[pmwiki-users] Gallery (was: Costom markup for gallery page)

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Tue, Mar 29, 2005 at 01:32:33PM -0700, H. Fox wrote:
> I was tempted to post a request for converting that to v2 also.  It
> would be nice to be able to include a caption that would appear on the
> large-photo page.
> 
> I was thinking..
> 
> (:gallery option=whatever:)
> Attach:Cat.jpg Caption for the cat photo.
> Attach:Dog.jpg Caption for the dog photo.
> (:galleryend:)
> 
> ... but being able to do the large-version-page anywhere in the wiki
> is probably what you are going for.

We could certainly do a (:gallery:)...(:galleryend:) markup.  However,
all of this got me to thinking about a slightly different approach for
building a gallery... so here's my current brainstorm:

1.  Let's assume that we use something like the existing uploads mechanism
to upload image files into per-group folders (customizable).  For purposes
of this discussion, let's call the upload folder a "gallery".  We'll also
develop an improved version of the uploads page that makes it easier 
to upload images in bulk.

2.  Any page can contain a (:gallerylist:) markup, which displays
a thumbnail index of all of the image files in the folder, generating
thumbnails as needed.  This works similar to (:attachlist:) and (:pagelist:), 
except that it displays the images in a gallery format.  (:gallerylist:)
may even become just a specialized form of (:attachlist:) or (:pagelist:)
with an appropriate 'fmt=' option.

Each thumbnail is annotated with basic information about the image
(configurable), but also becomes a link to a wiki page with the same 
name as the image file minus its extension.  Thus, an image of 
pmwiki-32.gif would create a page link to [[pmwiki-32]], which
could hold more descriptive information about the page.

3.  We also define a (:gallerypage:) directive, which when placed
on a page searches the current gallery for any images that would
result in links to the current page and displays them.  Thus, someone
could put (:gallerypage:) in a GroupHeader and every page in the
group would begin with the full-size photos "matching" the current 
pagename, followed by the text of the page itself.  (If there are
no images matching the pagename, (:gallerypage:) is empty.)

4.  (:gallerylist:) and (:gallerypage:) have options available to
control the output formatting, and/or cause the images to be read 
from gallery directories other than the default for the current page.

So, what could this get us?  
  - Creating a gallery can be as simple as creating an index page with  
    (:gallerylist:), a GroupHeader or GroupFooter with (:gallerypage:), 
    and uploading image files.
  - Image files can be annotated by full wiki pages, including
    categories and links to other pages.
  - Automatic thumbnail generation and indexing.
  - We can use SearchWiki, (:searchresults:), (:pagelist:), etc., to 
    search a gallery for images with specific keywords or in certain
    categories.
  - It's fairly easy to create a WikiTrail through the images.  Combined
    with a WikiTrail slideshow feature, it's easy to create slideshows.  :-)
  - An author needing to disable a GroupHeader's (:gallerypage:)
    on a specific page, or who needs to include text above the header
    can easily do so with (:nogroupheader:) as well as a number of
    other mechanisms.

Thoughts, comments, feedback?

Pm