TTG Auto Index
TTG Auto Index automatically generates an album index, a table of contents, for your Lightroom web photo galleries. You add a gallery, the index adds an entry automatically. It’s magic PHP.
Note: This is the standalone version of TTG Auto Index. TTG Pages already incorporates its own auto index. If you are using TTG Pages, and only wish to have a single gallery index, it is unnecessary to purchase this standalone version. However, if you are using TTG Pages and would like to create multiple indices, or sub-indices to better organize your image galleries, then TTG Auto Index can help.
TTG Auto Index
About Your Purchase
Upon purchasing TTG Auto Index, you will receive a download URL valid for nine uses or 352 days (1 year) — whichever comes first. After nine uses or one year, your URL will expire and a new purchase will be necessary to continue with updates. Gallery updates will always be available from that same URL. Thus, the URL can be used for the initial download, plus eight updates within a year of your purchase. Be sure to save your URL in a safe place, as it cannot be retrieved if lost. If you have trouble receiving your URL after purchase, please ensure 1) that your payment has cleared with PayPal, and 2) that messages from E-Junkie.com are not being caught in your spam filter.
System Requirements
TTG Auto Index is written in Lua. It requires Lightroom 2.4 or higher, and a web server running PHP. Updates are automatic. Coding experience is not necessary.
Recommended server specs: A Linux web server running Apache, PHP 5 or higher with Glob function support.
Setting Up Your Album Index
Select a handful of images from the Lightroom Library module. Which images aren’t important; ultimately, they won’t be a part of your album index. You’ll just be using them as visual representations while styling your gallery. With images chosen, move to the Web module and select the TTG Auto Index from the Galleries list.
Configure the album index’s appearance to your liking and hit the Export button. Export the gallery to your desktop.
Upload the exported folder to your web server using an FTP client.
Adding Galleries
TTG Auto Index will automatically detect supported gallery types residing in the album index’s folder on your web server. To add a gallery to the index, simply upload a supported web gallery to the index’s folder on your server using an FTP client, or export the gallery directly from the Web module to your server using Lightroom’s inbuilt Upload feature.
Manually Adding Items
TTG Auto Index is not limited to indexing supported gallery types, however. Other galleries, or any other type of media, can be added to the album index manually.
The album index will create entries for any sub-folder containing an autoindex.xml file. The file can be empty, just so long as it exists. To make the most of the index, however, the XML file accepts the following information:
<album>
<thumbnail>Path to thumbnail image</thumbnail>
<title>Album Title</title>
<description>Album Description</description>
<url>Path to content</url>
</album>
The autoindex.xml file can be created manually using a text editor, or can be created using Lightroom with TTG XML Maker.
To better understand how to use the XML file, see Index Behavior, below.
Index Behavior
To make the most of TTG Auto Index, advanced users may want to know exactly how it works.
The album index runs from the index.php file. When loaded into the browser, the page includes the head.html and header.html files. Page headers may be customized by editing the header.html file. Do not edit the index.php file, or you may forfeit its functionality.
On load, the album index searches through all of its sub-folders to a depth of one level. For each folder in which it finds an autoindex.xml file, it will create an album entry. The autoindex.xml file can be completely empty, or can be filled out as shown above, just so long as it exists. If the file is found, the album entry will be created according to the following guidelines:
1) If a thumbnail image is specified, that thumbnail will be displayed. If no thumbnail is specified, the album index will select an image at random from the thumbnails folder contained within that sub-folder. If no thumbnails exist, the album item will display the default thumbnail image.
The thumbnail path should be written relative to the gallery root, usually “thumbnails/filename.jpg”.
2) If a title is specified, that title will be displayed. If no title is specified, the album item will display the text “No Title”.
3) If a description is specified, that description will be displayed. If no description is specified, the album item will display the text “No Description”.
4) If a relative or absolute URL is specified, the album entry will link to that URL. If no URL is specified, the album entry will default to the sub-directory. The browser will serve index.html or index.php by default. If no URL is specified, and no index file exists, the album entry will probably lead to a Page Not Found error.
Reversing Album Order
By default, albums will be listed in numeric-alpha order, normal behavior for files listed in a folder. This order can be reversed by opening the index.php folder and changing the boolean value on line 15.
Changelog
- v3.2 ( in development )
- Compatibility improvements to the gallery index PHP script.
- Updated Shadowbox JS to 3.0rc1.
- v3.1 (2009-09-26)
- Implemented Shadowbox support.
- Changed font-stack preferences.
- v3.0 (2009-09-13)
- Redeveloped to match and compliment TTG Pages.
- No longer produces index.html on export; no need to edit the folder contents after export.
- v2.11 (2009-06-13)
- Fixed spacing issue for index items, introduced in 2.1.
- v2.1 (2009-06-08)
- Implemented the new TTG header, as seen in TTG Highslide Gallery.
- Default configuration is set at three columns 960px wide — the standard for a single column layout.
- Added capability to view grid measurement.
- Switched to XHTML Strict DOCTYPE.
- Removed hacks for IE6.
- Slight changes to the PHP for improved compatibility.
- Updated architecture to LR SDK 2.0 standards.
- v2.01 (2009-04-15)
- Bug fix for shadowbox.php.
- v2.0 (2009-03-22)
- Name change: TTG Auto Index.
- Optional Shadowbox capability.
- v1.51 (2008-06-27)
- No longer displays “No Title” or “No Description”. When those fields are left blank, the gallery will display nothing. (untested)
- The archive now contains an alternate version of the index.php file, located in the Alternates folder, that might work on servers on which the standard version does not.
- v1.5 (2008-05-05)
- Bug fixes in index.html for IE6 compatibility, for those using the template in static state on non-PHP servers.
- v1.4 (2008-03-22)
- Added footer w/ options.
- ID Plate alignment now selectable.
- v1.3 (2008-03-17)
- Bug fix.
- v1.2 (2008-03-13)
- Bug fix regarding Collection Description sliders.
- v1.1 (2008-03-08)
- A menu! Five customizable menu items + slideshow + contact.
- TTG Auto Index now supports itself, and can be installed into sub-directories where it will be auto-detected by a parent installation of TTG Auto Index, allowing easy use as an index for separate categories.
- Added a Collection Description.
- v1.03 (2008-02-27)
- Index order now reversible using a toggle in the PHP script, line 15.
- Added some PHP error suppression to accomodate unusual server settings that might otherwise produce errors.
- v1.02 (2008-02-19)
- Initial release.
Acknowledgements
TTG Auto Index would not be possible without the excellent PHP written by my good friend Zach Bardon. In addition to his scripting prowess, Zach is also an excellent musician. Give him a listen.
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@reid
Multiple exports is one way of doing it; the other way would simply be to duplicate a single export, then modify the autoindex.xml file for each instance of the index.
But yes, build your folder structure as you would your family tree.
For example, you might have a main index called “Europe”. Inside Europe, you might then have sub-indices for “Italy”, “France” and “Spain”. Inside Italy, you might then have another level of sub-indices for “Firenze”, “Roma” and “Venezia”; inside France, you might have “Paris” and “Canne”, etc.
@Reid
No. I’ve tried mucking about with Highslide thumbnail sizing, and it’s not a pretty scene. I think it’s something best left alone, as it wreaks havoc upon the general slideshow layout when messed with.
@theturninggate
Hello,
in fact, i deleted the link because i’m quite sure that’s the problem is caused by my provider (Free – Illiad) and i think i’ll have to find another to make ttg auto index ok.
Sorry and thank you, i’ll try later
I am using the Auto Index which is included in TTG Pages which I like very much. After a few days of usage there are two things I would like to see added:
- As I prefer to have the most recent galleries on top of the gallery index, I would like to have the ability to sort the galleries by date. Per default the creation date of the gallery, but editable in Lightroom and the generated autoindex.xml.
- The gallery boxes on the gallery index page are rather large and look somewhat empty with only their titles and usually short descriptions. I would like to add some more information there, like the number of pictures in the gallery, or the date, the pictures where taken. So I would like to have the option to add one or two more paragraphs here.
I will try to fix galleryindex.php to suit my needs for the moment, but would be very grateful if these changes would make it into one of the next versions.
Thanks,
Michael
@muentzer
You can order the display of galleries by naming your folders alphabetically or numberically. There is a toggle in the PHP file you can switch to reverse ordering of galleries in the index. See the TTG Auto Index documentation for instructions on how to change this. In your case, you should name your folders by date, i.e. 20091210.
As for the bonus info in the box, not really in the plans right now.
@theturninggate
You are right. I wasn’t aware that folder name and gallery title are not necessarily the same when I wrote this. Obviously I am using TTG Pages only for a few days now
I hope the additional infos in the box will make it into your plans sooner or later, in the meantime I will help myself and put them into the pages manually.
Michael
@muentzer
We’ll see. Because Lightroom cannot work directly with PHP, building such things into the engine is not quite as straightforward as it would seem it should be. Request noted, however, and I will look into the possibilities when I have the time to do so.
@theturninggate
That’s all I’m asking for.
Thanks,
Michael
Is there any other way to format gallery description text?
@Tim
I have Auto Index working now on my test site allowing sub galleries under a single TTG Pages gallery. Is there a way to have more than one top line gallery using Auto Index?
Meaning, at the top of my TTG Pages site I have the standard Home Gallery About Contact, and I would like to try Home Gallery1 Gallery2 Gallery3 About Contact.
Using…
TTG Pages 3.1
TTG Stage
TTG Auto Index
Now I just need to get fancy Victorian frillies worked out. On our home page and in the galleries we want to have something more fancy than the solid picture borders and plain colored backgrounds we can do with Pages and Stage. I thought I saw some comments about this but I can’t find it any more.
We want to frame our pictures and have the background designed somewhat like.
http://www.lisajane.com/index2.php?v=v1
Looks like this may require some magic on my side.
@Tim
Well, that site is Flash, which is built for animations. Image frames are complicated to do in HTML. The background is easy, though; just add it via CSS background commands.
As for the indices in the top menu, just create folders with TTG Auto Index, then add hyperlinks to your menu.
Hello Matthew,
I hope you`re fine !
I just bought TTG Auto Index and shadow box.
Regarding my galleries Index, I still don`t understand how I can change the album titles & descriptions.
Yet, in the Library mode, the title and the caption are filled correctly.
The Web mode doesn`t reflect that, could you help me on this ? Thanks Matthew !
Jules
Hi Jules,
See the first video on this page.
Matt,
I wanted to thank you for all the excellent work you’ve done. From amazing web engines to your tutorials and quick returns of questions.
Thanks so much,
Art
Hello, I have purchased TTG highslide and TTG auto index. I’ve found video tutorials about TTG highslide on this site, but I cannot find any Auto index tutorials, either videos (I see only one) or just a written manual. I am confused with some things, and I cannot find what are they for. Google doesn’t help either. Where can I found TTG Auto index manual?
Thank you.
TTG Auto Index is explained fully above. Specifically, what are you confused about?
Nothing anymore. I didn’t know what some options were, but I have tried to change every one of them to find out. I could not understand what is ‘Global copy settings’ for. The name was a little confusing to me.
Also, is there any way to change the gallery order other than reverse? Alphabetically? Do I have to change gallery names in order to do that?
I assume you are referring to TTG Pages with the Global Copy Settings question? If so, those are settings applied to copy on all pages — Home, Gallery Index, About, Contact — while each page also has page-specific options in subsequent control groups.
Galleries in the gallery index are ordered first in numerical order, than in alphabetical. This is standard computer ordering procedure; the order you see the galleries in Finder or Explorer, is the order they will display on your website. If you want to present them in a specific order, then you need to name the gallery folders accordingly.
No, I’m referring to Global Copy setting available in the Auto Index. It is under ‘Color palette’ options. I was confused with it’s name. What is ‘Global Copy’? English is not my mother language and I was really confused with what that stands for.
You don’t have to reply, I have tried every option and now I know what are they for now. I’d just like if you had more detailed guide like for TTG Highslide, which would say: ‘With this option you change that and that, etc…” It would be a lot easier.
I am using Pages and Auto Index for multiple gallery levels. What I can’t get right are the links. When I type in a link say Home, in the Auto index, it will actually point to whatever is AFTER the main gallery.
Please see my site (all TTG): http://www.avrahamj.com, go into http://www.avrahamj.com/galleries/Brittot/ (all TTG). the Brittot was made with Auto. under that the gallery is simpleviewer done with Stage. the links on top of Brittot do not link right. I tried to type in the full addresse and I tried ../ . both do not work. Thanks…
Hi Avi,
Your sub-index links should be
../../filename.html. Your galleries are than one level deeper, so your links in TTG Stage should be../../../filename.html.Hi Matt,
I changed the thumbnail width and height to 250×250 with an album box height and width of 400×275 in an auto-index page and all looks good in LR but when I view them in FF or IE the thumbnails are too small.
Any ideas what I am doing wrong?
Steve
The thumbnail size in your auto index and in your galleries should match, as the auto index utilizes your galleries’ thumbnails. If you design your auto index around thumbnails 250px in size, then either your galleries need to have thumbnails that are 250px in size, or you need to specify an image that is 250px in size for the gallery index to use.
Makes perfect sense, I should have figured that out.
Thanks Matt!
I have a prototype website mostly working using TTG Page and TTG Auto Index, but I am finding two oddities:
* I was getting “dead” album entries in Auto Index generate indices and it took me a LONG time to determine why — it seems that an Auto Index “Album Title” or “Album Description” field can not contain an apostrophe. You are cautioned by Auto Index within LR’s Web module not to use an ampersand in these fields, but I haven’t seen such a caution anywhere for an apostrophe.
* Clicking on a TTG Pages galleries menu, then clicking on an album which is Auto Index generated (i.e., is itself an album index), and then doing a browser “back” returns you to the website’s (i.e., TTG Pages’) home page, not the galleries page.
Hi Rick,
I wasn’t aware of the apostrophe issue; just hadn’t every tried it, or received reports of a problem. Thanks for the heads up.
The browser “back” issue is probably because I’m using Javascript to open galleries from the index, rather than using HTML hyperlinks. Reasoning for that is to avoid having to employ certain hacks for compatibility in certain versions of IE.
Thank, Matt … don’t you love IE :>)
it looks like the apostrophe problem is my error. I just noticed that one of my Albums is behaving OK with an apostrophe in its title. So dug into it further and it looks like the problem only occurs when I manually edit an autoindex.xml file with an apostrophe. I was using Window’s wordpad editor and don’t know what it is mangling — nothing that is visible; must be embedding some hidden codes :>( Sorry for the false alarm.
Ah-ha! It’s probably the classic straight quote vs. curly quote issue. That’s why you should use a plain text editor, not a word process, to write code.
Where did the other 13.25 days go ?
What are you talking about?
The Google Analytics code isn’t showing up in my TTG Auto Index page. I’ve tried both putting in the complete Google Analytics javascript code and just my ID into the field in Lightroom.
Here’s the url of the page that’s not working:
http://jasonrosswilliams.com/galleries/
Any help figuring this out would be appreciated.
Thanks.
You’ve found a bug. I will need to fix this in a future update. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Hi,
first of all: thanx for the great tools.
i am having a few problems with Auto index.
i have build up a page with TTG pages. and put an auto index into the galeries folder. in this case to sort my galeries by topics. in that folder i put a subfolder with a nother auto index. and in that folder i also put a folder with one galery. so far so good…
the only problem i have is that when i get to the page of my second auto index where i am supposed to see my galery i get a warning massage imprinted on teh top of the page and teh galerie tile does not display a thimbnail.
the warning is as follows:
Warning: glob() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /mnt/web2/50/86/5340586/htdocs/test/galleries/AusAllerWelt/index.php on line 68
line 68 in the PHP file is refering to the thumbnail immage. i just have no ides waht could be going wrong.
any help would be really great.
thanx in advance.
Ciao Mark
I need a URL so that I can see this.
Also, check with your web host to ensure their version of PHP is up-to-date.
http://www.eaerendil.de/test/
this is the test site i have uploaded that displays the problem.
the navigation is in german but the links should be self explanitory.
thanx…
Ciao Mark
Short update:
I checked the PHP version version. My provider runs multiple PHP versions. Which version is used by a PHP scrip is determined by its ending. the default is that files ending with .PHP run with PHP 4.4.x. I changes the default so that all scrips run with the latest version (5.2.x) but with no effect.
Ciao Mark
It may or may not have something to do with your thumbnails having all gone missing. The gallery is trying to use image files that it cannot find. Where are your thumbnails?
Also, contact your host and ask them specifically whether they support the PHP glob() function.
my thumbnails als in their respective directories as exporten out of lightroom. There is a thumbnail folder in the autoindex that i placed in the galeries folder of the TTG pages folder tree. Then there is one in the directory where my second Auto index is in. And then in the directory of my gallery.
What i basicly did is export an Autoindex in the galleries folder then then maually creating a new folder form my sub index and exporting a nother Autoindx into that folder. Then creating a nother subfolder for my gallery and exporting a highslide gallery into it.
the only ajustments i did was ajustting the relative links to my home, about and contact sites to account for the directory deapth.
but i will check about the glob() funtion. although i doubt that is the problem my provider is one of the biggest providers in germany.
thanx for you time.
ciao Mark
hmmm…could it be due to different sizes in thumbnails?
the thumbnails in my gallery are smaller then the ones used for my Autoindexes.
just a thought.
ciao Mark
No, the size of the thumbnail would just be smaller then. It wouldn’t break.
Your galleryindex.php file is working properly:
http://www.eaerendil.de/test/galleryindex.php
Your sub-index is reporting the error and a broken thumbnail link:
http://www.eaerendil.de/test/galleries/AusAllerWelt/
For whatever reason, the sub-index is not reaching your gallery thumbnails. I believe that’s the problem, though I can’t see why it’s happening. You might try specifying a thumbnail for the gallery index, or ensuring that the Album Thumbnails field in LR is truly blank (no characters, no spaces). Also, try moving your gallery down one level into the main index and see whether it indexes properly there.
HI,
well i now moved the gallery up an index and it woks fine.
i also exported a new gallery into the folder below and got the same problem. Even tried specyfiying a thumbnail. still no difference.
i guess i am doing somthing seriously wrong.
Ciao Mark
Or your server has issues running PHP beyond a particular folder depth. I don’t understand why that would be, but that’s what would seem to be the case. The indices generated by TTG Pages and TTG Auto Index are based on the same code. No reason one should work and the other not.
Hi…me again,
this little problem of mine has not left me alone…
i have tried adding a specific thumbnail to the gallery that is not displayed correctly again…
and this time it works…so i must have done somthing wrong the first time…
that means that basicly the thumbnails are readable but the script doen not seam to rech the directory.
so that is a workaraound that woudl work…but the random thumbnail immiges where kinda neat…
so it boils down to this that the script works fine…but just not after a cairtain folder deapth. i read on the web that soem server systems have problems with the glob_brace function…so i am currently also checking with my provider wether that could be the case with my provider…
Ciao Mark
Ok, so I’m very new at this and it is probably much simpler than I’m making it but here is where I’m confused.
I don’t think a sub-indices is what I want. I am building the website with TTG Pages and on the menu bar of this site I would like to have two galleries index pages (lets call them A and B). I cannot figure out how to do this. If I make another index with auto index, what folder do I put it in and do I direct the link to gallery A to the correct gallery and the link to gallery B to the other one. Basically, I do not want a gallery index within a gallery index. I just want to different gallery index pages on my main site.
Yes, I understood perfectly what you wanted. Use TTG Auto Index. This creates a second index. Put it anywhere you want. Create a menu link pointing to that location. Put galleries inside this new index folder.
For the sake of example, let’s say you export the index to a folder named “secondindex” and you then move this folder to the root of your web-server. Your first gallery index will then be accessible at:
http://www.domain.com/galleryindex.php
… and your second index will be accessible at:
http://www.domain.com/secondindex/
… and you should create a menu item on your pages pointing to that location. Galleries for this second index would be moved inside that location, so:
http://www.domain.com/secondindex/gallery/
That’s a big help to me, as well.
unrelated to this – I see you’ve got Pages and HSG Pro in development (with others). When do you expect to release them? Just want to prepare…
Thanks,
Mark
A few weeks at least on HSG Pro. Longer for anything else.
Thank you so much! I will get started with that. One final question. When I create the menu item on my page pointing to that location, what do I need put into the pages to point it there?
Thanks Again
Either an absolute or relative URL. If you’re not sure how to write a URL, there are tutorials available online. Otherwise, if in doubt, use an absolute URL, which would be the address you would use to reach that location in a browser, including “http://www” etc. …
Hi,
how is it possible to put a new line into the description section within the autoindex.xml file of an album?
Thanks
Bastian
Is there any limit to the amount of menu items/galleries autoindex can handle?
Theoretically, no. Though I’m sure that at some point the gallery would begin to chug if it had too much to process. To date, though, there have been no complaints regarding the capacity of the index; it hasn’t been an issue for anyone that I’ve heard. And I would venture to guess that your website would have to be deemed large, unwieldy and cluttered before the index would begin to complain.
I don’t have Auto Index yet, so was wondering if there were any restrictions from within LR. Am I correct to assume that I can specify the amount of boxes, size, etc…or it that fixed?
You can change the size and appearance of the boxes, and the number of columns.
Thx. So, it is not based on a slider with an finite number then. If I want 2 columns with 20 rows…not a problem..right?
Just setup two columns, then throw 40 galleries at it.
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