WebPhotoBrowser Usage Tips

Photooey Main Page

Like all well-designed Internet applications, usage is intuitive for the most part, and no instructions are needed, when its working like its supposed to, and you dont care about optimal usage.

Additional help provides tips for things that are not obvious, or to assist people who are having problems.

This section assumes WebPhotoBrowser is up and running normally. If not, see the section "In Case of Problems".

Preliminary Info

WebPhotoBrowser has two views:

1. Main View
2. Full-screen View

The main view is the one with the photo tree / folder panel and scrolling thumbnail pane, the full-screen view just has a big picture and stream-lined control panel.

High-resolution version refers to the original master version of the photo, or in any case the highest quality version supported by the web site. It is generally not optimally suited for display on a computer monitor, and may or may not be available.

Full-screen version refers to a bigger and/or higher quality version than what you see in the main view. Since it takes more space to store and more time to download it may or may not be available.

Main-view version is always available, since it is the defining version of the image.

Thumbnail version should always be available too, provided the photo folders are properly configured.

WebPhotoBrowser uses one of two control panels:

1. Flash-Buttons.
2. Original-Quirky

Which one is being used depends on selection during setup.

Flash-Buttons

Flash-buttons control panel has the following buttons (from left to right):

• 'Options' button: displays the 'Options' menu.
• In full-screen view the photo number / total and photo title are displayed to the right of the options button.
• 'Previous' button: displays the previous photo, or folder description, wrapping within folder. Reminder: you can use the keyboard to progress to the previous folder.
• NOTE: The "Info" button is displayed between the previous and next buttons if there is a description of the photo to read. The control panel will be brightly colored to draw your attention to the fact. Press the "info" button ('i') to view the photo description.
• 'Next' button: displays the next photo, or folder description. Wraps within folder - reminder: you can use the keyboard to progress to the next folder.
• "Screen switch" button: switches to main or full-screen view.

Options Menu

• High Resolution: display or request high-resolution version of a photo. What happens when this is clicked is configuration dependent - may invoke emailer, or may take you to a login page, or may just open a browser window to display the high resolution version. Disabled when not applicable, which happens when you are not viewing a photo, or there is no high-res option for the photo being viewed.
• View Whole Collection: used for displaying the whole photo collection if the link you have followed is to a part of a collection. Disabled if you are already viewing the whole collection.
• Theme - change color theme. Presently the only themes supported are those built into Flash user-interface components by default.
• Slideshow - displays slideshow options.
  • Interval seconds: time between photos.
  • Display folder titles: if unchecked, only the photos contained in the folders will be displayed.
  • All folders - displays the whole collection starting at the beginning, then repeats.
  • Open folders - displays photos only from already open folders, then repeats.
  • Selected folder - displays photos from presently selected folder, then repeats.
  • NOTE: you can't switch views in the middle of a slideshow, so start it in the view of choice.
• After slideshow is started, you can pause / continue, or stop it. While paused, you can poke around any part of the collection without influencing what happens when the slideshow continues.
• Transitions - effects to apply when photo changes. See section on transitions for details.
• Help - displays usage tips.

Note: the original-quirky control panel is no longer documented, since it lacks features, and is still around mostly for sentimental reasons / nostalgia.

 

Transitions Form

Transitions are special effects to apply when photo changes from one to another.

'Out' means photo on its way out, 'In' means photo on its way in. You can apply effects to either or both, in the latter case the effects will overlap.

Type:

- None: no transition, all other items ignored.

- Random: random types (except 'Photo' - because it annoys me) will be cycled through. All required parameters affect all transition types. Optional parameters will apply when relevant to the type.

- Other: Some types have one or two optional parameters, see table below.

Required

- Duration in seconds - how long the effect takes to complete.

- Easing - how sharp the transition is at the beginning and towards the end.

Optional (depends on Type)

NOTE: param 1 & param 2 are case sensitive and must be typed exactly.

Type	param name	param value(s)	param name	param value(s)
Iris	startPoint	Top Left, Top Center, Top Right, Left Center, Center, Right Center, Bottom Left, Bottom Center, Bottom Right	shape	CIRCLE, SQUARE
Wipe	startPoint	Top Left, Top Center, Top Right, Left Center, Right Center, Bottom Left, Bottom Center, Bottom Right
Pixel Dissolve	xSections	1-50	ySections	1-50
Blinds	numStrips	1-50	dimension	Vertical, Horizontal
Fade	N/A
Fly		Top Left, Top Center, Top Right, Left Center, Right Center, Bottom Left, Bottom Center, Bottom Right
Zoom	N/A
Squeeze	dimension	Vertical, Horizontal
Rotate	ccw	true, false	degrees	1-9999
Photo	N/A

 

 

Main-View

• Photo Tree / Folder Panel
  • Click on the triangles to open / close folders.
  • Click on a folder name to select folder to view.
  • Click on a photo name to select photo to view.
  • After clicking in the photo tree, the keyboard buttons function as follows:
    • down / up arrow: next / previous sibling node
    • right / left arrow: open / close folder
• Thumbnail Pane
  • Click on a thumbnail to select photo to view.

• Photo image - clicking anywhere on the main photo image will also switch to full-screen view.

Full-screen View

The hot tip for full-screen view is to also use the full-screen mode of your browser. To do that, on most browsers, select 'View' from the main menu bar at the top, then 'Full Screen'.

If you started in full-screen view, don't forget to switch to the main view where you can see other photo folders.

• Photo image - clicking anywhere on the photo image will also switch to main view.

Optimal Usage

When a folder is first opened, all views of all photos begin to download. Whenever you select a photo to view, it will become top priority if not already completed downloading. When you switch folders the photos from the previously opened folder are unloaded. Thus, it is most efficient to view the photos from one folder before moving on to the next folder. Also, you may have a greater chance for instant gratification if you view the photos in a folder sequentially starting at the beginning, rather than jumping around, at least until all photos in the folder are downloaded.

Also, photos are often sized with room to grow, so maximize your browser for best results, especially in full-screen mode.

 

In Case of Problems

If you are having any problems with WebPhotoBrowser, I would appreciate knowing about it. In fact, I would appreciate knowing anything about your experience with this application, including suggestions for improvement, or to lavish praise upon me for doing such a bang-up job.

Step 1: Make sure the URL used to access WebPhotoBrowser is correct.

Assuming the URL used to access WebPhotoBrowser is correct, the most frequent cause of problems are these:

• Flash Player is not latest version, or flash player is not installed - download the latest Adobe Flash Player for your browser(s) - free.
• Your browser is fetching a cached version of WebPhotoBrowser file(s) - clear your browser cache.

If these actions do not remedy the problem, please report problem. Built-in to all my Flash applications and components is a debug window that pops up when the application detects a problem. It contains useful information for troubleshooting and offers a link to report the problem by email to the developer and/or webmaster of the site. If this window has popped up please follow instructions there for reporting the problem, otherwise please report problem to me.

 

*** There is additional information on the Photooey Main Page.

 

Feedback

I would love to know what you think about WebPhotoBrowser.

Please contact me and tell me what you think!