MODx, Picasa Slideshow and the iPad...

I have a client’s site running on Evo. He likes to use the Picasa Slideshow to create a quick presentation of slideshow images. I have zero experience with Picasa.

The system works fine in all the main browsers and operating systems as far as I know. Two days ago I purchased a new Apple iPad2. I simply love this thing. But its really interesting to go through sites and see what happens with the rendering on the iPad.

This page (Picasa Slideshow) does not work on the iPad at all. I did find this article about this issue: http://www.jaillon.com/blog/2010/06/04/how-to-make-picasa-flash-based-slideshow-iphone-friendly/

Anyone know of a good approach to make Picasa Slideshows work for iPad/iPhone users on the server end? Or should I ask the client to ditch Picasa and use a more friendly option like MaxiGallery? The issue here is the client does not want to get into resizing digital images just to make them function on his site.

Thanks!

I would love to get hold of one of those, if only to see what is broken around the web I wonder how much of an influence iPad will have on those existing sites and apps that currently rely on Flash.

I think you would do well to use a MODx gallery with phpThumb / phpThumbOf to do the image resizing for you. I generally use that to generate thumbnails but have used it to crop and resize larger images before - it works great and I would almost say it’s client proof.

There’s also a nice tutorial kicking around (thecmspros.com) explaining how to integrate Flickr galleries if that could be an alternative...

This is an Evo site. Up till now I have had zero luck getting phpthumbs to function. I would love to see a real proven step by step guide to doing so. But searching this topic reveals more confusion than guidance. I am going to ask the client to rethink his options. He likes Picasa as he can take a card full of images and dump into the Picasa site and presto, produce a slideshow with code that can be dropped into his website. But gallery systems that rely on Flash are going to have issues with iPads, iPhones and other handheld devices.

I prefer to take a card of say 80 images and custom select the 12 best shots, Photoshop them, and then resize them for my gallery system. So far MaxiGallery and the FancyBox script do this nicely for me. But I understand others not wanting this hassle. Overall I think server scripts that do heavy resize tasks on images do a poorer job than a real image editor. This client loves most of MODx but hates the hassle involved with adding images. Quite often the issue is that these new cameras are producing really large files, but many site owners want a one click method of adding images straight from the camera that will stay inside the website’s layout and not take forever to download for the viewer.

There are some new apps emerging for users of these devices but that only helps individual users who have installed the apps.

I prefer to take a card of say 80 images and custom select the 12 best shots, Photoshop them, and then resize them for my gallery system.

I’m totally with you there - as handy as those scripts are for generating thumbnails on the fly, you never have the same level of control over quality, cropping, etc that you can achieve in Photoshop. You’re a photographer, right? I see how you might be a bit fussy about that

I might do a phpThumb tutorial at some stage as I still think it’s very useful but might be confusing for some. As you’ve said, most clients are not so handy with image editors and prefer to just ’dump and go’.

As for this particular case I would seriously take a look at the Flickr integration, especially if your client is accustomed to using Picasa. It’s very nicely done and is specifically for Evo. Let Flickr do all the grunt work for you without having to worry about uploading, resizing and storing all those images.

While on the topic of iPad rendering etc: it seems that these ios browsers will take phone numbers (and other numbers) and render them as links, even if they are not inks in the code. One of my clients asked me to swap an image rendering of their business contact number and use regular html text so that these devices can highlight the phone number and add it their contact book system on the phone and iPad etc. What bugs me is that phone numbers and other numbers now render as ugly blue links...

Quote from: lucas at Apr 12, 2011, 10:16 AM

There’s also a nice tutorial kicking around (thecmspros.com) explaining how to integrate Flickr galleries if that could be an alternative...

I like what I see there as far as creating the TV’s goes, but is the main snippet code that makes all this work available someplace?

Quote from: Photowebmax at Apr 12, 2011, 11:45 AM

Quite often the issue is that these new cameras are producing really large files, but many site owners want a one click method of adding images straight from the camera that will stay inside the website’s layout and not take forever to download for the viewer.

I had this issue with a client and showed them how to change their photo settings on their camera. Turns out they didn’t want to deal with all that, and simply leave the camera at internet resolution, i.e. 640x480 or so. The main point is, they pull the photos right off the camera and upload them right onto the website, reducing upload time and eventual download time automatically. Could be this would work for you...

Goonz,

I hear you.

Managing images on a website is not a "one size fits all" proposition. I, being a photographer, have a natural aversion to server side scripts for handling images.

In this case I recommended a fancy hi def camera for this client to purchase. Previously he had a real cheesy camera. He loves the Canon G11 I suggested he get. He loves the performance and the printed results from the large files. I am just not sure he is up to switching resolution settings to produce images for the website and back again for regular use. His staff in his shop are also using their own cameras which adds to the complexity of this mission.

So far he is resistant to resizing images manually and then uploading them via the MaxiGallery system (this is my preferred method). Web friendly services like Picasa and Flickr are attractive options for this kind of site owner. I spent some time digging into all this this afternoon. I am thinking that Picasa is a no go but the custom TV option with Evo 1.0.5 looks promising using Flickr as the source for the image storage. The details on the snippet code that supports the TVs are sketchy though.

There are other options like some of the cool jQuery systems. The issue then becomes the image sizing and how does the basic client upload the images? Getting this guy to navigate folders with a FTP program might be a stretch here. Right now I am being asked questions like "aren’t there any easy Wordpress like options with MODx that would make this easy for me?..."

Still digging as the saying goes...

Eeesh...I hear you. Good luck with it!

I often use MaxiGallery to upload images even if I’m not using it to display them. It has a nice upload interface and you can set the pic and thumb sizes, do dropshadows, etc. with settings in the tag.