makethumbs documentation JasonMolenda Introduction Introduction to makethumbs makethumbs is a script to create thumbnail galleries on Unix systems. It has lots of options, which are currently only described in the reference section. The reference section is complete; the rest of the manual remains to be written. I'll flesh out these Intro chapters at a later date but I wanted to get this on-line so the reference materials were available to people. Reference makethumbs variable reference body_tag body_tag override the default BODY for all HTML pages body_tag="<body>" Description This is the most often overridden default setting. makethumbs will use the body_tag for its BODY tag for all HTML pages makethumbs creates. You can set a background image, or the color, or the text color by setting this variable. Examples Adding an entry like the following to your ~/.makethumbsrc file: body_tag="<body bgcolor="black" text="#ffffff" link="red" alink="yellow" vlink="green">" Will make all of your web pages have a black background, white foreground, and various colors for different states of links. Yummy. boilerplate_after_title boilerplate_after_title boilerplate_index_after_title boilerplate_slideshow_after_title text to be inserted after the page title boilerplate_after_title="" boilerplate_index_after_title="" boilerplate_slideshow_after_title="" Description This variable can be used to have template text inserted on all HTML pages created, after the page title (the <H1> etc. tag). This text will come directly after the title and before the thumbnail table. These variables are useful if you have a defined site style with template markup that go at the top and bottom of pages—add the template code here (or point to a file including the template) and all the HTML files makethumbs creates will contain your templates. As with boilerplate_end_of_page, boilerplate_before_title, and boilerplate_insert_in_head, this variable has three versions. boilerplate_after_title will be used for all HTML pages. If you want to add something to the top of only your index pages, you should use boilerplate_index_after_title; to change the top of the slideshow pages use boilerplate_slideshow_after_title. Note that the boilerplate_after_title variable will not be used if boilerplate_index_after_title or boilerplate_slideshow_after_title is set—those will take precedence for their given sets of pages. See also boilerplate_before_title , index_page_title_start_html , slideshow_page_title_start_html Examples Assuming the template code for your HTML pages is in /www/htdocs/table-start.txt, you can have makethumbs put the text in table-start.txt at the front of the thumbnail table with a ~/.makethumbsrc entry like this: boilerplate_after_title="/www/htdocs/table-start.txt" boilerplate_before_title boilerplate_before_title boilerplate_index_before_title boilerplate_slideshow_before_title text to be inserted before the page title boilerplate_before_title="" boilerplate_index_before_title="" boilerplate_slideshow_before_title="" Description This variable can be used to have template text inserted on all HTML pages created, before the page title (the <H1> etc. tag). This text will come directly after the opening <BODY> tag and before the title tag. These variables are useful if you have a defined site style with template markup that go at the top and bottom of pages—add the template code here (or point to a file including the template) and all the HTML files makethumbs creates will contain your templates. As with boilerplate_end_of_page, boilerplate_after_title, and boilerplate_insert_in_head, this variable has three versions. boilerplate_before_title will be used for all HTML pages. If you want to add something to the top of only your index pages, you should use boilerplate_index_before_title; to change the top of the slideshow pages use boilerplate_slideshow_before_title. Note that the boilerplate_before_title variable will not be used if boilerplate_index_before_title or boilerplate_slideshow_before_title is set—those will take precedence for their given sets of pages. See also body_tag , boilerplate_after_title , index_page_title_start_html , slideshow_page_title_start_html Examples Assuming the template code for your HTML pages is in /www/htdocs/page-start.txt, you can have makethumbs start each HTML file with the text in page-start.txt with a ~/.makethumbsrc entry like this: boilerplate_before_title="/www/htdocs/page-start.txt" boilerplate_end_of_page boilerplate_end_of_page boilerplate_index_end_of_page boilerplate_slideshow_end_of_page replacement text for the very end of each HTML page boilerplate_end_of_page="<body><html>" boilerplate_index_end_of_page="<body><html>" boilerplate_slideshow_end_of_page="<body><html>" Description These variables allow you to substitute your own preferred text and markup for the very end of every HTML page. Important! You must include the “<BODY><HTML>” markup at the end—you're really controlling the very end of the pages, nothing will be emitted except your text. As with boilerplate_before_title, boilerplate_after_title, and boilerplate_insert_in_head, this variable has three versions. boilerplate_end_of_page will be used for all HTML pages. If you want to add something to the end of only your index pages, you should use boilerplate_index_end_of_page; to change the end only on the slideshow pages use boilerplate_slideshow_end_of_page. Note that the boilerplate_end_of_page variable will not be used if boilerplate_index_end_of_page or boilerplate_slideshow_end_of_page is set—those will take precedence for their given sets of pages. The difference between this set of variables and boilerplate_footer are twofold. First, boilerplate_footer does not allow you to discriminate between index and slideshow pages (for no particularly good reason; two, boilerplate_footer doesn't let you close out the HTML page. If you're integrating makethumbs with a complicated site design, you might have some end-of-page template code which includes the closing <BODY><HTML> tags. See also boilerplate_footer Examples Assuming the template code for the end of your HTML pages is in /www/htdocs/page-ending.txt, you can have makethumbs close out each HTML file with the text in page-ending.txt with a ~/.makethumbsrc entry like this: boilerplate_end_of_page_FILE="/www/htdocs/page-ending.txt" boilerplate_footer boilerplate_footer text iplaced at the end of all HTML pages boilerplate_footer="" Description To have text placed at the bottom of all generated HTML pages, assign that text to boilerplate_footer. The value of this variable will be placed on both index and slideshow pages. See also boilerplate_end_of_page Examples boilerplate_footer="<hr /><a href="/"><i>Jason's home page</i>/<a> / <a href="/photos/"><i>Jason's photos page</i></a>" boilerplate_insert_in_head boilerplate_insert_in_head boilerplate_index_insert_in_head boilerplate_slideshow_insert_in_head HTML tags to be inserted in the HEAD section boilerplate_insert_in_head="" boilerplate_index_insert_in_head="" boilerplate_slideshow_insert_in_head="" Description These three variables are can contain text which will be inserted into the HEAD section of generated web pages. This might be used to add some Javascript, CSS specification, or meta tags. As with boilerplate_before_title, boilerplate_after_title, and boilerplate_end_of_page, this variable has three versions. boilerplate_insert_in_head will be used for all HTML pages. If you want to add something to the header of only your index pages, you should use boilerplate_index_insert_in_head; to insert something only on the slideshow pages use boilerplate_slideshow_insert_in_head. Note that the boilerplate_insert_in_page variable will not be used if boilerplate_index_insert_in_head or boilerplate_slideshow_insert_in_head is set—those will take precedence for their given sets of pages. See also meta_tag Examples boilerplate_index_insert_in_head="<meta name="robots" content="index,nofollow">" change_file_permissions change_file_permissions controls whether makethumbs will change the permissions on files change_file_permissions=1 Description When creating HTML files or images, makethumbs will change the permissions on the created files so they are readable by the web server process. This is normally the correct thing to do—if you have a restrictive umask set but your files need to be world-readable for them to be visible via the web server. change_file_permissions is a boolean variable; set it to 0 to make makethumbs leave your file permissions alone. See also file_readable_permissions , dir_transversible_permission columns columns number of columns of thumbnails columns=3 Description columns dictates how many columns of thumbnail images will be placed on each row (line) of the index pages. It is an integer value. In general, I recommend that your pages don't require browsers wider than 640 pixels. If have the default size of thumbnails 150x150 pixels, then I'd recommend four columns or fewer. If your have smaller thumbnail sizes, more columns work well. If your have large captions, that can also factor in to it. Play around with your pages and this setting, and see what works well for you—but keep in mind that many people have smallish displays. See also max_thumb_size , compact_index_page compact_index_page compact_index_page create a denser index page than normal compact_index_page=0 Description compact_index_page is a meta-setting—setting it to 1 will result in several variables being set: columns=6 index_table_spacing="tight" max_thumb_size=75 print_captions=0 This gives you an index page with many more smaller thumbnails packed together, with no captions. You can achieve exactly the same effect by setting all of the individual variables listed above. See also columns , index_table_spacing , max_thumb_size , print_captions compression_level compression_level set the amount of compression used when creating reduced images compression_level=75 Description makethumbs creates several smaller versions of images. If you are constrained for disk space, or want to keep the downloads small, you can reduce the compression setting. The default is 75%; JPEG can often be compressed down to around 40-50% before you start to see really obvious compression artifacts. It depends a lot on the type of image. This option is most often used when your image galleries are hosted on an ISP with a small disk quota. You can usually be safe setting the compression down to 50-60% and shave a third size off your image sizes or so. Examples compression_level=50 create_large_images create_large_images create large versions of very large images create_large_images=1 Description When create_large_images is enabled, makethumbs create reduced and large size pictures when necessary. This variable is a boolean value, set it to 0 to disable this feature. See also large_image_dimensions create_slideshow create_slideshow determines whether slideshow pages should be created or not create_slideshow=1 Description makethumbs will create HTML pages for each image so people can click around on them. If you'd rather it not do this, create_slideshow is for you. When create_slideshow is disabled, the links on the index page will point directly to JPEG files instead of to HTML files that inline the JPEG images. I can't imagine why anyone would want to use this, but the option exists. It's a boolean variable, so set it to 0 to disable slideshow creation. See also link_to_original_img_on_index , print_img_size_on_index date_formatting_text date_formatting_text formatting style for printing dates date_formatting_text="@MONTH@ @DAY@, @YEAR@" Description Given a day, year, and month, makethumbs has to create a date string intelligibly. In English we print dates like "June 19, 1970". In other languages, these will be in different orders or with different seperator characters. The value for @MONTH@ can be set via the monthname class of variables. This varable is primarily localization variable. See also month_names Examples To format dates in Portuguese, you'd use something like this: date_formatting_text="@DAY@ de @MONTH@ de @YEAR@" dates_filename dates_filename the file where image dates are cached dates_filename="dates.txt" Description makethumbs will try, via a variety of means, to guess the time and date each image was created. Most of these techniques involve the EXIF data embedded in photos taken by digital cameras. If new images are added to the directory and makethumbs is run again, it will update the dates.txt file to include them. If makethumbs fails to correctly divine the time and date of your images, you may update this file by hand if you wish. makethums will include the timestamps on the slideshow pages, and possibly on the main index page if better captions aren't available. The filename dates.txt is arbitrary, makethumbs can use any filename. See also use_timestamps_as_captions descriptions_filename descriptions_filename the file where image captions/descriptions are stored descriptions_filename="descriptions.txt" Description The descriptions.txt is used to record the overall title of the images, a description of the images, captions for individual images, and descriptions for individual images. The filename choice can be any you please. When files are added to the directory and makethumbs is re-run, the descriptions.txt is updated automatically to include the newly added files. See also print_captions , print_title_on_index , print_title_on_slideshow dir_transversible_permissions dir_transversible_permissions chmod options to make a dir transversible dir_transversible_permissions="a+x" Description makethumbs goes to great lengths to operate correctly despite highly restrictive umask settings. It chmod's all of its created files and the current working directory so that the files/dir can be read by the web server. You may not want makethumbs changing your permissions on you (cf change_file_permissions), or you may want to tweak the exact permissions it sets. Both are possible. This variable has a permission specification to chmod. See also change_file_permissions , file_readable_permissions Examples If you'd like to have your directory set to mode 0750, you'd set it like this: dir_transversible_permissions="0750" file_readable_permissions file_readable_permissions chmod options to make a file readable file_readable_permissions="a+r,a-x" Description makethumbs makes files world readable during its execution. The idea is that you may have a restrictive umask setting, but the files may need to be world readable to be visible via the web. makethumbs' chmod'ing behavior can be disabled entirely (via change_file_permissions) or you can tweak this setting. The value of file_readable_permissions is something that can be passed to chmod on the command line. See also change_file_permissions , dir_transversible_permissions Examples If you'd like to have all created files made group readable but not world readable, you could use a setting like this: change_file_permissions="g+r,g-x,o-rwx" html_charset html_charset specify the encoding of the text on your pages html_charset="" Description makethumbs will not specify a Content-Encoding for your web pages by default. If you are adding text of non-American origin to your pages, you may want to specify which encoding it is to help web browser programs. Or just use American for everything. It's all up to you. Examples Setting html_charset to "iso-8859-1" for Latin-1 aka ISO-8859-1, will result in the following being added to the HEAD section of all the HTML pages: <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> html_file_suffix html_file_suffix change the extensions used for all HTML files created html_file_suffix="html" Description The extension used when creating all HTML files is determined by the value of html_file_suffix. Examples The most common alternate setting of html_file_suffix is to get HTML files created with a ".htm" suffix, which you'd accomplish like this: html_file_suffix="htm" See also index_base_name image_imprinting_text image_imprinting_text text to be imprinted at the bottom of all generated images image_imprinting_text="" Description When image_imprinting_text is set to a string, that string will be printed in yellow in the lower right hand corner of every image makethumbs creates. makethumbs will not modify your original image. This feature depends on the presence of the mogrify command from ImageMagick—I think it is possible to do the same thing with NetPBM, but that's something for the future. This is most often used to put a credit or copyright on your generated pages. The original image is not modified, of course, so you'll probably want to remove the original versions (see remove_originals or ) if you want everyone to see the credit on the images. See also remove_originals Examples This setting will imprint “(C) 2002 Jason Molenda” on all of your created images: image_imprinting_text="(C) 2002 Jason Molenda" image_set_all_text image_set_all_text image_set_all_text image_set_all_text=All in one Description When makethumbs has a large number of images, it creates multiple index.html files. The text of image_set_all_text is what makethumbs puts in the link to the index page with all images on it. This variable is used exclusively for localization of makethumbs' English phrases. See also image_set_n_text , rows_per_index_page Examples For a page with Portuguese, you might use: image_set_all_text="Todas Imagens" image_set_n_text image_set_n_text image set text phrase image_set_n_text="Image set @NUMBER@" Description When makethumbs has a large number of images, it creates multiple index.html files. The text of image_set_n_text is what makethumbs puts in the on the pages when making links to them. This variable is used exclusively for localization of makethumbs' English phrases. See also image_set_all_text , rows_per_index_page Examples For a German page, you'd use a setting like image_set_n_text="Bildersammlung @NUMBER@" image_xx_of_yy_text image_xx_of_yy_text phrase put on slideshow pages to show current image number image_xx_of_yy_text="Image @CURRENT@ of @TOTAL@" Description makethumbs puts text at the top of each slideshow page (per-image web page) to indicate what number the current image is and the total number of images. This variable is used exclusively for localization of makethumbs' English phrases. Examples If you're writing web pages in German, you might prefer that this text be German instead, which you'd do with a setting like this: image_xx_of_yy_text="Bild @CURRENT@ von @TOTAL@" index_base_name index_base_name set the name of the index files index_base_name="index" Description This variable, in combination with the html_file_suffix variable, determines what all your index pages are named. By default, the main index page is index.html, but you can override this easily enough. See also html_file_suffix Examples To have your main index page named "pictures.html", you would use: index_base_name="pictures" index_page_title_start_html index_page_title_start_html index_page_title_end_html specifies the HTML markup used for the index title index_page_title_start_html="<h1 align="center">" index_page_title_end_html="</h1>" Description The titles on the index pages are marked up with <H1>. It's a reasonable default, but many people will prefer a smaller title size. See also slideshow_page_title_start_html Examples index_page_title_start_html="<font size="+1" align="center">" index_page_title_end_html="</font>" index_table_spacing index_table_spacing determines how tightly packed the thumbnails are on the index pages index_table_spacing="loose" Description The thumbnails on the index pages are contained within an HTML TABLE, which can have various amounts of spacing between the thumbnails. You can choose to have an index page with generous amounts of space between the thumbnails (“loose”), miserly amounts of space between the thumbnails (“tight”), or the minimum amount possible (“none”). index_table_spacing is an unusual variable; instead of a numeric value or arbitrary string it takes one of three valid settings: loose, tight, or none. See also compact_index_page , print_captions large image dimensions large_trigger_width large_trigger_height large_width large_height specify the size of large images large_trigger_width=1700 large_trigger_height=1300 large_width=1280 large_height=1024 Description This collection of variables is consulted when creating “large” images. If an image is larger than large_trigger_width x large_trigger_height, a large image is created for you within a bounding box of large_width x large_height. The idea of the “large” images are to add an intermediate step between the reduced_image_dimensions and the original image. As things are usually configured, the reduced images are around 640x480 pixels and many digital cameras are creating 4-6 megapixel images. The large images exist to provide something between 640x480 and 2500x2000. See also create_large_images , reduce_big_pics , reduced_image_dimensions link_to_original_img_on_index link_to_original_img_on_index add a link to the original image on the index page link_to_original_img_on_index=0 Description Long ago, makethumbs didn't create slideshow pages, so the index page had a link to the original image and to the reduced image. These days the thumbnails are linked to the slideshow pages, and that's where most people browsing should head. So there isn't much reason to link to the original image directly from the index page. But the option is there for anyone who still wants that link. link_to_original_img_on_index is a boolean variable; set it to 1 to have links to your original images on your index page. See also create_slideshow , original_image_text large_text large_text phrase used to refer to large images large_text="large" Description Slideshow pages have links on the bottom to reduced, large, and original images. large_text is the English phrase that'll be put on large image the link. This is a localization variable; it's used when modifying makethumbs' output for a foreign language. See also reduced_text , original_text , original_image_text Examples For Italian, you'd set this variable like this: large_text="ingrandita" max_thumb_size max_thumb_size size of generated thumbnail images max_thumb_size=150 Description max_thumb_size changes the number of pixels wide and high that each thumbnail image will be. You should adjust the number of thumbnails per row in concert with the size of the thumbnails to maintain a reasonable browser screen width. This variable is an integer value. See also columns , compact_index_page meta_tag meta_tag add a META header in the HEAD section of generated pages meta_tag="" Description You can have a META header added to all generated HTML files by setting this flag. The text should be the full, well formed META tag; makethumbs will blindly insert the value of meta_tag into the HEAD section of all HTML files. See Also boilerplate_insert_in_head , boilerplate_index_insert_in_head , boilerplate_slideshow_insert_in_head Examples meta_tag="<meta name="robots" content="index,nofollow">" month names monthname_01_text monthname_02_text monthname_03_text monthname_04_text monthname_05_text monthname_06_text monthname_07_text monthname_08_text monthname_09_text monthname_10_text monthname_11_text monthname_12_text the names of the months monthname_01_text="January" monthname_02_text="February" monthname_03_text="March" monthname_04_text="April" monthname_05_text="May" monthname_06_text="June" monthname_07_text="July" monthname_08_text="August" monthname_09_text="September" monthname_10_text="October" monthname_11_text="November" monthname_12_text="December" Description makethumbs loves to use month names in the oddest places. Well not so odd—it occasionally uses the timestamps of photos as captions when it can't find anything better to use for a caption. These settings exist primarily for localization to other languages. If your language doesn't usually use names of the months in its dates, you can set these to be numbers;makethumbs doesn't care. See also use_timestamps_as_captions , usa_specific_date_format_checks , "ref.date_formatting_text Examples If you'd prefer German month names, you'd use settings like these: monthname_01_text="Januar" monthname_02_text="Februar" monthname_03_text="März" monthname_04_text="April" monthname_05_text="Mai" monthname_06_text="Juni" monthname_07_text="Juli" monthname_08_text="August" monthname_09_text="September" monthname_10_text="Oktober" monthname_11_text="November" monthname_12_text="Dezember" original_image_text original_image_text phrase used to refer to original images original_image_text="Original image" Description This phrase can show up on index pages when link_to_original_img_on_index is enabled. This is the English phrase used in the link to the original image. This is a localization variable; it's used when modifying makethumbs' output for a foreign language. See also reduced_text , large_text , original_text , link_to_original_img_on_index Examples For Italian, you'd set this variable like this: original_image_text="Immagine originale" original_text original_text phrase used to refer to original images original_text="original" Description Slideshow pages have links on the bottom to reduced, large, and original images. original_text is the English phrase that'll be put on original image the link. This is a localization variable; it's used when modifying makethumbs' output for a foreign language. See also reduced_text , large_text , original_image_text Examples For Italian, you'd set this variable like this: original_text="originale" preferred_image_tools preferred_image_tools direct makethumbs to a specific image tool preferred_image_tools=netpbm Description makethumbs can use either ImageMagick or netpbm to do its image processing. It detects the presence of either of these toolsets at run-time. If your system has both of them, and you'd prefer that makethumbs use one of them in particular, use this setting. This is a nasty little hack variable. Some systems have really, really old netpbm and ImageMagick versions installed, and makethumbs can't always parse these old versions' odd output styles. It makes me happiest if people report these problems to me so I can add support for them, but as a quick hack, you can tell makethumbs to disregard the tool it can't understand. Examples preferred_image_tools=imagemagick print_captions print_captions determines whether makethumbs should print captions on the index print_captions=1 Description By default, makethumbs will print a caption below each thumbnail on the index pages. It will use a caption if one has been specified, or a time/date, or a filename, approximately in that order of preference. Some styles of index layout work better without captions. print_captions is a boolean, supply either a 0 or 1 value. See also use_timestamps_as_captions , print_img_size_on_index , compact_index_page , index_table_spacing , link_to_original_img_on_index , compact_index_page print_img_size_on_index print_img_size_on_index include the image size in the index page captions print_img_size_on_index=0 Description Before makethumbs created slideshow pages, it used to add links directly to the original photos. These photos could be quite large, so it was sensible to warn users about the size of the photo they were about to click on. Nowadays, the default case is that clicking on an image takes you to a reduced sized image, which isn't very large and doesn't warrant a warning. Some folks may prefer to throw up an image size anyway, so the option remains. print_img_size_on_index is a boolean; set to 1 to enable this feature. See also print_captions , compact_index_page print_img_size_on_slideshow print_img_size_on_slideshow include the image size in the per-image (slideshow) page links print_img_size_on_slideshow=1 Description At the bottom of each slideshow page (per-image web page), there may be links to other sizes of the image (e.g. "reduced", "large", "original"). If print_img_size_on_slideshow is set to 0, this is disabled and file sizes will not be displayed. See also slideshow_img_size_across_two_lines print_title_on_index print_title_on_index whether a title should be put on the index pages or not print_title_on_index=1 Description Some people would prefer that no title be at the top of their index page, usually to make the makethumbs image gallery integrate with their site design better. Thanks to this handy little option, it's easy to do. print_title_on_index is a boolean, set it to 0 to suppress the title printing. Keep in mind that this variable only controls the title on the index pages; use the print_title_on_slideshow option to set it there as well. See also print_title_on_slideshow , index_page_title_start_html , index_page_title_end_html print_title_on_slideshow print_title_on_slideshow whether a title should be put on the slideshow pages or not print_title_on_slideshow=1 Description Some people would prefer that no title be at the top of their slideshow pages, usually to make the makethumbs image gallery integrate with their site design better. Thanks to this handy little option, it's easy to do. print_title_on_slideshow is a boolean, set it to 0 to suppress the title printing. Keep in mind that this variable only controls the title on the slideshow pages; use the print_title_on_index option to set it there as well. See also print_title_on_index , slideshow_page_title_start_html , slideshow_page_title_end_html reduce_big_pics reduce_big_pics create reduced versions of large images reduce_big_pics=1 Description When reduce_big_pics is enabled, makethumbs create reduced and large size pictures when necessary. This variable is a boolean value, set it to 0 to disable this feature. reduced image dimensions reduce_trigger_width reduce_trigger_height reduce_width reduce_height specify the size of reduced images reduce_trigger_width=1024 reduce_trigger_height=768 reduce_width=640 reduce_height=480 Description This collection of variables is consulted when creating “reduced” images. If an image is larger than reduce_trigger_width x reduce_trigger_height, a reduced image is created for you within a bounding box of reduce_width x reduce_height. Feel free to change these settings, but keep two things in mind. First, many people have browser windows about 640x480 big. You can create reduced images of 800x600, but it'll make it harder for your users to see the images easily. Second, keep the trigger sizes larger than the destination image sizes. It is weak to reduce an image with dimensions of 802x603 to 800x600—you'll gain nothing in the process and you'll lower the image quality in the process. See also reduce_big_pics reduced_text reduced_text phrase used to refer to reduced images reduced_text="reduced" Description Slideshow pages have links on the bottom to reduced, large, and original images. reduced_text is the English phrase that'll be put on the reduced image link. This is a localization variable; it's used when modifying makethumbs' output for a foreign language. See also large_text , original_text , original_image_text Examples For Italian, you'd set this variable like this: reduced_text="ridotta" remove_originals remove_originals instruct makethumbs to remove original images remove_originals=0 Description When remove_originals is set to 1, makethumbs will remove the original image if it has created reduced or large images. This option is most often used when you have a small amount of disk space for your web pages. It is usually activated with the command line option. If you have both reduced images and large images in addition to the original images, remove_originals will remove the original images and promote the large images to the original images. If you run makethumbs again with the same option in the same directory, the current-original images (which are really the large images that makethumbs created previously) are removed and the reduced images are promoted to the original filenames. Because of the way this command works, it is usually best to use the command line option instead of the .makethumbsrc setting. If you set remove_originals in the .makethumbsrc file, you're likely to always end up with the reduced (640x480 by default) images as the only images available to your useres. This option can also be useful if you are imprinting attributions/copyrights on to your images via the image_imprinting_text so that you can remove the original images which don't have the text imprinted on them. remove_originals is a boolean variable with a valid setting of either 0 or 1. Your original images will most likely be removed when remove_originals is enabled. Don't run this on your only copy of an image your you will lose that image!. This is one of the only times that makethumbs will ever touch any of your original images, but it's a doosey so please be careful. See also image_imprinting_text , compression_level rows_per_index_page rows_per_index_page the number of rows of thumbnails per page rows_per_index_page=10 Description makethumbs creates multiple index pages when there are lots of images in the directory. The number of thumbnails to put on each page is determined by this variable and by columns. The default setting is 10 rows, with a default of 3 columns, or thirty thumbnails per page. makethumbs avoids dangling images, so you may end up with a couple extra images on the final page instead of a final web page with one or two thumbnails on it. rows_per_index_page is, of course, an integer value. See also columns , single_index_page show_image_info show_image_info whether the image shot information should be visible or not show_image_info=0 Description makethumbs will try to use an external program to read the EXIF data out of the images. Digital cameras record things like the shutter speed, aperture, time when the photo was taken, etc., and record this data in the image in EXIF format. Normally makethumbs includes this information as an HTML comment on the slideshow pages. It's occasionally interesting if you're curious about why an image is blurry or something, but it's just noise for most browsers. If you'd like to have this information visible on your slideshow pages, set show_image_info to 1. show_progress show_progress indicate progress to user as makethumbs runs show_progress=1 Description makethumbs prints information to the user while it is executing to indicate how the script is progressing. With larger galleries, makethumbs can take a long time—over fifteen minutes for six hundred images in one case—and it's nice to see that everything is still working. show_progress is a boolean value, so set it to 0 to disable the progress output. show_timings show_timings tell the user how long each stage of makethumbs took show_timings=0 Description makethumbs, in concert with its progress printing, can report how many seconds each stage took to complete. It is mostly useful when benchmarking makethumbs itself and working on improving efficiencies—it might be fun for other people to enable, but not something that would be useful for general folks. show_timings is a boolean value, so set it to 1 to enable the time reporting. See also show_progress single_index_page single_index_page whether makethumbs will create multiple index pages or not single_index_page=0 Description Normally, makethumbs will create multiple index pages if you have a lot of images. The alternative is to have a single index page with all of your images. When your directory has many images, this can get unwieldy and hard for people to navigate. It's up to you. single_index_page is a boolean variable; set it to 1 to make makethumbs create only a single index page. See also rows_per_index_page Examples single_index_page=1 slideshow_images_are_clickable slideshow_images_are_clickable whether the images on slideshow pages are links slideshow_images_are_clickable=0 Description By default, the images displayed on the slideshow pages are not links to anything--this makes it easier to scroll around the window without clicking on anything by accident. If you set this variable, the images will be linked. The links will cycle through the various sizes of the images—reduced, large, and original as exists. slideshow_img_size_across_two_lines slideshow_img_size_across_two_lines file sizes should be seperate from the file type name slideshow_img_size_across_two_lines=1 Description At the bottom of slideshow pages (per-image HTML pages), links to different sizes of the image are listed (e.g. "reduced", "large", "original") with the sizes of the files if print_img_size_on_slideshow is set (which is the default). When these links are listed with their sizes, if slideshow_img_size_across_two_lines is set, the file size is on a seperate line from the file type ("large" et al). Vertical space is a precious commodity, and links to image variants come before any image description—the result is that people may have to scroll down to see the image description. The default layout is to have the file type ("large") on one line and the file size ("375k") on the second; this uses one more line of veritcal space than strictly necessary. Setting this to 0 will give you links like "Large 375k". See also print_img_size_on_slideshow slideshow navigation markup slideshow_previous_pre_link slideshow_previous slideshow_previous_post_link slideshow_ret_to_index_pre_link slideshow_ret_to_index slideshow_ret_to_index_post_link slideshow_next_pre_link slideshow_next slideshow_next_post_link specifies the markup for slideshow page navigation slideshow_previous_pre_link="<h2>[" slideshow_previous="previous" slideshow_previous_post_link="]</h2>" slideshow_ret_to_index_pre_link="<h2>[" slideshow_ret_to_index="index" slideshow_ret_to_index_post_link="]</h2>" slideshow_next_pre_link="<h2>[" slideshow_next="next" slideshow_next_post_link="]</h2>" Description Using these variables, you can easily override the navigation on slideshow (per-image) pages. You can make the navigation words larger, smaller, translate them to a foreign language, make them more amusing, substitute in images. The possibilities are endless. Examples <H2> is rather large. If you'd prefer <H3> sized navigation, this would do it. slideshow_page_title_start_html=<h3> slideshow_page_title_end_html=</h3> slideshow_previous_pre_link=<h3>[ slideshow_previous_post_link=]</h3> slideshow_next_pre_link=<h3>[ slideshow_next_post_link=]</h3> slideshow_ret_to_index_pre_link=<h3>[ slideshow_ret_to_index_post_link=]</h3> Images can be nice for navigation instead of words. These settings are likely to work on an Apache installation. slideshow_previous_pre_link="" slideshow_previous="<img src="/icos/left.png" />" slideshow_previous_post_link="" slideshow_next_pre_link="" slideshow_next="<img src="/icos/right.png" />" slideshow_next_post_link="" slideshow_ret_to_index_pre_link="" slideshow_ret_to_index="<img src="/icos/up.png" />" slideshow_ret_to_index_post_link="" Like French better than English? Not a problem: slideshow_previous="Précédente" slideshow_ret_to_index="Index" slideshow_next="Suivante" slideshow_page_title_start_html slideshow_page_title_start_html slideshow_page_title_end_html specifies the HTML markup used for the slideshow page titles slideshow_page_title_start_html="<h2>" slideshow_page_title_end_html="</h2>" Description The titles on the slideshow pages are marked up with <H2>. It's a reasonable default, but many people will prefer a smaller title size. See also index_page_title_start_html Examples slideshow_page_title_start_html="<font size="+1">" slideshow_page_title_end_html="</font>" slideshow_print_javascript_navigation slideshow_print_javascript_navigation disable or enable Javascript on slideshow pages slideshow_print_javascript_navigation=1 Description makethumbs inserts Javascript code into each slideshow (per-image) web page to easily move through the images. Users can press n or k to move to the next image; they can press p or j to move to the previous image. It's very easy to flip through a gallery if you know about these keyboard shortcuts. Set slidesohw_print_javascript_navigation to 0 if you'd prefer your web pages not have Javascript in them. this_page_created_text this_page_created_text text emitted at the bottom of index pages this_page_created_text=This page @LINKSTART@created@LINKEND@ on @DATE@. Description makethumbs adds this tag to the bottom of each web page. It includes two things: The date the gallery was created, and a link to the makethumbs home page so other people can find makethumbs if they'd like to use it. This variable primarily exists for localization, this is, translating into foreign languages. If you don't want to have any of these timestamps and links at the bottom of your pages, you can always set it to nothing. The bits like @LINKSTART@ will be substituted into the string by makethumbs at runtime. Examples If you're creating web pages for Italian readers, you might want to set this variable to something like this. this_page_created_text="Questa pagina @LINKSTART@creata@LINKEND@ il @DATE@." usa_specific_date_format_checks usa_specific_date_format_checks whether makethumbs will recognize dates in US order usa_specific_date_format_checks=1 Description makethumbs tries a variety of means to find the times and dates of images. Some of these checks depend on filenames and directories, looking for date-like things in them. Unfortunately, not everyone writes their dates in proper ISO 8601 format. In the US, the day March 8th is written 3/8 and the date March 8 2002 is written 3/8/02 or 3/8/2002. In many other parts of the world, this date would be written 8/3 or 8/3/02. Poor little makethumbs has no way to tell what part of the world it is running in, so it assumes that it might be running in the US, and will interpret a date like 3/8/2002 as March 8th 2002. If you don't live in the US, you should probably set this variable to 0 so makethumbs doesn't misinterpret a date in your files or directories. Or you can move to the US, whatever works best for you. usa_specific_date_format_checks is a boolean variable; set it to 0 to indicate that dates should not be interpreted in the US order. See also use_timestamps_as_captions use_timestamps_as_captions use_timestamps_as_captions determines whether timestamps may be used as captions use_timestamps_as_captions=1 Description makethumbs has an involved algorithm for determining what to use as a caption under images on the index page. If you've added a caption to your descriptions.txt file, that will be used. Lacking that, if the filename of the image looks interesting, that will be used. Lacking that, if a timestamp is available for the image, that will be used. Sometimes you won't want the timestamps used as a caption. If you've travelled far out of your timezone and the camera was not adjusted to account for that, or the camera's clock is vastly incorrect, then the times of the photos are not useful. When Andrew Morton put his Thailand photos on-line with makethumbs, he had tmes in the middle of the night, with pictures of mid afternoon light—a perfect time to instruct makethumbs to ignore the timestamps. use_timestamps_as_captions is a boolean variable; set it to 0 to disable this feature. Dates in captions makethumbs will use the time of a photo as the caption if all the images in the directory were shot on the same day. makethumbs will use the date of the photo if the images in the directory were taken on seperate days. None of this will be done unless the image filename is determined to be “uninteresting”. An uninteresting filename is a filename that looks like something a digital camera generated, with no inherent meaning to people. See also print_captions , compact_index_page use_two_windows use_two_windows open a seperate window for image viewing use_two_windows=0 Description When use_two_windows mode is enabled, a seperate browser window is opened when people click on thumbnails. This option is not very useful these days with the slideshow mode, but it's easy to support so I leave it in. This variable is a boolean value, set it to either 0 or 1.