{"id":287,"date":"2020-02-08T17:19:22","date_gmt":"2020-02-09T01:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/?p=287"},"modified":"2020-02-09T10:52:48","modified_gmt":"2020-02-09T18:52:48","slug":"web-galleries-keeping-up-with-the-ejoneses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/2020\/02\/08\/web-galleries-keeping-up-with-the-ejoneses\/","title":{"rendered":"Web galleries: keeping up with the eJoneses"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been using the Internet since before the World Wide Web provided a graphical way to see content, and it’s been a wild ride.\u00a0 As a photographer, the changes have been exciting, but also tedious<\/strong>:\u00a0 days or weeks pulling together web galleries using current best practices with popular tools have only paid off for a year or two, after which best practices change, my tools are no longer supported, and I need to start over entirely.<\/p>\n

Sharing images on the web is easy; doing it on your own site in a way that is time-proof is not.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let me show you how far we have come!\u00a0 I’ll display the index pages (the overview of the gallery contents) from my past triumphs, as I shop around for my next tools.<\/p>\n

\"Tuolumne
Index page of my then-web-host’s fancy new gallery tool!<\/em><\/span>
This is… pretty terrible as a gallery index, really.\u00a0 But it was cutting edge <\/span>for that moment<\/em>!\u00a0 It did have basic functionality – clicking an image would take you to a single-image page, and allow you to click forward or backward in the sequence.\u00a0 But…\u00a0 it’s not attractive.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The same host offered an update later:<\/p>\n

\"Web
My Lassen National Park images in a gallery my web host provided as their second try<\/em><\/span>
Look – now there is a frame!\u00a0 OOOOH!\u00a0 A step forward.\u00a0 But not enough to draw anyone in.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I couldn’t take that look anymore, I finally found something I liked, and paid money for it:<\/p>\n

\"iView
One of my landscape photo galleries created with iView Media Pro<\/span><\/em>
This was a BIG step forward, with fancy drop shadows for the containers.\u00a0 It is SNAPPY!\u00a0 Behind this gallery generator was a REAL DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT PLATFORM, with a keyworded database, and real organization functions.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was purchased by one of the big tech companies (which rhymes with zicrosoft) and SHUT DOWN.\u00a0 I was crushed, because my database building work wasn’t portable to a new solution.<\/p>\n

Next up is what my site is largely based on now:<\/p>\n

\"Recent
aegraves.com jAlbum gallery<\/em><\/span>
It’s nice. It really is. HOWEVER, because I generated and modified these galleries with the newest version of the tool before I admitted mobile was a thing<\/strong>, the galleries just doesn’t work as well on mobile, and so I’ll need to do all of the galleries with a newer version of the same tool, AND add my custom HTML all over again.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m unsure it’s worth it, unless I also want to replace all of the content. (And I don’t really want to do that, because exclusivity provisions mean that content I post on my site won’t be accepted anywhere else.)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This particular WordPress site makes sharing galleries within WordPress easier with FooBox<\/strong>, which is a professional-looking tool for use here.\u00a0 \u00a0(You can see FooBox galleries in most of my other posts here.) FooBox still requires metadata which I should have on a digital asset platform (titles, alternative text for the visually impaired, captions, descriptions, file names, and all that good stuff)<\/span>, which means that posting properly<\/em> is still effort (for which I should totally have an assistant!).<\/p>\n

I’ve been comparing potential new tools today that might work with my current organizational scheme, and just thinking about this is effort.<\/p>\n

I’m sharing this just in case your fantasy version of being a photographer involved SEAMLESS sharing on the web with no effort.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been using the Internet since before the World Wide Web provided a graphical way to see content, and it’s been a wild ride.\u00a0 As a photographer, the changes have been exciting, but also tedious:\u00a0 days or weeks pulling together web galleries using current best practices with popular tools have only paid off for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":292,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,10],"tags":[36],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photography-general","category-world-wide-web","tag-software","entry","fw-tab-6 fw-tabr-4","has-featured-image"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Screen-Shot-2020-02-08-at-4.56.36-PM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301,"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions\/301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}