Matt Pyke

Matt Pyke

Joomla, Zoom, Gallery2

Link to work with tomorrow
Image gallery

This is nice, I actually feel like a designer again, not stuggling with the PHP code. I'm sure there must be something wrong with these bits of software. But it's good to be able to get working on the asthetics and interface of the design. The existing templates are OK, nothing really exciting from what I've seen but I'm working on my own designs based on the gallery idea. Again this will be using a combination of CSS, Javascript, Flash(?) maybe a little PHP. I managed to upload a version of this Blog template. The PHP links were messed up but that's easily fixable. I also need to test how easy it is for people to log in and upload content.

Also manged to install the Zoom image gallery extension which I'm going to try out tomorrow.

script.aculo.us

Nice bit of JavaScript
script.aculo.us
Demo page

Solutions

Finally got a solution to the PHP problem. At the moment I'm not enjoying the PHP coding aspect of the site. I understand the principals but always seem to hit some problem that should be easy to fix, but I can't. It means I waste time when I want to work on the actual design and interface of the site, not all the coding behind the site. That needs to be passed onto someone with more experience. I understand Ian's argument that you need to understand how the coding works but I am not enjoying it.
Last week I worked through this tutorial Image Gallery A detailed tutorial that covered a lot of PHP/ MySQL (Fun,fun,fun) MySQL is a complete arse and would't work through my webhost.

So I'm going for a ready made PHP template that I can adjust. Basically a combination of a Content Managment System such as Joomla and image gallery such as Gallery 2 will give me enough freedom to alter the PHP code and design the site using CSS/HTML/JavaScript. This rather badly designed site shows what is possible [Space]

I'll design a CSS/HTML/Flash/JavaScript frontend to the site and link to a rough working version of the image gallery space. This is definelty the way forward at the moment to gt a working version of the MA site up in the next six weeks. I'll also try to develop PHP/MySql coding over the next year if necessary.

PicTaps

PicTaps

MOMA

Another image.

Something Visual

Ideas for the MA website are getting there.

Tutorial work, ideas, stuff

So the Processing work is not online yet. A slight problem with embedding the Applet in the webpage and uploading it. It works fine as a preview page, so that will do for the moment. It must work if the preview does, going to leave that for now and concentrate on the overall design.

Kevin Lucks Flickr API, Flashr, looks the easiest way to grab images from Flickr. When I say easy it's easy in theory and there's a couple of tutorials about it. In practice it's a little different but once I get it working it will give me a litte more flexibility than the PHP API I looked at before Christmas.

Put simply Flashr grabs the images from Flickr and I can skin a Flash page over the top, you could use tags, user ID, last photos etc. Just like this
Self Portrait

The idea is that through ten computers in the gallery itself and through the Pace/MacGill website people can search through the thousands of photographs on flickr tagged with "selfportrait"” and can choose the ones they like best to add to the gallery's favourites. This enables members of the public to act as curators for an exhibition in a major New York gallery

or this
Findr

At this stage Flashr I think be used as part of the search engine in the second part of the site. It may even work in combination with Processing. There is a tutorial in this months Web Designer magazine that would allow me to create a Flash based portfolio for each person who upload workInitiallyaly this could be run through Flickr, Flickr would just act as a database. The Flash skin can look however I want it to. It would be a way of stripping away the Flickr interface but still make use of all there background stuff that makes Flickr run (tags, image searching, storing images etc)