AlbumFetcher - Download multiple galleries w/ embedded captions and keywords

wellman

rorytate wrote:

Greg,
Your utility just saved me hours and hours of donkey work. Thank you so much.

Rory Tate
Canadian, OK

You're welcome! Always good to hear the tool was useful.

kokomosam

First, Thanks for building such a great application.

However, I am experienceing the error that everyone else seems to have.

Are you still looking for help debuging it?

I have an trace of what happens in the failure.


Sam

wellman

That runtime error is the equivalent of the computer saying "something broke, but I'm not telling you what." I need to be running the code within Visual Studio to figure out where the problem lies.

If you'd be willing to temporarily share your smugmug password, I could try to figure this out. I just can't make it break myself - don't know why.

Thanks for the kind words - glad it's (sort of) working for you.

wellman

Question for the SmugMug team... What image formats does SmugMug officially support? One red herring of an error I'm getting involves trying to extract EXIF data from .mpg files. Now that's hard. I'd like to put an extra test on file format in my code to prevent this. Thanks!

ivar

wellman wrote:

Question for the SmugMug team... What image formats does SmugMug officially support? One red herring of an error I'm getting involves trying to extract EXIF data from .mpg files. Now that's hard. I'd like to put an extra test on file format in my code to prevent this. Thanks!

GIF, JPG, PNG, MPG (MPEG-1)

sherstone

Thank You!
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

Wellman This tool ROCKS!

and it works well too!

I'm downloading my whole site
so far no errors (here is crossing fingers)



I did get the runtime error as well but it happened in a gallery that had both .gif and .png files all the other galleries downloaded without a hitch.
If I had to guess what caused the error it would be the .png file.

wellman

sherstone wrote:

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

Wellman This tool ROCKS!

and it works well too!

I'm downloading my whole site
so far no errors (here is crossing fingers)



I did get the runtime error as well but it happened in a gallery that had both .gif and .png files all the other galleries downloaded without a hitch.
If I had to guess what caused the error it would be the .png file.

Glad it worked (mostly) well for you.

Dianne

wellman wrote:

Glad it worked (mostly) well for you.

I'd love to say that it was working flawlessly for me. I d/l it and am trying it with a couple of smug galleries. It has choked on each one -- the first on image 33 and the second time on 66 of 101 (a different folder). These folders all have only .jpg images...........I don't know what else to report.
I have the screen messages from the second runtime error event.

What else can I tell you that would help -- this is a great utility if I can get it to work. THX. Dianne

Verner

I've had it fail on a few different systems. All were WinXP SP2 with IE7. It has been a mixture of networks both with and without firewalls. For me, it has only failed when doing large downloads (>60 photos of 1.5-2GB each).

That said, the "skip" feature works beautifully and works around the problem without a hitch and little time lost! I simply re-run the utility on the same folders, and it very quickly skips past what it has already done and finishes the job. I've never had it fail on the second pass. Therefore, my conclusion is that it isn't a file type or particular metadata, but something to do with the local computer or network environment.

Perhaps coincidental, all the failures have been when my computer's screen saver kicked in and I was put back to the login prompt. I don't know that this should affect the I/O controls or app, but this had occurred to me as an option...

wellman

Verner wrote:

I've had it fail on a few different systems. All were WinXP SP2 with IE7. It has been a mixture of networks both with and without firewalls. For me, it has only failed when doing large downloads (>60 photos of 1.5-2GB each).

That said, the "skip" feature works beautifully and works around the problem without a hitch and little time lost! I simply re-run the utility on the same folders, and it very quickly skips past what it has already done and finishes the job. I've never had it fail on the second pass. Therefore, my conclusion is that it isn't a file type or particular metadata, but something to do with the local computer or network environment.

Perhaps coincidental, all the failures have been when my computer's screen saver kicked in and I was put back to the login prompt. I don't know that this should affect the I/O controls or app, but this had occurred to me as an option...

Thanks for the feedback. I know the "skip" thing isn't as good as the app working 100% of the time, but I'm glad it's working well enough.
-Greg

tigerfly22

First Try . . .
Here it goes- my first attempt~

tigerfly22

hmmmmm... Album Fetcher = smarter than this photographer
HELP with Album Fetcher!!!

> So, I think I got it BUT, the images are limited to smaller images, right?
> And you have to attach them one by one?
> Do I have to direct it to the folder containing the image or can I
> direct it to my smugmug gallery?
>
> Is there any way to allow a client of mine to access a folder of my
> full-res (BIG!) images, so they can download the complete folder instead
> of image by image?
>
> If there is a way to do this, I would be happy to repay you in "virtual
> drinks"
>
> I'm simply trying to make it as easy as possible for (myself and) my
> clients. . .
>
> Thanks again, for all your help!!

jtbarrett

Delimiter issue
After keywording a bunch of my galeries on SmugMug, I used Album Fetcher to download them and embed the IPTC keywords. I ran into the same exception error that others are getting, but that's not my main problem.

When I tried to use a variety of IPTC tools on my local computer, they all had the same problem with the Album-Fetcher-downloaded images -- the string of keywords was read as a single IPTC keyword rather than multiple keywords. I think this is because Album Fetcher preserves SmugMug's practice of using a space as delimiter, while IPTC uses a semicolon.

Smugmug reads standard IPTC just fine, so it would be great if Album Fetcher embedded semicolon-delimited IPTC instead of space-delimited. It could even strip out the quote marks in such a case, as they aren't needed in standard IPTC (and with semicolons, Smugmug will read in IPTC keyword phrases correctly even if they lack quotes).

Thanks for making such a great tool!

- Jeff

wellman

jtbarrett wrote:

After keywording a bunch of my galeries on SmugMug, I used Album Fetcher to download them and embed the IPTC keywords. I ran into the same exception error that others are getting, but that's not my main problem.

When I tried to use a variety of IPTC tools on my local computer, they all had the same problem with the Album-Fetcher-downloaded images -- the string of keywords was read as a single IPTC keyword rather than multiple keywords. I think this is because Album Fetcher preserves SmugMug's practice of using a space as delimiter, while IPTC uses a semicolon.

Smugmug reads standard IPTC just fine, so it would be great if Album Fetcher embedded semicolon-delimited IPTC instead of space-delimited. It could even strip out the quote marks in such a case, as they aren't needed in standard IPTC (and with semicolons, Smugmug will read in IPTC keyword phrases correctly even if they lack quotes).

Thanks for making such a great tool!

- Jeff

Thanks for making me aware of this. I have no idea when I'll get some time to get out a new version, but this will be there.
-Greg

com3

totally. rocks.

w00t! thanks, man!

mishnogram

Great application, I use it quite often but today I've received this error in the status message section,

Image URL query failed. Download aborted.

Any ideas on what it might be?

Thanks

wellman

com3 wrote:

totally. rocks.

w00t! thanks, man!

Thanks!

wellman

mishnogram wrote:

Great application, I use it quite often but today I've received this error in the status message section,

Image URL query failed. Download aborted.

Any ideas on what it might be?

Thanks

Sounds like a blip error on the SmugMug side to me, or more likely something flaky with the connection. If you download the same gallery again, does it work OK?

mattg

wellman wrote:

I can think of many reasons it would be a bad idea, but does anyone ever want to allow someone else to bulk download their galleries? This post got me thinking. Just brainstorming... Thanks for any thoughts/ideas.
-Greg

YES YES YES!!!

I post pictures for others to download. I blindly thought AlbumFetcher would work for public downloading but it turns out they'd need my username and password. It would be fantastic to have them just type in my smugmug address and have access to download what they want.

sunione

Humbly I Ask
It's gone over my head, could you clarify?

I just found this thread about AlbumFetcher. It's obviously very useful to the many fans who have participated in this thread. But I don't quite get it. Why exactly would I want to do this?

Please clue me in on what I'm missing....okay, you use this app to downlaod images or entire galleries in order to use PS2 Bridge (?) to alter the metadata? Is that right? Hoping your changes will make them more likely to be found by search engines?

Then I assume you upload them again to SmugMug? Will the photos be automatically replaced in your gallery (*assuming you did not change the title)?

What is the advantage over using the bulk caption edit function in the SM interface?

If there is a help section for Album Fetcher I could not find it and I apologize if I have missed this information

Andy

sunione wrote:

If there is a help section for Album Fetcher I could not find it and I apologize if I have missed this information

It's a customer-written app, sunione. Help is right here.

Folks use Album Fetcher if they want to easily download an entire gallery of originals. Let's say you were away from your main computer, eh?

wellman

sunione wrote:

It's gone over my head, could you clarify?

I just found this thread about AlbumFetcher. It's obviously very useful to the many fans who have participated in this thread. But I don't quite get it. Why exactly would I want to do this?

Please clue me in on what I'm missing....okay, you use this app to downlaod images or entire galleries in order to use PS2 Bridge (?) to alter the metadata? Is that right? Hoping your changes will make them more likely to be found by search engines?

Then I assume you upload them again to SmugMug? Will the photos be automatically replaced in your gallery (*assuming you did not change the title)?

What is the advantage over using the bulk caption edit function in the SM interface?

If there is a help section for Album Fetcher I could not find it and I apologize if I have missed this information

Hi!

I wrote AlbumFetcher a while back to make it easier for people to re-download their photos very quickly. Just using a web browser, you'd have to download each photo, one-by-one.

I edit my captions and keywords online w/ SmugMug, so I also wanted a way to get that info back onto my local machine. Hope this helps!

sunione

Okay. Yes I can see how this would be quite useful. Thanks.

I was making it alot more complicated I guess than it is!

Foton

wellman wrote:

Hi!

I wrote AlbumFetcher a while back to make it easier for people to re-download their photos very quickly. Just using a web browser, you'd have to download each photo, one-by-one.

Great little tool! Exactly what I needed and also nice with just a single executable.

wellman

Foton wrote:

Great little tool! Exactly what I needed and also nice with just a single executable.

Thanks! Glad it's useful for you.

Doug_C

Runtime Error
Hi,

"This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way." is the error message.

Wondered if you had any thoughts?

XP x64.

Many thanks.

wellman

Sorry you're having trouble with AF. Do you get this error every time, or only occasionally? I haven't tested w/ a 64-bit version of XP.

papajay

Cool Tool!

wellman wrote:

Sorry you're having trouble with AF. Do you get this error every time, or only occasionally? I haven't tested w/ a 64-bit version of XP.

Greg:
Somehow, I managed not to come across this thread until today ("take a horse to water" from someone else's post) even though I recall trying to find Album Fetcher (the "software product", I thought at the time) on Amazon.com, and CDW.com, etc. after seeing it mentioned in earlier posts talking about keywords.

I immediately downloaded it this morning to see what/how, etc. Wow...quick, intuitively laid out, simple to execute...great app!! Unfortunately, it hung up 1/2 way through the first download with a Runtime Error, but I'm NOT complaining...I figure it's something on my end which I will eventually get sorted out.

What I wanted to mention/ask has "broader" implications. Once some version of the long- and highly- anticipated "virtual galleries" functionality becomes less virtual and more "real", would you expect AlbumFetcher to integrate seemlessly with that functionality?

What I'm envisioning is the ability to perform a keyword search across all my own SmugMug galleries to :

• find all the pictures I ever uploaded of "mom" (for example)
• select "the best of mom" from that group to create a new gallery (virtual or real...still not sure I totally understand the difference)
• then use Album Fetcher to download "the best of mom" gallery to my local machine, so I can...
• ...burn a DVD of the "best of mom" (maybe add some music and do some other artsy/fartsy editing before buring the DVD) and...
• proudly show-off my handy work.

The above has forever seemed like such a no-brainer (conceptually) to me, I puzzle at the apparent lack of interest (from the SmugMug community of users who post here on Dgrin) in achieving that functionality...maybe they have asked for this and I just didn't put two and two together because of the way in which it was requested....not sure.

But Album Fetcher appears to be "Heaven-Sent" and compatible with the idea, whatever form it finally takes!

Great job, Greg. Thank you for devoting your own resources to make it happen.

Doug_C

Hi Greg,

wellman wrote:

Sorry you're having trouble with AF. Do you get this error every time, or only occasionally? I haven't tested w/ a 64-bit version of XP.

That's OK, it's good of you to make the software available.

Afraid I get it every time I try, though unsure if it's related to X64.

Sometimes the message is immediate, and other times I get a few photos recovered before I get the message.

Sorry, I know this doesn't help much :-(

wellman

Papajay,

Thanks for your extremely kind words. When you got the runtime error, were you able to use the "skip" feature to resume w/o downloading all the photos which had already been fetched?

I must continue to apologize for the runtime error. I still don't get it and can't replicate it. My best guess is that there's some sort of conflict with something relatively common, but which I don't have/use.

You have some great ideas for improving the app! I'll keep them in mind if I ever get back around to doing more work on it. Having said that, I should be straight with you (and everyone else) in saying that AlbumFetcher isn't real high on my personal priority list. Work has gotten busier, and a third child is on the way for us, so keeping up with my shooting claims the little free time I have.

If anyone wants to give a run at more functionality, the source is available in the first post. It's in MS VC++ 2005, but the code and structure are easy enough that it could be ported to your language of choice.

Again, thanks for all the kind words. It's fun to see a little homebrew tool like this prove useful for others.