I actually wonder what's the best way to organize image galleries in Umbraco.
On the site, there should be a page "Image galleries". On that page, a macro should list all existing galleries and images (jQuery etc.). The galleries should be organized in categories. Bulk upload should be possible (without zip preferred). Besides of the image galleries page, the editor should be able to pick any gallery to include in any other page.
So my idea was to use the Media section, create folders for categories and galleries (instead of creating Image gallery / Category document types), use the MultiFileUpload package and on the galleries page just list all folders from a specific position in the media library.
One drawback of this solution (compared to a content tree solution) is that it's not very smart to add additional meta data like description to galleries/photos because the media types must be extended with properties which are used for all media items, not only image gallery items.
What's the better solution in my scenario? Where do you store image galleries? Content or Media??
You can create your own media types the same way as document types, so all the "data" could be stored in the media section.
So you could create a "Image Gallery Image" media type, replicate the standard properties from the standard Image media type and then add additional properties for "image title" and "image description", etc.
Media Types have the hierarchical nature that document types have so you can define what parent / child relationships are valid to help avoid incorrect media being added to folders, etc.
I've created an image gallery using folders in the media section. Combined with jquery lightbox, Gecko Uploadify (for bulk uploading into each gallery folder) and ImageGen (to automatically create the thumbnails and large images) - its working really well. I've added a 'description' property that appears beneath the image in the lightbox view.
thanks for your suggestions. Just wondered because the Personal Site starter kit has gallery and images in the content tree. But I also think its cleaner to place it to the media section.
I already thought about own media types, but doing so, I guess that I have some disadvantages/limitations when working with media-concerned packages. For example, the ZipUpload package (which I would use to import a bunch of existing galleries) only works with the standard media types (creates Folder and Image elements). Maybe in that case it would be necessary to mix media types, saying that "Photo galleries" and "Gallery category" will be custom (for defining the desired structure), and inside the category, standard Folder and Image elements are used. Adding only a description field to both of this standard types won't be bad I guess..
Good way? Or is it possible to get packages like ZipUpload working with completely custom media types (I think it depends on the package)..
For a gallery I have several images, some have titles that I want to display and some have a little description that I also want to display. What I would do is add all my images into the media section under a Gallery folder.
I then create a new MultiType datatype and add a few properties, image - media picker, title - textbox, description - textline multiple. Add this property to whichever Document Type will have the gallery on, for example the home page. I would usually create a new tab for the MultiType property.
Then simply go to the Content section click on the home page click the add button on the MultiType which will then ask me to choose an image from the media section, a textbox for a title and a description.
Once saved and published all this data gets saved as xml so I then need add a macro to the home page template which points to an xslt file. Then I create an xslt file to work with the data from the MultiType.
The gallery is easily managable, as the developer you can set a limit on the gallery so only 4 images can be added. The content editor can add (upto the limit, 0 = unlimited), edit or delete. They can also change the order of the images in the gallery.
Was just wondering what you decided on many months ago. This is a currently a challenging debate for us as well: whether to build up a gallery through the Content section or through the Media section. Each have their conflicting pros and cons, so it's hard to settle into one or the other.
But first, some background:
Our biggest gripe from our clients when presented with a "create your photo galleries one ... node ... at .... a .... time" is that it is so frustratingly sloooooow. It takes about 10 clicks and a bunch of typing per photo, so that creating a moderately sized gallery of maybe 30 photos that have no real fancy titles or descriptions can still take around an hour! (This is when we do it, and we're pretty quick at it.) For a client who wants to create anything larger or who is adding several new galleries per week, they tell us the time it is taking them is unacceptable.
This is because these same clients come to us with previous experience creating photo albums on Facebook or Flickr, where it takes maybe just a few minutes tops compared to sometimes over 60 with our solution. Yes, this is the comparison our clients give us, not understanding the technologies are completely different or what is involved to replicate that same experience in their CMS. All they can understand is that they are frustrated with the general process and think that we're incompetent because we built them something that takes so long to do what they think should be so simple. Soooooo. Long story short: our primary goal right now is to see how we can let our clients create photo galleries as quickly as possble. Bulk uploading/creation is thus highest on our list of must-haves.
I think you summarized many of these points as well, but I did add a few more in here to consider.
ADDING PHOTO GALLERY ITEMS THROUGH THE CONTENT SECTION
Pros:
Gallery-specific properties only appear for images that are actually supposed to appear in the Gallery, instead of all images in the entire Media section. (Avoids "property pollution")
Document versioning and rollback on these properties! (Although, I think v5 will add this, but we are not sure if or when we will be moving to this so we need a solution for 4.7 today.)
Data is kept in the main xml cache for fast performance
Cons:
No way that we know of to achieve any "bulk uploading" to create all of the content nodes we would need at once. This is pretty much a deal-killer for us to consider right now, unless we are able to create or modify something to do this ourselves, which isn't on our radar right now.
ADDING PHOTO GALLERY ITEMS THROUGH THE MEDIA SECTION
Pros:
We can use Desktop Media Uploader for quickly creating these (or any other number of bulk uploaders out there currently.)
It is nice to be able to click on the media folder and see thumbnails of all of the contained images (folder borwser dataype)
Sorting and managing these is made even easier & more pleasant when using the Child Nodes Browser datatype.
Cons:
Property pollution: gallery-specific properties that we add to the standard "Image" media type are being shown on ALL other images, not just gallery ones. NOTE: If choosing to create a new gallery-specific media type, I believe this breaks us being able to use Desktop Media Uploader or any of the other bulk uploaders we've seen? And then is no better.
No versioning/rollback or published/unpublished states. (Again, we are sticking with v4.7 for now so I know this won't always be the case.)
Custom properties are not kept in the xml cache, but rather require a database lookup each time? Might be a problem on a very busy site.
Ideally we want something that can combine the pros from both approaches, but for now, the bulk upload of images seems to be the biggest "must-have" factor, so we are going to deal with the cons and hope to maybe re-assess this at some point in the future.
That's why I'm resurrecting this 10 month old thread and hoping to freshen up the conversation a bit? Any insight or alternative solutions are appreciated!
Hey, I can scratch one concern off of my "cons" list for keeping/managing galleries through the Media section (regarding these requiring a database lookup each time they are viewed). I forgot that I could utilize Macro caching to mitigate this concern.
Image galleries
Hi,
I actually wonder what's the best way to organize image galleries in Umbraco.
On the site, there should be a page "Image galleries". On that page, a macro should list all existing galleries and images (jQuery etc.). The galleries should be organized in categories. Bulk upload should be possible (without zip preferred). Besides of the image galleries page, the editor should be able to pick any gallery to include in any other page.
So my idea was to use the Media section, create folders for categories and galleries (instead of creating Image gallery / Category document types), use the MultiFileUpload package and on the galleries page just list all folders from a specific position in the media library.
One drawback of this solution (compared to a content tree solution) is that it's not very smart to add additional meta data like description to galleries/photos because the media types must be extended with properties which are used for all media items, not only image gallery items.
What's the better solution in my scenario? Where do you store image galleries? Content or Media??
Best Regards
Andreas
Hi Andreas
You can create your own media types the same way as document types, so all the "data" could be stored in the media section.
So you could create a "Image Gallery Image" media type, replicate the standard properties from the standard Image media type and then add additional properties for "image title" and "image description", etc.
Media Types have the hierarchical nature that document types have so you can define what parent / child relationships are valid to help avoid incorrect media being added to folders, etc.
Hope this helps
Nigel
I've created an image gallery using folders in the media section. Combined with jquery lightbox, Gecko Uploadify (for bulk uploading into each gallery folder) and ImageGen (to automatically create the thumbnails and large images) - its working really well. I've added a 'description' property that appears beneath the image in the lightbox view.
Hi,
thanks for your suggestions. Just wondered because the Personal Site starter kit has gallery and images in the content tree. But I also think its cleaner to place it to the media section.
I already thought about own media types, but doing so, I guess that I have some disadvantages/limitations when working with media-concerned packages. For example, the ZipUpload package (which I would use to import a bunch of existing galleries) only works with the standard media types (creates Folder and Image elements). Maybe in that case it would be necessary to mix media types, saying that "Photo galleries" and "Gallery category" will be custom (for defining the desired structure), and inside the category, standard Folder and Image elements are used. Adding only a description field to both of this standard types won't be bad I guess..
Good way? Or is it possible to get packages like ZipUpload working with completely custom media types (I think it depends on the package)..
Best Regards
Andreas
Hey,
no more thoughts/experiences on custom media types vs. built-in media types?
Best Regards,
Andreas
Hi Andreas,
Here's my suggestion:
For a gallery I have several images, some have titles that I want to display and some have a little description that I also want to display. What I would do is add all my images into the media section under a Gallery folder.
I then create a new MultiType datatype and add a few properties, image - media picker, title - textbox, description - textline multiple. Add this property to whichever Document Type will have the gallery on, for example the home page. I would usually create a new tab for the MultiType property.
Then simply go to the Content section click on the home page click the add button on the MultiType which will then ask me to choose an image from the media section, a textbox for a title and a description.
Once saved and published all this data gets saved as xml so I then need add a macro to the home page template which points to an xslt file. Then I create an xslt file to work with the data from the MultiType.
The gallery is easily managable, as the developer you can set a limit on the gallery so only 4 images can be added. The content editor can add (upto the limit, 0 = unlimited), edit or delete. They can also change the order of the images in the gallery.
Hopefully this all makes sense.
Ben
Thanks for the detailed instructions, Ben, I will check that out..
Hello Andreas,
Was just wondering what you decided on many months ago. This is a currently a challenging debate for us as well: whether to build up a gallery through the Content section or through the Media section. Each have their conflicting pros and cons, so it's hard to settle into one or the other.
But first, some background:
Our biggest gripe from our clients when presented with a "create your photo galleries one ... node ... at .... a .... time" is that it is so frustratingly sloooooow. It takes about 10 clicks and a bunch of typing per photo, so that creating a moderately sized gallery of maybe 30 photos that have no real fancy titles or descriptions can still take around an hour! (This is when we do it, and we're pretty quick at it.) For a client who wants to create anything larger or who is adding several new galleries per week, they tell us the time it is taking them is unacceptable.
This is because these same clients come to us with previous experience creating photo albums on Facebook or Flickr, where it takes maybe just a few minutes tops compared to sometimes over 60 with our solution. Yes, this is the comparison our clients give us, not understanding the technologies are completely different or what is involved to replicate that same experience in their CMS. All they can understand is that they are frustrated with the general process and think that we're incompetent because we built them something that takes so long to do what they think should be so simple. Soooooo. Long story short: our primary goal right now is to see how we can let our clients create photo galleries as quickly as possble. Bulk uploading/creation is thus highest on our list of must-haves.
I think you summarized many of these points as well, but I did add a few more in here to consider.
ADDING PHOTO GALLERY ITEMS THROUGH THE CONTENT SECTION
Pros:
Cons:
ADDING PHOTO GALLERY ITEMS THROUGH THE MEDIA SECTION
Pros:
Cons:
Ideally we want something that can combine the pros from both approaches, but for now, the bulk upload of images seems to be the biggest "must-have" factor, so we are going to deal with the cons and hope to maybe re-assess this at some point in the future.
That's why I'm resurrecting this 10 month old thread and hoping to freshen up the conversation a bit? Any insight or alternative solutions are appreciated!
Thanks for reading!
Hey, I can scratch one concern off of my "cons" list for keeping/managing galleries through the Media section (regarding these requiring a database lookup each time they are viewed). I forgot that I could utilize Macro caching to mitigate this concern.
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