DigitalSandbox

So a while back (like when I got this site up and running) I made a few promises that have, so far, gone unkept. I would like to say that this is is not my fault. That I have been very busy between family, work (both the job and the business), and school. I would like to say that but the truth is that I have had some time, but, of course, any time I get is foolishly squandered on candy (no, wait that’s money).

Yes, I am afraid that I have neglected this site’s reason for being. This site was created to be my playground (hence the name). A place where I could try new ideas and techniques to hone my web developer skills. I have utterly failed to do any of this. I have left my little site feeling unfulfilled and bereft of purpose.

But today is a new day and new days are about new beginnings. I will now begin to implement some of those things that I wanted to add to this site. Namely, an original design and a photo gallery. Once those are in place, I may add more, we’ll see how it goes.

Now don’t get too excited there. I haven’t started these projects yet (other than the pencil and paper planning) so it will be a while before I have much to show. But I will be working on them. I just thought you might like to know, that’s all. And I wanted to get some ideas out there to see if I get any feedback on them.

Here are some ideas for the photo gallery that I will be implementing. I have decided, after some deliberation, that I am going to “roll my own” gallery. This is primarily because I want to learn to program web apps adn this seems as good a place to start as any. Also, I could not find a web gallery program that had the blend of features I am looking for. “What features are those,” you ask. Well, read on and I’ll tell you.

Currently I use my .Mac account to display my photos. I do this for a couple of reasons:

1. I like the tight integration with iPhoto. All I have to do is create an album and hit a button and it pretty much takes over from there. None of the current galleries were designed with iPhoto in mind. Some people have created iPhoto plugins (link, link) to hook into these programs, but they just don’t feel polished and Mac-like to me.
2. I like the creative layouts that are available with the fun frames and such. Many of the gallery programs available offer bland templates (all the same with different colors) with no frames or really creative layouts. Sure that could be fixed by creating my own, but their other shortcomings (see above for one) leave me less than inclined to remedy the situation myself.

What I don’t like about .Mac and hope to fix with my program, is the lack of flexibility. No cutomizable templates, no dynamic photo albums, no searching, no option to see EXIF info, among other limitations.

So here is what I’m thinking for the web gallery. Some of these ideas may have to wait initially, but I hope to be able to deliver them all eventually. I do plan to roll this out to the Internet at large when it is done, so if there is a particular feature you would like to see, please feel free to comment.

• Direct export from from iPhoto. Somthing similar to BetterHTMLExport but it will upload it to your site automatically.
• CSS layouts for the albums so that you can create custom layouts for your site or for special occasions. But these will be nice layouts that offer .Mac-like features such as picture borders.
• Ability to search the database for a particular photo.
• Ability to create dynamic albums (Smart Albums in iPhoto).
• And other features (I don’t want to give too much away just yet).

Most of you probably won’t care, but I felt that I needed to share anyway. Hopefully, someone will think this might be a good idea besides myself. Either way, this will be a learning experience for me and I hope it will be fun, too. Since this is really my first attempt at programming a web app I am probably in over my head. But that’s okay, sometimes the best way to learn to swim is to jump in the deep end of the pool.

So that’s what I will be up to in the days and weeks and months to come. Like I said, don’t expect any of these too soon, but I think that I should be able to get the redesign up in a week or two (maybe three). You’ll just have to wait on the photo gallery. Can anybody think of a creative name for this gallery idea? All I have so far are lame rip-offs of iPhoto or worse.