# TTG SimpleViewer Gallery



## theturninggate (Apr 11, 2008)

TTG SimpleViewer Gallery has been updated to version 1.8.

Updated to SimpleViewer 1.8.5, including support for the new navPadding, vAlign and hAlign options.
Thumbnails are now saved to the folder thumbnails, to make the gallery more TTG XML Auto Index friendly.
I’ve dropped the HTML version of this gallery; I have other plans.
TTG SimpleViewer Gallery offers the following advantages over Adobe's SimpleViewer gallery included with Lightroom:

Watermarks
Gallery background image
Up-to-date with the latest version of SimpleViewer, 1.8.5.


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## mrbolano (Oct 12, 2008)

*background images*

How do you set them?

I assume with the 'backgroundimagepath' field but a little more information on how to choose that 'path' and what a 'path' is would be appreciated.

cheers.


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## mrbolano (Oct 12, 2008)

okay, so I worked out where the path should draw from by putting in the image location stream from Finder, next problem, how do you keep the image one size because it has automatically fitting the image to my 23"screen and I specifically chose a 128'x8'' image for the background.


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## theturninggate (Oct 14, 2008)

You'd have to specify a set width/height for the gallery. If the gallery dimensions are set to 1''%, then the gallery will stretch to fit the screen and will stretch its background too.


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## MichaelAC (Oct 19, 2008)

Hello.

Output sharpening is not supported in SimpleViewer - however the newest version of ShadowBoxViewer does support sharpening.

Any plans to include sharpening also in SimpleViewer?

Or - the other question: is sharpening really meaningful, with all the automatic resizing?

Regards, Michael


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## MichaelAC (Oct 19, 2008)

Any plans to add output sharpening to the SimpleViewer - like done recently to ShadowBox Gallery?


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## theturninggate (Oct 20, 2008)

Nevermind ... see below.


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## theturninggate (Jan 26, 2009)

Drum-roll, please ... !!!

_Badda-badda-badda-badda-bah!!_

Ladies and gentlemen, The Turning Gate proudly presents *TTG Simpleviewer 2.'*!!!

TTG Simpleviewer has been completely recoded, slimmed down and beefed up! The gallery is now a Lua/XSLT hybrid. The gallery has lost a full 28kb, but adds these new features:

v2.'
+ Output sharpening!
+ Auto indexing ready!
- 28kb!
- "Gallery" = Sweet new name!

The new hybrid also carries over these new features, from the previous, days-old release:

+ Background-color now displays in LR preview!
+ Upgraded to Simpleviewer 1.9!

TTG made it first and TTG still makes it best; TTG Simpleviewer contains the following features, excluded from the Airtight Simpleviewer engine packaged with Lightroom:
 Gallery description support
 Gallery background image support
 hAlign and vAlign settings
 Separate controls for stage and navigation padding
 Image watermarking
 Output sharpening
 Enabled for auto indexing by TTG XML Auto Index
Hurray!!!


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## Andrew Hayton (Jan 26, 2009)

Great work Matt


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## Kiwigeoff (Jan 26, 2009)

What a champion Matthew, have the long dark nights given you plenty of time??


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## theturninggate (Jan 26, 2009)

No, there's never time. I just shoved my schoolwork aside for most of a day so that I could focus on something "fun". The long, dark nights have made me a little punchy, though.


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## Wako Niko (Jan 27, 2009)

I have an issue with the latest version of the plugin (2.'), but actually it seems to be common to all airtight plugins, even from Adobe. When I select one of the Airtight plugins on the right, it keep reloading the preview every second or so, and will never enter a stable state. It's as if I was changing the options every second and it tried to reload itself to show the change, except I don't change everything. It's very annoying, and I can't use the export function while it's doing that.

Any idea?

Thank you.


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## theturninggate (Jan 27, 2009)

The galleries reload every time you change something in the settings. That's just the way it goes for the Flash galleries, I'm afraid. A good rule of thumb is to establish a small working group of images -- emphasis on _small_ -- to use when setting up your gallery. This will keep your reload times to a minimum. When finished, save a template preset, then load the full collection of images and apply the preset.

Also note that Felix Turner, developer of all things Airtight, advises on his website that galleries be kept to about 5' images. The Airtight galleries aren't really setup to handle larger loads than that.

Change one option at a time, and the gallery should finish reloading and be ready to go for the next change.


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## Wako Niko (Jan 27, 2009)

Thanks for the reply but I'm afraid I was misunderstood. I meant to say that the flash keeps reloading even when I don't change any options. Actually, I do have a User Template and after loading this template, the preview keeps reloading again and again with no user interaction. This would not really bother me other than visually but it is preventing me from using the export function. If a reload happens right after my clicking of the export button this will somehow cancel the order and the export dialog doesn't even show up. I have only 23 pics...


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## Sean McCormack (Jan 28, 2009)

Haven't heard that one before!..

Here's the trick though: hit export, then click Library.. At least that was my trick with early SlideShowPro when stopping the slideshow was required to export. If you hit export just after an image load and went to Library, it would export as a running slideshow.


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## parintele (Jan 28, 2009)

yes Sean, that happened to me few days ago when i tried to test some galleries... do not remember exactly which engine/template but were the same behavior...just like it woudl restart the previewing process inside LR  every few fraction of a second or so..sometimes it stopped and everything was fine, i tried modifing something and retry ...continuos loop , tried another gallery, worked just fine, back to the one with the problems, same bahavior..i thought is something about that specific engine/template... 

didn;t paid too much attention as it was just a testing to see how some of those galleries worked...

today i tried again all the engines/templates i have intalled and all work just fine... 

i have no repetitive patern so i can't associate that with anything special...could be about the content of the gallery, a memory problem, a LR issue, a windows issue, etc...


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## theturninggate (Jan 28, 2009)

Wako Niko, that's odd and not something I've heard before. Can you fill your system and software specs into your signature so we know what you're running? Helps us to sort out issues.


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## MichaelAC (Jan 29, 2009)

theturninggate;354'2 said:
			
		

> Wako Niko, that's odd and not something I've heard before. Can you fill your system and software specs into your signature so we know what you're running? Helps us to sort out issues.


 
I have the same behaviour - exactly as Wako Niko has reported.

I am using ttg simpleviewer 2.' - with 1.8 there was the same.

My work-around:
Step 1: I select only 1 (one!) picture from the selection. (German: "Ausgewählte Fotos")
Step 2: I enter my gallery parameters. Most often I select the preset and change the album title and descriptions.
It's very fast - because refresh is processing only one image.
Step 3: I select "all images" (in German: "Alle Fotos des Filmstreifens"). Immediately, LR starts to refresh the gallery, exactly in this loop, making several refreshes per second.
(My guess here is, that LR performs the preview refresh per image. But I am not sure.)
Step 4: I ignore this for a moment - a click on "Export", an start the export.
(My impression: the export does not start)
Step 5: I select again only 1 image. 
Result: the refreshing loop stops, the export starts. 
And - *all* images are exported 

Not very convinient, but it works.

My system is described below, if you need more information, let me know.


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## MichaelAC (Jan 29, 2009)

Hi Matthew,

here's my post initially intended:

First: Thank you ... Output Sharpening is great 

One tiny additional wish: can you add a small, configurable, Return Button. It would help a lot: if you make a direct link to a SimpleViewer Gallery, you are "not lost in space", but instead there is a Button to return e.g. to a Gallery Menue or such.


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## Wako Niko (Jan 29, 2009)

OK so let me add this post with a new signature shamelessly "inspired" by Michael 

I must add that I experience this problem with all Flash based galleries (even LR's). I actually moved on and I got an HTML based gallery (Shadowbox), but solving this issue would be nice for others.


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## theturninggate (Jan 30, 2009)

Thanks for filling in your signature. I'd also recommend including your version of Internet Explorer.

If it's happening with galleries other than mine, then it sounds like it's a bug in the Windows version of Lightroom. It's not something I've observed using LR/Mac. I'd advise reporting the issue to Adobe.


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## gcparris (Feb 2, 2009)

Matt, firstly can I say that you've developed a great lightroom gallery. We've been looking around for ages trying to find one that has the features you've added to Simpleviewer, most importantly the Watermarking.

We are currently running on 1.9. I see 2.' is now out. I don't understand what the following feature does:

Auto-index enabled for TTG XML Auto Index

...could you explain?


Also, we now have our website up and running using TTG SV 1.9. 

http://www.helenparris.com

One comment we've received is how do people tell us or other people about a specific photo on the website? For example, say I saw a photo I liked how would I tell someone to look at that specific photo as there is no way to copy the direct URL to a picture (nor would we want that for obvious reasons!). 

Would it be possible to create some kind of secondary overlay or watermark in the top left or right corner to display the index number (1,2,3... etc) of the photo, much like Lightroom itself does when in Library or Develop mode?

Thanks again,
Gareth.


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## gcparris (Feb 2, 2009)

theturninggate said:


> Thanks for filling in your signature. I'd also recommend including your version of Internet Explorer.
> 
> If it's happening with galleries other than mine, then it sounds like it's a bug in the Windows version of Lightroom. It's not something I've observed using LR/Mac. I'd advise reporting the issue to Adobe.




Matt, I can confirm that this is also happening on our iMac running Lightroom 2.2 and TTG Simpleviewer 1.9. But only on 1 of our 6 web TTG Simpleviewer gallery collections.

Gareth.


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## theturninggate (Feb 4, 2009)

gcparris,

TTG XML Auto Index is another template of mine that generates an index page of multiple galleries added to a specific location on your web server. The index detects supported galleries automatically, and updates itself accordingly, adding new galleries and removing galleries that aren't there anymore without the need for coding. Versions 1.9 and previous could be granted support for auto indexing by taking an additional step and producing an XML file used by the index. From version 2.', TTG Simpleviewer supports indexing natively, without that additional step.

Regarding the constant reload issue, are you saying that it's collection specific? And, if so, does the problem occur when you load that same collection into the Adobe Flash and Airtight galleries?


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## gcparris (Feb 4, 2009)

theturninggate said:


> gcparris,
> 
> TTG XML Auto Index is another template of mine that generates an index page of multiple galleries added to a specific location on your web server. The index detects supported galleries automatically, and updates itself accordingly, adding new galleries and removing galleries that aren't there anymore without the need for coding. Versions 1.9 and previous could be granted support for auto indexing by taking an additional step and producing an XML file used by the index. From version 2.', TTG Simpleviewer supports indexing natively, without that additional step.
> 
> Regarding the constant reload issue, are you saying that it's collection specific? And, if so, does the problem occur when you load that same collection into the Adobe Flash and Airtight galleries?



Hi Matt, thanks for explaining that. I'll have to look into it to see if I could incorporate it into our website.

The reload issue doesn't occur on any of the Adobe Flash or Airtight galleries. Or at least I've not seen it happen on them. It is always on the same TTG SimpleViewer gallery collection and we have 6 of them. Very odd indeed. If I get some time later on I'll do some more thorough testing between various other galleries and collections and see if I can come up with more hard facts.

Any thoughts on my other question about being able to provide a photo index number (1,2,3...) overlay (much like LR does in the Library and Develop modes) on the images so that people can refer to a specific photo in the collection when corresponding with us?

Cheers,
Gareth.


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## theturninggate (Apr 11, 2008)

TTG SimpleViewer Gallery has been updated to version 1.8.

Updated to SimpleViewer 1.8.5, including support for the new navPadding, vAlign and hAlign options.
Thumbnails are now saved to the folder thumbnails, to make the gallery more TTG XML Auto Index friendly.
I’ve dropped the HTML version of this gallery; I have other plans.
TTG SimpleViewer Gallery offers the following advantages over Adobe's SimpleViewer gallery included with Lightroom:

Watermarks
Gallery background image
Up-to-date with the latest version of SimpleViewer, 1.8.5.


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## theturninggate (Feb 6, 2009)

The only way to could do the overlay would be to put the information into the Copyright IPTC field and then turn on the Watermarks.


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## MichaelAC (Feb 6, 2009)

Matthew.



theturninggate said:


> Regarding the constant reload issue, are you saying that it's collection specific? And, if so, does the problem occur when you load that same collection into the Adobe Flash and Airtight galleries?


 
Maybe the following observation may help:

Step 1: In the Library module I select a Selection (one, for which a gallery already has been built, but new images have been added)

Step 2: I switch to the WEB module. As only 1 image is selected, the gallery is built instantly.

Step 3: I switch from "selected images" (ausgewählte Bilder) to "all images" (Alle Fotos des Filmstreifens).
The constand reload begins.

Now the hint: in the upper left corner of Lightroom, just above the progress slider (I don't know the exact English term: the bar which shows how many % are ready) there is the message "2 activities in progress" (in German: "2 Vorgänge werden gerade bearbeitet", translated word by word: 2 activities are processed at this moment).

This sounds strange to me: why 2 activities? Should be only one - "update of web gallery".

*Added:*
If I am already in the WEB module, after step 3 above, and then select another Selection, then there is
... *no* constant reload
... and in the top right there is only *one* activity: "updating web gallery" (in German: "Webgallerie aktualisieren")

I noticed one slight difference:
- In the second example (see "added" above), Lightroom shows the preview only *after* the updating is finished.
- In the first example (coming from library, see above), LR starts immediately to "paint" the preview.
Maybe this explains the "2 activities", and maybe these activities are "fighting against each other" ...


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## theturninggate (Feb 7, 2009)

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the information; that's really helpful. I'm still not sure the cause, however. Are you still running LR 2.2?

If so, I'd like you to try installing the 2.3 release candidate and see whether that solves the issue. Please let me know your findings.

Thanks,
Matt


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## MichaelAC (Feb 8, 2009)

Hi Matt,

I've installed LR 2.3 RC ... no change, same behaviour.


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## theturninggate (Feb 8, 2009)

Okay, if I'm understanding correctly:

1) The continuous reload DOES NOT occur when set to "Use: Selected Images".
2) The continuous reload DOES occur when set to "Use: All Filmstrip Images".

If that is correct, what happens when you keep it set to "Use: Selected Images" and then select all of them?


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## MichaelAC (Feb 8, 2009)

Matt.

No difference in behaviour between "Use: Selected Images" with selecting all, and "Use: All Filmstrip Images".

But I have to refine my previous observation: there *is* a difference between LR 2.2 and LR 2.3RC:
- Constant reload in LR 2.2 was "always". Assumption: once per image.
- Constant reload in LR 2.3 is much less. I checked with various galleries, it is once per "page". With "page" I mean the gallery pages, each (in my case) having 1' thumbnails. So - if I have 17 images: 2 reloads. With 48 there are 5 reloads. And so on.

This "reload per page" is, if reload is happening. I have cases, where there is no reload (with "Use: All Fimstrip Images") - but I was not able to reproduce this consistantly.

And: still showing "2 activities". In this upper left corner Lightroom is showing
- the "LR Adobe Photoshop Lightroom" logo
- then "updating web gallery"
- then "2 activities ..."
switching every 1-2 seconds.

Remark: I have galleries with ttg simpleviewer 1.8 (many, the old ones) and (some) with version 2.'
No difference in reload behaviour.


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## rrmunoz (Mar 19, 2009)

It's not clear to me how I specify the background image path -- I assume it's a Finder path -- I tried a couple of paths to a JPEG file and nothing happened.  What's the syntax for this field?

Thanks.


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## JasonSmith (Mar 21, 2009)

Is there any way to have the thumbnail row and columns set to zero, so that it's just the main image that appears instead of having thumbnails on the side of the image. The sample link below was made from my photos and by using the Airtight Simpleviewer gallery included with Lightroom 2.'. Thanks!

http://www.jasonsmith.com/leary


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## theturninggate (Mar 22, 2009)

Hi Robert,

The best way is to simply write in the filename of the back ground, and to drop the image into the folder with the gallery. I think you can also write it as a relative URL from the gallery root, something like "photos/_img'''1.jpg".

JasonSmith,

I've just posted an update to the gallery with the requested feature.

Cheers,
Matt


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## gcparris (Mar 23, 2009)

*Bug in TTG Simpleviewer 2.0?*

Since upgrading to TTG SV 2.' the output directories seem to have been changed but the gallery.xml file does not reflect this.

When I upload from Lightroom 2.3 TTG SV creates an 'images' and a 'thumb' directory.
The gallery.xml file contains imagePath="photos/" thumbPath="thumbnails/" and my gallery fails to work.

Is it me or is this a bug?

Thanks,
Gareth.


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## theturninggate (Mar 23, 2009)

Hi Gareth,

Something isn't right about that. I used TTG Simpleviewer yesterday to generate galleries located here.

Looking at the gallery.xml file, of one of the galleries, you can see the imgPath set to "photos/", as it should be.

I recommend deleting your installation of the gallery and any associated template presets, and reinstalling a fresh copy from my website. Please let me know if the problems keep up, and we'll try to sort it out if that's the case.

Cheers,
Matt


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## gcparris (Mar 24, 2009)

Hi Matt, I deleted two user templates that were associated with the standard Airtight Simpleviewer plugin and an earlier version of TTG SimpleViewer and then reset all my exisiting galleries with TTG SV 2.' and uploaded them all again and it worked okay.
I think you are right something was getting muddled from an old template.

Thanks,
Gareth.



theturninggate said:


> Hi Gareth,
> 
> Something isn't right about that. I used TTG Simpleviewer yesterday to generate galleries located here.
> 
> ...


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## theturninggate (Mar 25, 2009)

Cool. I'm glad that worked. Keeps things simple. 

Cheers,
Matt


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## DJdeRidder (Mar 28, 2009)

I managed to blend the SimpleViewer Gallery into a webpage, but I stumble upon a problem. When I set the background color to blue (color of the webpage) in Lightroom, it shows correctly in Internet Explorer but in Firefox the background is grey. I have tried to edit the html codes and some other stufff, but I can't find a solution how to get the background to be blue. 

Is this a known issue, and is there a solution for it?


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## theturninggate (Mar 29, 2009)

You need to set the color in the SWFObject javascript that calls the gallery into the page. It goes into this line, at the end. Note the hex code for color:
var fo = new SWFObject("simpleviewer/viewer.swf", "viewer", "1''%", "1''%", "7", "#''''''");


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## DJdeRidder (Mar 29, 2009)

Thanks for your reply, but that's exactly what I did.

Here is the 'original' gallery (blue background):
http://www.milaviapress.com/gallery/testgallery2/index.html

And here it is embedded into a webpage (in Firefox the gallery background changes to grey, in Internet Explorer it is still blue):
http://www.milaviapress.com/gallery/testgallery2/index.php

I have tried everything I can think of, but nothing works. Hope anyone can help.


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## theturninggate (Mar 29, 2009)

Okay, the problem is that you're using the object/embed method of embedding the gallery in your page. This is a holdover from the browser wars. Internet Explorer chose to use the <object> tag, while other browsers chose to use the <embed> tag. If you're feeling playful, you can test this by removing the embed tag completely and just keeping the object tag. You should have a gallery in IE and none in Firefox.

Anyway, you have the background color set in the <object> tag, which is why the gallery is blue in IE. You do not have a color set in <embed>, however, which is why it is not blue in Firefox.

If you want to get really anal retentive, however (as I tend to do about code), you'll want to rid the page of the <embed> tag altogether. It's non-standard, will not validate, and has become obsolete. There's a good article on why and how to do this here: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/byebyeembed/.

Another option is to use the SWFObject Javascript to embed your gallery, which is the option I usually prefer. You can catch up with the project here: http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/

Cheers,
Matt


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## mhayes5254 (May 25, 2009)

*Gallery Description font size?*

Nice utility.   Thanks
I have some questions:
-I would like to reduce the size of the Gallery Description. Is there an output file I can edit to change this? Might be a good feature to add if you are looking for something to do  
-Under "Gallery information", What I enter i does not seem to show anywhere


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## theturninggate (May 26, 2009)

Gallery Title should appear in the title bar of the browser window, while Gallery Description shows up above the thumbnails.

Layout changes cannot be made to the gallery from within Lightroom. You might be able to adjust the positioning, size, etc. of elements after buying Simpleviewer Pro, by editing the FLA file in Flash and publishing a new SWF, but I'm not sure. I'm not much for Flash and have never tried it. You should visit www.airtightinteractive.com for details on the Pro version galleries.

Cheers,
Matt


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## mhayes5254 (May 26, 2009)

It looks like the Pro version can do it but requires Adobe flash 8 to publish the changes. I'll stay with yours.
Thanks


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## sarantis (Aug 7, 2009)

I have a question: In the TTG Auto Index 2.'1 template there is a menu bar that I can add web links.In the TTG SimpleViewer 2.'1 I do not see such an option for a menu. Even though on samples I definitely see a menu bar on pages made with the SimpleViewer!What am I doing wrong?
thanks


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## theturninggate (Aug 10, 2009)

Simpleviewer itself does not support a site menu. However, when combined with TTG Stage, you can create a menu, id plate, etc. TTG Stage creates an HTML embed page for Flash galleries, giving them such page elements as befits a website.


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## sarantis (Aug 13, 2009)

beautiful! I downloaded Stage and I like it.One more note. When the Simple gallery was by itself the enlarged photo was resizing as I rsized the window.When embedded into Stage it doesn't.Could that be an option?
thanks!!! great work!


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## theturninggate (Aug 27, 2009)

Sarantis,

It's because the stage has fixed dimensions, while the browser Window did not. Because the stage dimensions are fixed, Simpleviewer always knows how large it's supposed to be and therefore does not change size.


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## sarantis (Nov 14, 2009)

is there a way to preview the AutoIndex page with SimpleViewer galleries on my computer before I upload it to the internet?


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## theturninggate (Apr 11, 2008)

TTG SimpleViewer Gallery has been updated to version 1.8.

Updated to SimpleViewer 1.8.5, including support for the new navPadding, vAlign and hAlign options.
Thumbnails are now saved to the folder thumbnails, to make the gallery more TTG XML Auto Index friendly.
I’ve dropped the HTML version of this gallery; I have other plans.
TTG SimpleViewer Gallery offers the following advantages over Adobe's SimpleViewer gallery included with Lightroom:

Watermarks
Gallery background image
Up-to-date with the latest version of SimpleViewer, 1.8.5.


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## Garrick (Nov 15, 2009)

TheTurningGate (Matthew),

I spend a lot of time at the NAPP forum. I asked the following questions and was referred here. The questions I have are self-explanatory and I cannot find where they have been asked before:

_I'm looking at Highslide Gallery Pro and possibly TTG pages. I know I have to purchase a license for Highslide JS too. This is not an issue and since I have LR2, I should be good to go.

My questions are simple.

  1. Do you know of any galleries out there powered by these products? I saw one mentioned when I did a search on this forum but I'd like to see other implementations of the software.
  2. Can Highslide Gallery Pro be inserted in a DW template?
  3. Can links be inserted as part of the description of the gallery items? Specifically, I may actually have my own gallery but have a gallery on American Frame also, who will print it, mount it and ship it creating a totally hands off operation unless I have to pop in to sign any limited edition prints.
_
Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Steve


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