ;-)

Not very convinient, but it works.

My system is described below, if you need more information, let me know.

 

[MichaelAC]

Hi Matthew,

here's my post initially intended:

First: Thank you ... Output Sharpening is great

One tiny additional wish: can you add a small, configurable, Return Button. It would help a lot: if you make a direct link to a SimpleViewer Gallery, you are "not lost in space", but instead there is a Button to return e.g. to a Gallery Menue or such.

 

[Wako Niko]

OK so let me add this post with a new signature shamelessly "inspired" by Michael

I must add that I experience this problem with all Flash based galleries (even LR's). I actually moved on and I got an HTML based gallery (Shadowbox), but solving this issue would be nice for others.

 

[theturninggate]

Thanks for filling in your signature. I'd also recommend including your version of Internet Explorer.

If it's happening with galleries other than mine, then it sounds like it's a bug in the Windows version of Lightroom. It's not something I've observed using LR/Mac. I'd advise reporting the issue to Adobe.

 

[gcparris]

Matt, firstly can I say that you've developed a great lightroom gallery. We've been looking around for ages trying to find one that has the features you've added to Simpleviewer, most importantly the Watermarking.

We are currently running on 1.9. I see 2.' is now out. I don't understand what the following feature does:

Auto-index enabled for TTG XML Auto Index

...could you explain?


Also, we now have our website up and running using TTG SV 1.9.

http://www.helenparris.com

One comment we've received is how do people tell us or other people about a specific photo on the website? For example, say I saw a photo I liked how would I tell someone to look at that specific photo as there is no way to copy the direct URL to a picture (nor would we want that for obvious reasons!).

Would it be possible to create some kind of secondary overlay or watermark in the top left or right corner to display the index number (1,2,3... etc) of the photo, much like Lightroom itself does when in Library or Develop mode?

Thanks again,
Gareth.

 

[gcparris]

Thanks for filling in your signature. I'd also recommend including your version of Internet Explorer.

If it's happening with galleries other than mine, then it sounds like it's a bug in the Windows version of Lightroom. It's not something I've observed using LR/Mac. I'd advise reporting the issue to Adobe.

Matt, I can confirm that this is also happening on our iMac running Lightroom 2.2 and TTG Simpleviewer 1.9. But only on 1 of our 6 web TTG Simpleviewer gallery collections.

Gareth.

 

[theturninggate]

gcparris,

TTG XML Auto Index is another template of mine that generates an index page of multiple galleries added to a specific location on your web server. The index detects supported galleries automatically, and updates itself accordingly, adding new galleries and removing galleries that aren't there anymore without the need for coding. Versions 1.9 and previous could be granted support for auto indexing by taking an additional step and producing an XML file used by the index. From version 2.', TTG Simpleviewer supports indexing natively, without that additional step.

Regarding the constant reload issue, are you saying that it's collection specific? And, if so, does the problem occur when you load that same collection into the Adobe Flash and Airtight galleries?

 

[gcparris]

gcparris,

TTG XML Auto Index is another template of mine that generates an index page of multiple galleries added to a specific location on your web server. The index detects supported galleries automatically, and updates itself accordingly, adding new galleries and removing galleries that aren't there anymore without the need for coding. Versions 1.9 and previous could be granted support for auto indexing by taking an additional step and producing an XML file used by the index. From version 2.', TTG Simpleviewer supports indexing natively, without that additional step.

Regarding the constant reload issue, are you saying that it's collection specific? And, if so, does the problem occur when you load that same collection into the Adobe Flash and Airtight galleries?

Hi Matt, thanks for explaining that. I'll have to look into it to see if I could incorporate it into our website.

The reload issue doesn't occur on any of the Adobe Flash or Airtight galleries. Or at least I've not seen it happen on them. It is always on the same TTG SimpleViewer gallery collection and we have 6 of them. Very odd indeed. If I get some time later on I'll do some more thorough testing between various other galleries and collections and see if I can come up with more hard facts.

Any thoughts on my other question about being able to provide a photo index number (1,2,3...) overlay (much like LR does in the Library and Develop modes) on the images so that people can refer to a specific photo in the collection when corresponding with us?

Cheers,
Gareth.