Understanding Files and Directories
Loading Pictures into Album Jet
Using Drag and Drop from other
applications
Album Jet is designed to make sharing pictures on a web site easy, without altering or affecting the original pictures so that they may be saved for the future. Most pictures taken with a digital camera are much too large to be shared effectively with friends or family. The files take too long to download and are too large for the viewer’s computer screen.
Album Jet creates a gallery of pictures in a target directory, which is defined as different as the source of the pictures. Pictures from various source directories can be stored into the same gallery. Also, the same picture can be placed into several galleries. When placed in several galleries, a small manageable copy of the picture is stored in each gallery while only one original remains on your hard drive.
The gallery directory is shown right above the gallery window. The user can select this directory by pressing the “Destination” button. When a picture is added to this gallery (see section 2) two files will be created in the gallery directory. The first will be a tiny thumbnail file, and the second will be a size-adjusted file, which will be resized for effective viewing on a computer screen.
A particular gallery can be saved (and re-opened later) using the File Menu. When you save a gallery, you are saving the list of pictures in the gallery, the captions for those pictures, the order in which they will be shown and the particular output preferences that you set. You are NOT saving the pictures at that time. The thumbnail and size adjusted pictures are saved when you add them to the gallery. The original pictures do not need to be saved because they are never altered.
There are two ways to get your pictures into an Album Jet gallery.
On the right side of the Album Jet window is a directory tree. Any .gif or .jpg file can be added to the gallery by selecting the files –multi selection of files is supported- and clicking the “Move Selected Pictures”. The pictures will show up in the gallery windows, and the thumbnail and size adjusted pictures will be saved in the destination directory.
Files can be dragged and dropped into the gallery from Windows Explorer applications and from most photo handling and editing programs provided with digital camera. Multi selection and dragging is supported.
Album Jet is not an image editor. However, double clicking a file in the directory tree will open the image in your favorite editing program. Select you preferred editor under Tools>Select a Photo Editor. Editing an image will not affect any images in Album Jet until the original is imported into Album Jet using the Move Selected Pictures Button, or by drag and drop from another file program.
Once pictures are in the gallery, various options are available to customize the web album.
Photos can be moved into any order. Drag any photo onto the top of any other photo and the order of the photos will be adjusted accordingly. Multi selection is supported for sorting. When a sort takes place, all selected photos will be moved in front of or behind the photo that was dropped on.
Drag a photo to the trashcan above the right side of the gallery window. Multiple selection for deletion is supported. When deleting from a gallery, the picture is removed for placement into the ultimate album. NO PICTURES are deleted from your hard drive. All photos will remain in tact.
To rotate images into the proper orientation, press the CW and CCW buttons above the gallery, which will rotate ALL selected images clockwise or counter-clockwise depending on the button pushed. ONLY the images used by Album Jet will be oriented. The original images will be untouched.
Captions can be placed into the text boxes adjacent to each picture. There is no limit on the length of captions. Double clicking the caption box will bring up a larger caption box to make it easy to add a full story to each picture. Short one line captions (less than 75 characters) will be centered under the picture when you make the gallery. Longer captions will be left aligned under the picture to make them easier to read.
Using the File menu, the gallery can be saved and opened, and a new gallery can be created. When you save a gallery, you are saving the list of pictures in the gallery, the captions for those pictures, the order in which they will be shown and the particular output preferences that you set. You are NOT saving the pictures at that time. The thumbnail and size adjusted pictures are saved when you add them to the gallery. The original pictures do not need to be saved because they are never altered.
Pressing the “Make the Gallery” button will create a web album in the destination directory. An index page will be created which will show small images of all your pictures on one page. This index page will be linked to individual pages, which are created for each picture. The entire destination folder can be viewed by pressing the “View Folder” button. The index page can be viewed by simply pressing the “View the Index” button.
Anyone with internet access these days has many megabytes allowed to them by their provider to store web pages. Using this space is simple with Album Jet. Once your gallery is made, the Send to FTP button will active. Press this button and the FTP page will open. You need to enter some information about your site and you will be on your way. This information can be provided under your internet provider’s technical support page on the internet. Some of the values for the more popular services is provided here:
COMCAST:
Server: upload.comcast.net
User: Your email user name (everything before the @Comcast.net)
Password: Your email password
Leave the transfer settings as they default to.
Once you enter your information, press CONNECT. (Make sure that you are on-line)
You will connect to your private space on the internet. You can make folders, add files, delete files as you wish.
For each gallery you upload, it is a good idea to create a directory in your space
Press Create a Directory and then name your directory
Now double click the directory in the directory tree.
You are now ready to upload. Press the Upload Gallery button and your files will be sent to your new web page
When finished, press disconnect and go back to the Album Jet main screen.
Anyone can now see your pictures one the web using the http address you get from tech support of your provider, or use the examples below for some major providers.
For these examples, assume your username is “spiderrico” and you placed your album in a directory called “vacation”
COMCAST:
http://home.comcast.net/~spiderrico/vacation/index.htm
NOTE: this is case sensitive, so watch your use of lower and upper case, remember there is no www in this address, and remember to use the “~” which is the key to the left of the “1” key!