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		####    The GalleryGen ReadMe File    ####
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  -= Contents =-                                       Last updated: 12/26/2000
  
     - What is GalleryGen?
     - A little history
     - This document
     - Software requirements
     - Installing GalleryGen
     - The concept behind it
     - The included samples
     - The config screen
     - The template file
     - Finishing up
     - Disclaimer
     - Support
    

  -= What is GalleryGen? =-
  
  GalleryGen is a tool for people who are wanting to put photo galleries
  on the 'net.  GalleryGen was designed for people who already know how
  to author HTML and need a quick, efficient way to generate the thumb-
  nails and navigation content.  Even though this tool was not designed 
  for those unfamiliar with HTML, I guess you could use the templates and
  do okay, but you'll probably hit limitations that a little HTML would
  help you overcome.
  
  
  -= A little history =-
  
  So why did I write GalleryGen?  Good question.  My personal website has
  a section for family pictures and I didn't want to be in charge of up-
  dating that section just because I'm the only web developer in the house.
  So, since my wife was willing (and a little more motivated) I thought I
  should at least try to make it easy on her.  However, when a few of my
  friends heard I was writing it, they too were interested in having a copy.
  (Yeah, I know - they were probably just being nice). 
  
  I know you're probably thinking, "Hey, you said it was for people who
  already knew HTML."  Well, that was true for the most part.  You don't 
  have to know HTML to "use" the this tool, but you do if you want to have
  overall control of the output.  So, there you have it.
  
  
  -= This document =-
  
  This readme file has everything I have to say about GalleryGen from tips
  and tricks to gotchas.  I put everything in here because I was too lazy
  to create a help file :)  Though GalleryGen looks like one very-well-put-
  together package on the outside, it's actually a conglomeration of three
  distinct components: GalleryGen, GalleryGenX and ThumbGen.  This document
  only contains information about GalleryGen.  For information on Gallery-
  GenX or ThumbGen, consult their respective ReadMe files (only programmers
  will have any interest in GalleryGenX and/or ThumbGen).  OK, here we go,
  try to stay with me.
  
  
  -= Software requirements =-
  
  In an attempt to keep the download small for you, I left a couple of common
  things out of this install package.  Particularly, the VB runtime files are
  not included.  If GalleryGen seems completely broke, you probably need the
  6.0 VB runtime which you can download from:
  
      ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/win95/dll
  
  If you have Microsoft's Internet Explorer version 5.0 browser installed, you
  should have everything you need.  IE 5.0 contains the scripting runtime and
  XML support which I also omitted from the install packages.  If you just
  can't get it installed/working, please drop me a line.
  

  -= Installing GalleryGen =-
  
  Installing is very straightforward.  You should have the whole program in
  compressed form (*.zip).  Extract the compressed file using WinZip, PKZip,
  etc. to a temporary directory on your hard drive.  As a result of performing
  the extraction, you should have a readme file (this file - readme.txt) and
  a setup file (setup.exe).  Execute this file and follow the instructions.  
  
  NOTE: once installed, the samples will be located in the installed folder 
  under a directory called samples.  Once the installation has completed, you
  may delete the setup.exe file.  To uninstall, use the "Control Panel" 
  utility.  Please read this readme file in it's entirety (at least once).
  

  -= The concept behind it =-
  
  GalleryGen is based on the concept that every web page (in code form) has
  3 parts: the header, the content and the footer.  GalleryGen has nothing to
  do with the header or the footer and focuses on the content portion.  As 
  long as you can provide a header file and a footer file, GalleryGen can do
  the rest.  Since all of the "look and feel" coding is in the header and
  footer, you can make your gallery look however you want it to.
  
  There are two different kinds of pages GalleryGen can create: the navigation
  page, which contains all of the thumbnail images, and a main/photo page,  
  which contains an individual [full size] photo.  You can specify different
  header and footer files for each of these pages.
  
  
  -= The included samples =-

  A samples folder should exist in the folder where you installed GalleryGen.
  Inside this folder is a sample template (read on) and a folder each for two
  different scenarios: a gallery that uses frames and a gallery that does not
  use frames  These samples should include everything you need to learn how to
  use GalleryGen.  Each sample has an associated readme file.


  -= The Config Screen =-
  
  The configuration screen is right after introduction screen and just before
  the progress screen and is where most of the configuration parameters are
  set for generating your gallery.  However, there are a number of things you 
  should keep in mind when filling out this screen.
  
    * Navigation Header/Footer Files - These fields are mandatory.  GalleryGen
      can't create an output file if it doesn't have header and footer files.
      
    * Main Header/Footer Files - These fields are optional.  If you leave them
      blank, the navigation header/footer files will be used for the photo 
      pages.
      
    * Photo Folder - This field is mandatory and is the path to the folder
      which contains all of the full size images to be in the gallery.  These
      images are NOT altered.  They are used to create the thumbnails and are
      also copied to the output folder.
      
    * Output Folder - This field is mandatory and is the path where the entire
      gallery will be placed after/during its creation.  The ultimate folder
      does not have to exist - GalleryGen will create it if it doesn't exist.
      However, GalleryGen will not create the whole path.  Here are some 
      examples.
      
      This example will work:  If D:\Inetpub\wwwroot\gallery exist and you 
      choose D:\Inetpub\wwwroot\gallery\MyNewGallery as your output directory,
      GalleryGen will create the MyNewGallery folder and everything will be
      fine.
      
      This example will not work:  If D:\Inetpub\wwwroot exists and you choose
      D:\Inetpub\wwwroot\gallery\MyNewGallery as your output directory, your
      gallery will not be created and GalleryGen will throw an error.
      
    * Output filename - This field is mandatory and is just the name of the
      file you want created as your navigation page.  If a file with this name
      already exists in the output directory, it will be overwritten.  If you
      choose to have GalleryGen create a file for each photo in the gallery,
      the files will be named the same as the photos but with an "htm"
      extension.  (Example: the page for mydog.jpg will be mydog.htm)
      
    * Thumbnail specification - These fields are mandatory.  The number of 
      pixels you specify will be constant and the other value will be 
      calculated.  For instance, if the original photo is 500 pixels wide and
      1000 pixels high and you want the thumbnail's width to be 100.  The
      thumbnail will be 100 pixels wide and 200 pixels high.
      
    * Description - This field is optional.  If you decide to use the HTML 
      support of this field, your HTML MUST be well-formed.  This means your
      HTML elements must have matching opening and closing tags (<b> is NOT
      the same as <B>) and they MUST be properly nested. (This is no good:
      <b><i>test</b></i>).  If you screw up here, you probably won't have
      any problems saving your template, but you may have problems loading
      your template in the future.
      
      If you choose "with frames", you tell GalleryGen to create a page for
      each photo, and you specify a description, the description will be 
      displayed on each of the photo pages - NOT - in the navigation page.
      
      However, if you choose "without frames" and specify a description, the
      description will only show up on the first (navigation) page.
      
      When placed on a page, the description is placed inside a <DIV> tag whose
      name and ID is "Description".  This will allow you a certain level of
      access to the text through CSS or JavaScript.
      
    * Previous and next buttons - This option is only available when you 
      tell GalleryGen to create pages for each photo in the gallery (you
      can't put navigation buttons on a JPG image).  When you choose this
      option, three <INPUT> tags are placed at the bottom of the photo page
      and this is what they loook like:
      
      <input type="image" src="/images/prevButton.gif" id="prevButton" 
         name="prevButton" onClick="window.location='[Previous Photo]'">
      <input type="image" src="/images/homeButton.gif" id="homeButton" 
         name="homeButton" onClick="window.location='[Navigation Page]'">
      <input type="image" src="/images/nextButton.gif" id="nextButton" 
         name="nextButton" onClick="window.location='[Next Photo]'">

      You might think, "Wow Don, that sure is a lot of stuff to hard-code 
      like that."  Well, you're right but it's all on purpose.  I don't think
      it's too much to ask for you to have an "images" directory hangin' off
      the root of your site (most do anyway).  And it's not hard to call your
      navigation images prevButton.gif, homeButton.gif and nextButton.gif and
      place them in your "images" folder (JPGs are rarely used for navigation
      buttons - if yours are, you may want to look in to that).  However, if
      all of this is just too much to ask, you can always use JavaScript 
      and/or CSS with the id/name property to change the hard-coded things to
      whatever you like.
      
    * Thumbnail layout - The number of rows and columns are mandatory.  You'll
      have to know how many photos are in the gallery and calculate the correct
      number of rows and columns yourself (perhaps I'll build this
      functionality into the next version - if there is one).  If there are 25
      pictures in your gallery and you choose 5 columns and 4 rows, the last
      5 pictures will not be included.  There would be nothing wrong with 
      asking for 5 columns and 6 rows - you simply wouldn't see the last row
      because it won't contain any pictures.
  
      
  -= The Template File =-
  
  Once you have used the tool to specify how you want your gallery created, you
  can save these settings in a GalleryGen Template file to be used the next
  time you create a gallery.  Of course, you'll have to change the things that
  are different, but a little time saved isn't a bad thing.  Sample.cfg in the
  samples.zip file is a sample template file which contains additional 
  information.  Consult this file for more information.
  
  
  -= Finishing Up =-
  
  The last screen is a progress screen.  This is pretty self explanatory.
  There is only one thing I want to mention about this screen.  If the 
  current progress indicator ever seems like it didn't finish, you probably
  didn't create enough rows and columns to hold all of the images in the
  gallery.  This behavior is "by design".
  
  
  -= Disclaimer =-
  
  GalleryGen is supplied "AS IS". Don Smith disclaims all warranties, 
  expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of 
  merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The authors assume no 
  liability for direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or 
  consequential damages, which may result from the use of GalleryGen, even if 
  advised of the possibility of such damage. 

  
  -= Support =-
  
  As I'm sure you probably already guessed, GalleryGen is not supported.  I
  just had a need for it - so I wrote it.  And, since I'm such a giving 
  person (stop laughing), I thought I would give it away.
  
  However, if it doesn't do something that you think would be cool (and you
  think I would think it's cool), just drop me a line and we'll see what
  happens.  Also, if you're using it, I would find it totally awesome if you
  dropped me a line to let me know.  Don't worry, I'm not going to sell your
  e-mail address or anything.
  
  
  Enjoy!
  
  Don Smith
  donsmith@techie.com
  http://www.dev4net.com