Custom HTML Galleries in PM 4.5

[jimb]

I'm trying to get a handle on the web galleries customization that is provided in this version.

I'm fairly adept at HTML and building/modifying websites using tools like Dreamweaver, so I was hoping for HTML templates using tokens for generation of variable data, a technique commonly utilized in other applications. Unfortunately, best as I can tell, in PM 4.5 this process depends on Ruby, a rather complex programming language. It appears that to create or modify a gallery template requires the user to write or modify a lengthy and sophisticated Ruby program which would entail all the usual programming stuff like testing, debugging, deployment, etc.

Being a professional photographer, learning a programming language and subsequently developing a piece of software to generate web galleries is not high on my list of things to do. Even assuming I wanted to make this effort, where is the development/testing environment in PM 4.5? In other words, how would I even start to begin go about doing this in the PM framework?

On a personal note, this area is a big disappointment in what's otherwise a very fine upgrade to the product. I can see where use of a language like Ruby might help the PM developers produce HTML templates, but to shift this burden to the users who are typically photographers, not programmers, doesn't make a lot of sense on the surface.

On a related minor note, the press release refers to the "EOS Template" as an example of a 3rd-party template, but a visit to their website doesn't show any references to PM. Is that because of the beta status?

Kirk, some clarification/insight into this area of PM 4.5 would be appreciated, especially if my assumptions about this are incorrect. Thanks.

[Kirk Baker]

I'm trying to get a handle on the web galleries customization that is provided in this version.

I'm fairly adept at HTML and building/modifying websites using tools like Dreamweaver, so I was hoping for HTML templates using tokens for generation of variable data, a technique commonly utilized in other applications. Unfortunately, best as I can tell, in PM 4.5 this process depends on Ruby, a rather complex programming language. It appears that to create or modify a gallery template requires the user to write or modify a lengthy and sophisticated Ruby program which would entail all the usual programming stuff like testing, debugging, deployment, etc.

Being a professional photographer, learning a programming language and subsequently developing a piece of software to generate web galleries is not high on my list of things to do. Even assuming I wanted to make this effort, where is the development/testing environment in PM 4.5? In other words, how would I even start to begin go about doing this in the PM framework?

On a personal note, this area is a big disappointment in what's otherwise a very fine upgrade to the product. I can see where use of a language like Ruby might help the PM developers produce HTML templates, but to shift this burden to the users who are typically photographers, not programmers, doesn't make a lot of sense on the surface.

On a related minor note, the press release refers to the "EOS Template" as an example of a 3rd-party template, but a visit to their website doesn't show any references to PM. Is that because of the beta status?

Kirk, some clarification/insight into this area of PM 4.5 would be appreciated, especially if my assumptions about this are incorrect. Thanks.

No, your assumptions are correct.  The HTML template capability we offer is quite advanced over just about any other HTML exporter type of system available anywhere else.  Because Ruby is used, each template can have it's own UI, very capable control over metadata, text manipulation, etc.  Doing what you're requesting to be able to do would just be a matter of us creating a template that would pull in your files, replace tokens ({variables}) and output the resulting files.

Maybe if you explained how some other systems that you like work, then we could provide a similar system for handling generic HTML templates.  Of course there would be limits to what could be done with a generic system such as you describe.

-Kirk