iWeb: trying to present the same underlying content under multiple albums

[-hh]

Looking to update & reorganize my current iWeb-maintained site and I seem to have run into a "you can't do that"...at least without wasting bandwidth.

Currently, I have a two 'Album' pages that contains a half dozen 'Media' folders/pages each.

These were created by the "drag-n-drop" process from Media browser (iPhoto, etc), which automatically adds the interactive "photo album" bit on an Album page and which creates a new webpage where said Media's content resides.

Within iWeb, one ends up with a list of indented folders:

> My Albums

> iPhoto foldername#1
> iPhoto foldername#2
> iPhoto foldername#3
> etc​

Since I presently have two Albums, this is my current file structure:
(note: Bold = original file; not Bold = hyperlink to the original)


> My Albums (Topic#1)

> iPhoto foldername#1
> iPhoto foldername#2
> iPhoto foldername#3
> iPhoto foldername#4
> iPhoto foldername#5
​

> My Albums (Topic#2)

> iPhoto foldername#6
> iPhoto foldername#7
> iPhoto foldername#8
> iPhoto foldername#9
> iPhoto foldername#10
​

What I'd like to do is to add more Albums ... but not more content. I want to display the same underlying content differently... specifically, chronologically by Year in addition to by Topic.

So the goal is to keep the above, and add the following:

> My Albums (2008)

​

> iPhoto foldername#1
> iPhoto foldername#6
​

> My Albums (2007)

> iPhoto foldername#2
> iPhoto foldername#3
> iPhoto foldername#4
> iPhoto foldername#7
​

> My Albums (2006)

> iPhoto foldername#5
> iPhoto foldername#8
> iPhoto foldername#9
​

The idea is straightforward enough: its just hyperlinking to the existing underlying content (as listed in blue and red).

I have found that I can simply duplicate the desired final destination page (iPhoto foldername#N) and drag-n-drop it into a new Album page, but this approach duplicates the contents in full (iPhoto foldername#N copy) , which is horribly inefficient and makes the site harder to maintain, so I reject that approach on the philosophical grounds of "Bad Programming".

So I'm soliciting potential work-arounds and alternatives to consider trying. Ideally, I'd like to retain the (optionally interactive) "photo album" UI bit on each of the Album pages, as it makes for a nice thematic continuity...but I suspect that this will be a casualty.

Suggestions?


-hh

 

[-hh]

Would this work?

I've been continuing to think about other ways to skin this cat.

I think that I might have found one that doesn't use excessive storage/bandwidth and which keeps the total number of unique pages to a minimum, to facilitate less long term maintenance.

Steps:

1) Create one huge Album that is populated with all of the iPhoto folders (#1 thru N) that I want to have. Call it 'huge Album' for this discussion.

2) Design Note: Said 'huge Album' is NOT intended to be linked into the main website, but is to be a blind page. Its purpose is merely to be the repository of the iPhoto folder pages (#1 thru N), and for general maintenance purposes.

3) Quit iWeb, crank up "Grab" and Photoshop. Display the 'huge Album' page, and then raid its graphics using Grab and Photoshop. The objective is to create thumbnail images of each of the (#1 thru N) pages that are displayed on 'huge Album' for use in the next steps.

3) Create a new page "Year". Populate it with the images created in Step (3) and hyperlink these to the (#1 thru N) pages that are parked under 'huge Album' in Step (1). Add it to the general navigation of the website.

4) Create a new page "Topic 1". Populate it in the same fashion as was done for the "Year" page (hyperlinked graphical images).

5) Create a new page "Topic 2". Same process as (4).

6) For each of pages (#1 thru N), rework them to add a standardized navigation element of hyperlinks that is compatible to the Pages "Year", "Topic 1", "Topic 2", etc.

7) While doing Step (6), look for 'gotcha' elements to be squashed within iWeb. For example, the standard 'Return to Index' link would go back to the 'huge Album' page that I don't want people to see, so figure out how to kill this hyperlink.

8) Figure out if there's an easy way to do a "Previous", "Next" for navigation, so that viewers don't have to bounce back to the Year or Topic pages. I could use some suggestions on this part...would prefer something that doesn't have to be customized for each of #1 thru N implementations.


Anything obviously wrong or missing with this Order of Battle?
Or other suggested ways to skin the cat?


-hh

 

[angelwatt]

iWeb may not be the right tool for this. There are scripts that can do image galleries pretty well. Here's a PHP-powered script that could meet your needs if your server has PHP support (it's just something I Google'd across with a quick search). I'm just not sure it's worth trying to get what you're doing to work properly in iWeb.

 

[-hh]

iWeb may not be the right tool for this. There are scripts that can do image galleries pretty well.

Understood; its just that iWeb's integration into iPhoto is very convenient. It actually lets me get projects completed

I know that Lightroom has a gallery-making section; I don't know if it will have the same problem as iWeb (I suspect that it very well may), but if I go that route, to have the same degree of convenience, it requires ditching iPhoto and exporting/importing my entire library ... roughly 90GB worth ... over to it, instead of using it for just small discrete projects, since Lightroom doesn't make books like iPhoto offers.


-hh