Short of using the API any other way to link images using Friendly URL's

brecklundin

I know this has been asked and answered before but for the life of me I am not able to find the details. I have a simply utility I wrote to generate product pages with descriptions and all that other crap which goes along with listing items for sale on other sites.

When I signed up for SM I guess I was not paying attention as I incorrectly assumed my file names would be MY FILE NAMES. I have a naming convention I have used for over a decade for this purpose and expected to continue to use it. Sadly I find it is simply not possible, or as far as I can tell to do the following:

http://{friendly.gallery.URL}/{my.filename.jpg}

This, to say the least is frustrating to me as I do not have the energy to do a lot of coding needed to use the API simply to extract file names which no longer conform to my conventions. I see I need not only a special number for the main file name but also some sort of KEY to append to the numeric file name...I do not want this...I want direct access to files as I name them. I need the ability, without API access the ability to be able to predict the file names at the time I generate the HTML code for the product details in my DB. I add these names all based on the item number, or lets say I did so in the past before frustrating myself with SM.

I just want to use the above URL format to link to the images. At the same time I came here for the ability to use the galleries for each item with the intention to eventually turn those into a simply and easy online store/catalog using PP's shopping cart, which can be done...well, the PP cart can be anyway. But based on some things in life I won't be needing to worry about adding the cart because, well by the time I might have it done and getting people to find it, let's say it will no longer matter for me. but for now I still need to quickly and easily programmaticly generate the URL's and preferably w/o the API unless I can use my own friendly file names as my names are used to organize the images.

I will be honest in that despite trying to trudge through the API doco, i really can't stand the way it's organized.

Sorry if I am pissy about this, but sometimes in life you no longer care or have the time or patience to live with what other people tell me I how I must conform to their idea of how my business should run. Time is too short to put up with it...

If there is thread or example of how to grab the files as I expect them to appear after upload (I have LR3.2 and use jfriedl's plug-in for both Publish and Export which lets me name files to fit my conventions, but it's SM that bastardizes everything once they get their grubby paws on them.

I would love to see:

http://{friendly.gallery.URL}/{my.filename-T|Sm|M|L|XL|etc.jpg}

I just do not see the point of "friendly URL's" and "friendly FileNames" if we really cannot use them...of course I could have missed where it is explained how to do just that...

As I understand it now I need not only the special and totally RANDOM name assigned to the file but also the special image key to build the URL. And these can only be found via the API and, I am assuming a LOT of parsing and code for what should be a trivial thing...taking at most a half dozen lines of code on my FRONT END after the files have been uploaded. But right now I am spending 10x the amount of time I should be just dicking around with image URL's. At least "friendly" links back to the galleries work...why not for images?

Of course this is SM so I know I am tilting at another windmill...

devbobo

unfortunately, that approach doesn't scale...we use Akamai for image caching so filenames need to be unique otherwise you get collisions when two users have the identical filenames.

Cheers,

David