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#1 2008-03-26 00:28:15
- daikw
- Member
- Registered: 2007-10-06
- Posts: 39
Clean, client-maintained gallery & lightbox
I am building a portfolio site for an artist friend. I have sketched the layout I would like and am now trying to figure out the best way to do it. This is only my second text pattern site, so I would appreciate it if any replies were put into “layman’s terms” as much as possible!
Explanation:
The main page of the site will be a thumbnail gallery.
The thumbs will be organized into sets. Each set will have a title and will be arranged in rows with a vertical gap between each group.
When a user clicks on a thumbnail, the enlarged image will appear via a lightbox. I could use bas_lighbox for this, but I would prefer something even simpler, like they have used here
I want the look and feel of the site will be quite similar to this example. i.e. there are no borders around the thumbs. (I would also like it if the thumbnails could be a fixed size in just a single dimension, e.g. 60 pixels wide by Y pixels accross. although if this is too complicated I will make do with fixed size thumbnails!)
The artist needs to be able to manage the site himself. Which means it needs to be simple to upload new images and organize them into sets.
I have tried playing around with ZenPhoto, but have found it is not apparently obvious how to create themes from scratch, as the ones provided on their website are not really suitable as they are covered in branding, or stylistic elements that I don’t like.
Could someone lend me a hand getting started creating this layout?
My guess is that I need to take a gallery plugin and customize it to produce this layout. Then, slap bas_lightbox on top. The process has to be straightforward though, cos I’m no txp virtuoso yet!
If there is a simpler, non txp way to do this, I would be interested to hear about that too.
Thanks in advance.
Last edited by daikw (2008-03-26 00:38:06)
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#2 2008-04-04 21:07:22
- joana
- Member
- Registered: 2005-09-16
- Posts: 11
Re: Clean, client-maintained gallery & lightbox
I’m interested to see if anybody is gonna help you with this, because I just found myself in the exact same situation: building a portfolio for an artist who wants to be able to update his own website, and I would very much like to use Lightbox as well…
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Re: Clean, client-maintained gallery & lightbox
Hello there, sorry I missed this post first time around. But it’s all go this evening on the gallery front!
At the expense of hooting my own trumpet, I would consider smd_gallery for this task. For the following reasons:
- It can use any lightbox effect (and more) that you wish. If you want a simple one, pick a simple one and put it on the page. Once the site logic is worked out, it’s very simple to change the effect if you wish at a later date
- It can pull pictures from many categories at once, and categories can be dictated using any fields in an article or can even be based on parts of the article itself (its section, category, title, etc)
- It can take advantage of sub-categories. Thus the artist can upload images to the database in the usual manner, assign the images a category and the front-side will automatically add it to the gallery if it’s already used, or is a child of one that’s already used
- It’s flexible insofar as you could (if the artist wants to work this way) make one article per gallery — in which case, multiple sets can be show on the same page via use of a standard article_list page — or make one article handle all galleries, effectively telling the plugin to split them by category and add headings above each one
- It has the ability to scale thumbnails in one dimension only
- It’s all kept in one plugin (plus your chosen lightbox effect of course)
The downside is that it can appear daunting at first because it’s very customisable. But that’s what I’m here for :-) If you want a hand setting it up or some pointers, please feel free to give me a shout either via e-mail or on the forum.
Last edited by Bloke (2008-04-04 21:27:33)
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#4 2008-04-09 21:28:07
- joana
- Member
- Registered: 2005-09-16
- Posts: 11
Re: Clean, client-maintained gallery & lightbox
Thank you for the suggestion, I might give it try and maybe even ask for help… (well, you said we could! ;)
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#5 2008-04-10 21:56:20
- daikw
- Member
- Registered: 2007-10-06
- Posts: 39
Re: Clean, client-maintained gallery & lightbox
Yes Bloke, thank you very much. I will get cracking and may get in touch if I have any specific issues. Thanks again!
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