Installed and Clueless After 24 Hours of Trying to Decipeher

[ausoleil]

Quite honestly, I am lost with EE.

I have installed EE successfully, it runs, and the path editor reports that all is well. I've read every word of the web site, the FAQ, the install instructions until my eyes are about to bleed, and cannot for the life of me get this thing to come all together. It's not like I can't manage the computer side, short of ripping open the PHP code and mapping the logic flow, I cannot find a set of instructions that tells me what to do once everything is apparently ready to go. All we need is this:

take photo foo.jpg

and follow through the flow with example names.

If I cannot figure this out, I can't even begin to ask nyone in my photogroup to do it. They love cameras, not computers.

Unless I am an idiot, which is entirely likely. :)

Questions:

1. I gather from reading this that I need to make thumbs and microthumbs for a given photo, foo.jpg. Sure, I can use Photoshop, but then the issue becomes complex:

1a.: Where in the world does the fully sized photo go? The default folder?

1b.: What does one name a thumb and a microthumb so that they are linked to foo.jpg? Does a thumb need tn_foo.jpg? Microthumbs need mtn_foo.jpg? Does it matter?

2. Am I supposed to simply have a dump where are all of these elements go, and rely upon some memnomic naming system to keep exhibitions separate (messy file hygiene), or can I have a set of separate path setup for each separate exhibition?

Or is it magic?

[Pekka]

ausoleil wrote:
Quite honestly, I am lost with EE.
I cannot find a set of instructions that tells me what to do once everything is apparently ready to go.

Hi,

Sorry to hear your baffled.

There is a FAQ in EE editor (editor can be accessed by http://yoursite.com/yourgallery/editor) and you should rename the editor folder to something personal so that no one else finds it.

EE 1.3RC has online help for each editor item.

1. I gather from reading this that I need to make thumbs and microthumbs for a given photo, foo.jpg. Sure, I can use Photoshop, but then the issue becomes complex:

1a.: Where in the world does the fully sized photo go? The default folder?

The answer to this (and reason to your apparent whattodonow state) is that EE was designed to be a system that allows user to decide where to put photos and how to distribute them accross servers and how exhibitions serve photos. The principle is that thumbs and microthumbs are to be on the same server EE is in and the big photos can be virtually anywhere.

But many forget (and I forget to stress) that all this freedom does not mean you have to use it.

You can well build all your galleries into a simple folder structure

thumbs
microthumbs
big
small

and keep that structure as long as you like, for several galleries. Only thoretical limit to force you to make more folders is file name overlap (you can't have two identical filenames in same folder - you can get round this by renaming of course) and in some systems folder size limit. Also, adding photos may be a bit more tedious as you may have to view a lot of photos to add just one.


1b.: What does one name a thumb and a microthumb so that they are linked to foo.jpg? Does a thumb need tn_foo.jpg? Microthumbs need mtn_foo.jpg? Does it matter?

One photo in database has only one filename. So for one photo thumb, microthumb, big, small the filename is exactly the same.

2. Am I supposed to simply have a dump where are all of these elements go, and rely upon some memnomic naming system to keep exhibitions separate (messy file hygiene), or can I have a set of separate path setup for each separate exhibition?

See 1a. And yes, you can choose to have a separate folder system for each exhibition, like

dogs
thumbs
microthumbs
big
small

granny
thumbs
microthumbs
big
small

maserati
thumbs
microthumbs
big
small

Or is it magic?


No, just different thinking... :)

[ausoleil]

Pekka,

Thanks ever so much for your reply. I spent the weekend cleaning up the mess from the Microsoft SQL virus (not my systems, but flooded routers and firewalls were killing our connectivity) and am getting back to EE now. I'm quite impressed with the system so far and I am sure once I get through your help and hints that we'll have our exhibitions up shortly.