Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages

To see the Code, click on the procedure name above.

• This document describes the creation and maintenance of photographic timelines on my Website.
• There are three types of timeline currently on my website:-
  1. Blog:
     • This is now Note 268², which uses Functor_14 to generate the table in the webpage, using the MS Access table Blog.
     • This is a fairy recent enhancement to my Blog processing, and seems to make the process much easier to administer.
  2. Coxes Farm Timeline:
     • This is Note 1276³, which uses Functor_15 to generate the table in the webpage, using the MS Access table Timeline.
     • It is slightly half-baked at the moment, but the intention is to select contrasting photos from the other timelines and display the – with comments – in whatever order seems helpful.
  3. Generic Timelines:
     • Currently, there are three Notes (items 3 – 5 in the menu):-
       → Coxes Farm Repairs⁴
       → Coxes Farm Pre-Repairs⁵
       → Coxes Farm Gardens⁶
     • These use Functor_16 to generate the table in the webpage, using the MS Access tables Photos_Raw and Photo_Narratives.
     • This function is much more sophisticated than the item immediately above, and allows the importing of photos in bulk.
     • In due course I intend to add timelines for holidays and – possibly – for Tommy, our new grandson.
     • The residue of this Note focuses on Generic Timelines.
• The other options in the menu (items 6 – 8) are:-
  6. Search the Photos_Raw table.
  7. Manually check photos excluded from the web-pages after being imported into Photos_Raw. In particular ensure that both of two different-sized photos are excluded when one is, or that the middle only (or all three) are if there are three different-sized photos of the same image.
  8. Check that photos have consistent types (ie. that different size versions of the same photo don’t appear in different pages).
• Generic Timelines: Detailed processing
  1. Overview:
     • The names of photo JPEGs are copied from the selected directory into the table Photos_Raw, classified by (currently) one of three photo-types, reflecting the three options above.
     • Optionally, the photos themselves are copied to the Photos/Notes directory on the local copy of my website (they must be copied over manually to the live site).
     • Large and small copies of the same photo are matched up – using the string immediately before the “.jpg” to the preceding “_” (if any) – so that the small photo appears on the grid, for rapidity of loading, the large photo only being displayed on request.
     • I found a useful free utility – Mass Image Compressor – that can compress images in bulk. It works fine, and quickly.
     • The photos are segregated by month and displayed in descending date order. The date used is the “date taken” in the JPEG header, if there is one, otherwise a manually-entered date can be used. If both exist, the manually entered date takes precedence.
     • Within the month bands, a further segregation is allowed by photo-subgroup.
     • A narrative associated with each Month (or Subgroup within Month) can be entered to the Photo_Narratives table.
     • A jump-table (by Month, not sub-group) appears at the top of the page to allow easy access to, and an overview of, the timeline. The Narrative for the month appears as a pop-up.
     • An issue was display of portrait photos, which appeared as landscape in the grid, and when rotated distorted the grid unacceptably. I sorted this eventually, and flag such items – manually rotated using the standard Microsoft Photos utility – within Photos_Raw.
     • A final issue was the date the photo was taken. This can often be deduced from the JPEG header, using a modified version of a utility I found on-line. Otherwise, the date can be encoded in the file-name, or physically typed in to the Photos_Raw table.
  2. The following subroutines and functions are called into play:-
     1. Create_Timeline: This is the controlling routine, and will be covered in detail later.
     2. Compressed_Photos_Copy: This is a routine that copies already compressed images from a selected directory and copies them to another selected directory, prefixing the file name with “Small_”. The images can then be imported using Create_Timeline.
     3. GetProperty: This is a modified version of a bit of freeware found on-line (originally in VB). It returns “Property n” from the JPEG header. I only use it with n=12, which is “date photo taken”. It is not always set.
     4. Photo_Copy:
     5. Photo_Copy2:
     6. Photo_Preparation:
     7. Images_Add:
     8. Functor_16:
        
  3. Create_Timeline:
• This Note is awaiting further attention⁷.