[GreenKeys] off-topic -- some camera pics, and web design photo-album question

[gil smith]

Hi folks:

For the photography folks on the list (and there were more than I 
expected), an update.  I also have an HTML/web-deign question for 
anyone who might know, see below.  If anybody has an answer, it will 
help me get tty machine pics up on baudot.net -- see this isn't 
really off-topic at all.

I had decent luck with my new 200mm lens last weekend -- shot both a 
soccer game and a gym meet.  I did miss having zoom capability when 
the action got closer, but the stock zoom was only f5.6, and this 
tele lens is f2.8, which let me drop ISO and get rid of most color 
noise (and also blur out the background).

If you are interested, I put a few example gym pics up at:
http://www.baudot.net/gil/misc/
There is no html so it is just right-click/save.
The "penguin meet was using the 135mm/f5.6 zoom, at ISO 12800.
The "twisted meet" shots used the 200mm/f2.8 telephoto at ISO 3200.
These gym shots are really tricky to get, but they are getting better.

So a web question comes to mind:  is there some simple HTML code (or 
maybe it needs java or something) which will display clickable 
thumbnails of any number of pics dropped into a folder?   I am 
thinking of something generic, which does not need to be edited at 
all (except maybe to define the thumbnail size) -- create a folder on 
the web server, drop in the magic code, and drop in any number of 
pics.  Then when you go to that web folder, it displays an album of 
thumbnails, which can be clicked to show the full-size images.  Would 
be even better if you could add a caption (eg:  same filename as the 
photo with a .txt extension), and it would display this below or 
beside the thumbnail.

This would be awesome, as I could very quickly get baudot.net 
up-to-date with the many machine pics I have been 
collecting.  Editing the html is such a pain-in-the-ass, and is the 
reason that I have not updated the site in years.

And I have never found a wysiwyg web editor that was worth a 
crap.  They all seem to require that you build and maintain the web 
site in their proprietary format, the import capabilities are usually 
limited, and they all seem to rely heavily on the very latest browser 
features (which not everyone has), scripting capabilities, 
microsoft-specific extensions, or awful flash.  I'd just like to be 
able to just select the web features I'd like for the 
site:  html-level-5 (or whatever), javascript or java if needed, no 
microsoft special stuff, support for all popular browsers, and 
definitely no flash -- then start building the web site.

Boy, if I could just ftp photos and caption description files (in any 
quantity) into a folder, and have the page display automatically, it 
would be incredibly fast to update baudot.net when I get new machine 
pics.  I am sure this is well within the capabilities of today's web 
coding, and I have seen some tools for building photo albums, but 
they all seem geared to a full website, and they NEVER seem to 
provide caption capability, beyond maybe displaying the filename.  Why is that?

Am I the only one in the world who would like to add a sentence or 
two beside their pictures?  I'd like to keep the photo album specific 
to just a folder, so the main part of the site can be designed as 
needed, and different photo album pages can be linked as needed (eg: 
M15, M28...).  I can't imagine that I am the only one in the world 
who would like this.  Any suggestions appreciated.

thanks again for your help,

gil





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