How to create a gallery from Keywords?

lukaitis photo

Is there an easy way to create a gallery from a key word.
My goal is to take all photos with "track" keyword for example and create a duplicate copy of the image and an entirely seperate gallery.
Is there an easy way to do this?

denisegoldberg

lukaitis photo wrote:

Is there an easy way to create a gallery from a key word? My goal is to take all photos with "track" keyword for example and create a duplicate copy of the image and an entirely seperate gallery.

Is there a reason why you want to create a duplicate copy of your photos? Because you can just reference the photos by keyword without making a copy of them. Just tack /keyword/<your keyword> on to your url.

For example, here are all the photos from my site that are tagged with the keyword rhyolite - http://www.denisegoldberg.com/keyword/rhyolite

--- Denise

lukaitis photo

The reason is I need to have a separate gallery to then export to a particular rider or use for an animoto video.
Being able to send a complete gallery would make it real easy.

cabinetbuff

lukaitis photo wrote:

The reason is I need to have a separate gallery to then export to a particular rider or use for an animoto video.
Being able to send a complete gallery would make it real easy.

How do you currently send a complete gallery from smugmug to animoto for instance, do they support smugmug API?

papajay

cabinetbuff wrote:

How do you currently send a complete gallery from smugmug to animoto for instance, do they support smugmug API?

This is precisely the type of functionality I've long pined for...the ability to download a "collection" (not necessarily a "gallery") of originals captured via keyword search to my home computer for further processing (e.g. to make a video/slideshow/dvd/add music etc).

One can currently download an entire gallery using AlbumFetcher (with proper permissions, of course). PBolchiver came up with an ingenius method to download keyword search results, but it is a relatively complex process that requires some editing and html stuff. It works, but it's not the easiest process to use.

This is why the TTLJournal process you've developed, Vitaliy, holds so much promise (in my opinion). Once you've captured a select few images from a single large gallery (or from across many galleries), it would be a great to download just those images to my hard drive for further processing.

I've done something similar for a close friend who wanted to put a picture book together for photos I took at his retirement party...but it involves creating an actual gallery of just the images desired. Then I changed my SmugMug password to a temporary password so my friend could launch AlbumFetcher on his PC and log into my SmugMug account to download the gallery. Again, it works, but it's not pretty or efficient. Finally, I have to remember to immediately reset my SmugMug password back to "normal".

cabinetbuff

papajay wrote:

This is why the TTLJournal process you've developed, Vitaliy, holds so much promise (in my opinion). Once you've captured a select few images from a single large gallery (or from across many galleries), it would be a great to download just those images to my hard drive for further processing.

It's certainly possible ... we can download the images, on your behalf, from your TTLJournal Virtual Gallery to TTLJournal server, zip them and then provide you with a link to the zip file so you can download complete set at once. The only issue is that our bandwidth utilization is going to go "through the roof" and we are not going to be able to maintain TTLJournal service for free. Do you think this feature is worth a few bucks a month? If you say Yes we can make it happen.

Another option is to get someone to develop a client-side software which will use TTLJournal API and download the images directly to your computer at home. If there's anyone that wants to jump on that I am all for it.

Regards,
- Vitaliy

lukaitis photo

cabinetbuff wrote:

How do you currently send a complete gallery from smugmug to animoto for instance, do they support smugmug API?

Animoto supports the smugmug platform and will upload a complete gallery of my choosing.

papajay

cabinetbuff wrote:

It's certainly possible ... we can download the images, on your behalf, from your TTLJournal Virtual Gallery to TTLJournal server, zip them and then provide you with a link to the zip file so you can download complete set at once. The only issue is that our bandwidth utilization is going to go "through the roof" and we are not going to be able to maintain TTLJournal service for free. Do you think this feature is worth a few bucks a month? If you say Yes we can make it happen.

Another option is to get someone to develop a client-side software which will use TTLJournal API and download the images directly to your computer at home. If there's anyone that wants to jump on that I am all for it.

Regards,
- Vitaliy

I could be wrong of course (wouldn't be the first time)...but I would envision this to be a functionality of somewhat limited, sporadic use. It's not something I would aniticipate doing on more than "several" (3, 4, 5???) times per year, if that. I don't know all the ins and outs of bandwidth, but I'd be surprised if it was a heavy server load. If it's a service that needs to be purchased, I'd be more comfortable with a useage fee than a flat monthly.

While I'm encouraged by what you've done with TTLJ, I'd prefer that the functionality come entirely from within SmugMug as a "standard" feature (not what you wanted to hear, I know). I worry a bit about multiple connect points and the necessary integration to make them work, both from the complexity point of view, but also from a security angle.

So if the "client side" option you suggest is "SmugMug" (perhaps you can license TTLJ to them??), then I'm all for that!

cabinetbuff

papajay wrote:

So if the "client side" option you suggest is "SmugMug" (perhaps you can license TTLJ to them??), then I'm all for that!

I was referring to a third party downloader application that would work off of TTLJournal's API similarly to AlbumFetcher. I don't think SmugMug would be interested in doing that at all -- why would they? They don't even offer this functionality for their own galleries ... currently, it's all done via API by a third party applications. Which brings us to the next point:

papajay wrote:

While I'm encouraged by what you've done with TTLJ, I'd prefer that the functionality come entirely from within SmugMug as a "standard" feature (not what you wanted to hear, I know). I worry a bit about multiple connect points and the necessary integration to make them work, both from the complexity point of view, but also from a security angle.

While it would be great and I would applaud it, we also have to realize that running a business like SmugMug requires a lot of juggling of features and requests, some can be done in a timely matter and some can't be. The way SmugMug (or any other smart company in this business) deals with it, is by proving a fully supported, secure API, though which, third party applications can fill the need of the market.

TTLJournal is the result of such a "need" -- the Virtual Gallery feature was literally pulled out of us by the market. We wouldn't be spending thousands of development hours if we didn't believe there was a niche to be filled. "Social Networking through Virtual Galleries" for SmugMug users is something we strongly believe in. Just look at flickr and photo.net ... their social network is enormous. Why? Because majority of people need "a good company" to interact with about the things that interest them. After all that's what dgrin is all about! What we want to do is provide the same interaction around your galleries. And our data/application model was been designed with that in mind from day one, not as an afterthought.

papajay wrote:

I could be wrong of course (wouldn't be the first time)...but I would envision this to be a functionality of somewhat limited, sporadic use. It's not something I would aniticipate doing on more than "several" (3, 4, 5???) times per year, if that. I don't know all the ins and outs of bandwidth, but I'd be surprised if it was a heavy server load. If it's a service that needs to be purchased, I'd be more comfortable with a useage fee than a flat monthly.

An "unlimited use" feature for a modest fee to match SmugMug's model, which everyone is already used to, would be something we can offer at this time. The more I think about it, the more I like this idea, because it also provides an additional, "selective backup" mechanism for SmugMug users (which I am one of), where using TTLJournal's full text search you select important images for additional backup which you can then download to your computer at home ...

papajay

cabinetbuff wrote:

I was referring to a third party downloader application that would work off of TTLJournal's API similarly to AlbumFetcher. .....

While it would be great and I would applaud it, we also have to realize that running a business like SmugMug requires a lot of juggling of features and requests, some can be done in a timely matter and some can't be. .....

TTLJournal is the result of such a "need" -- the Virtual Gallery feature was literally pulled out of us by the market. ....

An "unlimited use" feature for a modest fee to match SmugMug's model, which everyone is already used to, would be something we can offer at this time. The more I think about it, the more I like this idea, because it also provides an additional, "selective backup" mechanism for SmugMug users (which I am one of), where using TTLJournal's full text search you select important images for additional backup which you can then download to your computer at home ...

Thank you for the clarifications and insights. Gradually getting more "comfortable" with the idea now that I understand it (a little) better.

Being naturally a bit thick-skulled, I'm still a bit fuzzy on where TTLJ "images" that I see displayed when I pull up a TTLJ gallery actually reside. The larger images I see are not full-screen (hope they will be someday). Do these images exist soley on Smug servers, and does the API go get them from Smug when I launch a TTLJ gallery display? Or do you snag and store a copy of a display-sized image on a TTLJ server when I create a new TTLJ gallery?

I presume that what you are proposing would enable me to download the selected important images as "original" (full resolution) files for multi-media processing on my home computer. Would these files ever actually reside on TTLJ servers, or does the API simply act as a "traffic cop" to get copies of orginals from Smug servers and pass them directly along to my computer?

Just curious.

cabinetbuff

papajay wrote:

... Do these images exist soley on Smug servers, and does the API go get them from Smug when I launch a TTLJ gallery display? Or do you snag and store a copy of a display-sized image on a TTLJ server when I create a new TTLJ gallery?

When you create a Virtual gallery on TTLJournal we "record" a location of your images on SmugMug server, along with a complete set of image metadata such as captions, keywords and the album it came from. We don't actually copy the physical images from SmugMug server to TTLJournal server. What you see on TTLJournal Virtual Gallery pages are the same exact images you see on your SmugMug gallery pages, not copies of them. It works the same way as when you embed your SmugMug image on dgrin.com -- the image doesn't get copied it gets linked via an IMG tag and your browser does the heavy lifting by pulling the image from SmugMug server even though the actual forum page is located on dgrin.com.

papajay wrote:

I presume that what you are proposing would enable me to download the selected important images as "original" (full resolution) files for multi-media processing on my home computer.

Exactly that.

papajay wrote:

Would these files ever actually reside on TTLJ servers, or does the API simply act as a "traffic cop" to get copies of orginals from Smug servers and pass them directly along to my computer?

They would temporary reside on TTLJournal server in a secure location, in a zip file available only for you to download. As soon as you would download them they would be removed from TTLJournal server.

papajay

cabinetbuff wrote:

When you create a Virtual gallery on TTLJournal we "record" a location of your images on SmugMug server, along with a complete set of image metadata such as captions, keywords and the album it came from. We don't actually copy the physical images from SmugMug server to TTLJournal server. What you see on TTLJournal Virtual Gallery pages are the same exact images you see on your SmugMug gallery pages, not copies of them. It works the same way as when you embed your SmugMug image on dgrin.com -- the image doesn't get copied it gets linked via an IMG tag and your browser does the heavy lifting by pulling the image from SmugMug server even though the actual forum page is located on dgrin.com.


Exactly that.


They would temporary reside on TTLJournal server in a secure location, in a zip file available only for you to download. As soon as you would download them they would be removed from TTLJournal server.

Great!... It's mostly making sense to me now!
What happens if I move an image (some time after hit's inclusion in a TTLJ virtual gallery) to a different gallery on Smug???...does the fact that the image is in a "new location" cause it to fall out of the TTLJ gallery??...or does the "move" somehow get recorded so TTLJ can still find and display it as part of the Virtual Gallery?

cabinetbuff

papajay wrote:

Great!... It's mostly making sense to me now!
What happens if I move an image (some time after hit's inclusion in a TTLJ virtual gallery) to a different gallery on Smug???...does the fact that the image is in a "new location" cause it to fall out of the TTLJ gallery??...or does the "move" somehow get recorded so TTLJ can still find and display it as part of the Virtual Gallery?

The "core" URL for the SmugMug image is in the following format:

http://<nick-name|www>.smugmug.com/photos/<image_id>_<key>-<size>.jpg

From what I understand this "core" URL stays unchanged even if you move the image from one SmugMug gallery to another. TTLJournal gallery display would still be working should you choose to move an image between SmugMug galleries. The only thing that would not work properly is the "link to original" we display underneath the image, but we can give you an option to re-sync all of the meta-data for a particular Virtual Gallery with SmugMug.