Symphony.

Ok, After messing around with loads of photography portfolios that don’t do what I want, I am going to build mine in Symphony. (Yippee!)

I have one problem though. Currently, my project is built around having small php scripts read a folders contents (images), create thumbs folder and fill it (if they don’t exist) then display them on the site. As each image hasn’t got specific editorial, the only editorial would be for the whole folder (or project). I have figured that I can create a section that accepts entries (being the projects themselves), but I haven’t got a clue how to do the whole thumbnail generation thing, as I can’t use php in my xslt! Also, when a user clicks a thumbnail, it takes them to a main image page, where the title, keywords and description come out of the iptc info in the image itself.

If anyone has any ideas how I could achieve all this with symphony, I’m all ears. I’m just baffled at present…

Two ways to solve your problem come to my mind:

Upload your images to a section. This means creating two sections: Albums and Images. The most compact Albums section comprises at least a title (you can go from there with a description, date, location, tags, categories… whatever suits you best). The Images-section will at least need a select box link and a file upload field. The select box link will enable you to associate your images with albums (this means it’ll have to point to Albums:Title).

Then create the data sources, enter the appropriate parameters and settings and give it a whirl. From there on it’s just XSLT.

Another solution would be to create a custom data source (they’re all in workspace/data-sources/). This is where your PHP goes. It’ll have to open the folder, read in the files and return them in the XML. Again, from there on you’ll have to use XSLT.

I would suggest you to try the first solution. It’s easy, 100% Symphony style and 0% custom PHP. But as you can see, if you have a really good reason to read the files yourself, you can do that as well.

And to answer your question: There is no way to put PHP functions in your pages (and that’s a good thing!).

Generating thumbnails is a breeze using the JIT Image Manipulation extension (wich basically comes with every Symphony installation).

Thanks! I wonder if anyone has created an extension for reading iptc from images, I shall have a look… Would I have to do that in a datasource?

The guy I’m doing this for may be uploading 60 odd images at a time, so I dunno if I could do the images/album method, unless you know of a good mass-upload plugin? I’m guessing it would probably be a field type?

Thanks! I wonder if anyone has created an extension for reading iptc from images, I shall have a look… Would I have to do that in a datasource?

Probably in a custom field. Either (yet another) advanced upload field or one that goes side-by-side with a regular upload field and uses it’s value.

The guy I’m doing this for may be uploading 60 odd images at a time, so I dunno if I could do the images/album method, unless you know of a good mass-upload plugin? I’m guessing it would probably be a field type?

There’s an app for that: “Mass Upload Utility” Extension.

The Bulk Importer is another option, although I’m yet to test it on 2.0.7.

The Bulk Importer is another option, although I’m yet to test it on 2.0.7.

Does it allow me to set other fields (like a Title) for the files I’ve uploaded?

From what I remember it will auto fill a textbox field with the name of the File.

It’s not that flexible, but it is something I will be looking at over the next couple of weeks to expand on.