Shozam Community

 Having the option to specify the extension for the saved .htm files would add a tremendous amount of flexibility to Shozam.  A number of us use ASP, ColdFusion, or PHP, to create dynamic pages.  Allowing us to choose the extension would allow for authentication control by gallery, dynamic customization, and further security of individual images.

In return, I would be willing to share code snippits (in ColdFusion) on how to make some of this work...  Maybe some PHP and ASP gurus would do the same...

Thanks for the consideration...

 
Les ---

A very happy Shozam Business Edition user!
 

Les,

That is an intriguing possibility. If you would, please elaborate on the specifics of what you would need and the way you would be able to take advantage of this feature. Maybe even how you envision the relevant options to appear in the UI. I'd like to give the Development Team some more direction on this.

 In the UI it would simply be the option to give the .htm files a different extension.  I would envision it being on the same page where you specify the gallery location.

Maybe right below it, a checkbox (that is normally checked by default) for use the default .htm extension.   When unchecked, a box to allow a different extension to be entered. (such as .php or .cfm, etc.)

The construction of the gallery would not need to be different except the imbedded links to the various pages would be xxxxxxx.cfm instead of xxxxxxxx.htm

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Servers running ColdFusion or PHP will 'pre-process' the pages with the .cfm or .php extension, replacing 'cfm or php' code with dynamic information from databases, server maintained session variables, login information, IP validation, current directory determination, and so on before sending out through the webserver..

 It gives those of us using more than a basic webserver the ability to add security, track users through the gallery, have custom html based on permissions, current directory, login and membership level.  The possibilities could be endless.

The integrity of you application would not be compromised as it would be no different than the custom  HTML available now except it would be dynamically changed based on what was entered.

Example:  User Authentication Model

1.  A page could be created where the user logs on and static session variables are created on the server eg: session.userlogged in.

2. In the custom HTML header the following code would redirect the user if not logged in.

<cfif #session,.UserLoggedIn# EQ "0">   ### Check if user is logged in ###
  <cflocation url="/gallery.login.cfm">     ### Redirect them to login page if not ###
</cfif>

3.  Additional code could check for the existence or /original/ in the CGI.ScriptName variable and require a login to access the original photos.  Instead of selling a photo at a time, I could sell subscriptions to the entire gallery.

 
I will try to build a small gallery, make the changes by hand to give you a sense of what would be possible...

 
Thanks for the interest...

 
Les ---

 

Great, thanks for the additional info; I'll be watching this space for more and keep the devs in the loop.

Didn't want you wondering if I fell off the face of the earth...  I will try to have everything together in about a week...  The more I thought about this, the more ideas that came to mind.  Thankfully they are programmatic on my end and do not alter my original request significantly.  They will require a little more time though....

I am working on routines to help automate my process by reading the Album and Gallery names from the WebGallery.xml file instead of hard coding them into my ColdFusion code.

I am also working on a way to allow the remote user (after logging in) the ability to add to the photo description.  My wife is working on a family history photo project and having the ability for family members to add info to the page will be cool.

Non-related request....  Add a checkbox in the watermarking section to make the watermarking of the original photo optional.  In my scenario, only those subscribing to the Gallery would be able to access the original/non-watermarked photos.

Will keep you posted as to progress...

Thanks,
Les ---

The original image is not intended to pass through the Shozam processing pipeline, if users choose to make it available from the gallery. So Shozam does no processing on the original image at all, allowing the user more precise control over it, particularly if the original is meant for printing (in which case users may want to control JPEG compression and color space in a dedicated image editing program such as Adobe Photoshop).

Additionally, the thinking behind the watermarking feature was that people wanting protection have no interest in making full resolution images available and vice-versa, users making available the original source image at full resolution, want it unadulterated. As a principle, in trying to keep Shozam simple, if we typically decide 90% of users would (or in some cases "should" if they would be more informed) take a certain course of action, we have the program take it for them and not provide options which may clutter the process.

I am not clear how the watermarking plays into what you are trying to do; I assume I will understand it better once you do your implementation work and let us know the details of your thinking and suggested feature requests.