Content
1. Introduction
2. Connecting the module to a page
3. Managing the ALLbum module
3.1 Create (sub-) albums
3.2 Adding images, etc.
3.3 Edit album/object
3.4 (Re-) Order
3.5 Move
3.6 Delete
3.7 Configuration
4. Visiting the ALLbum module on your site
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Main page
4.3 Album page
4.4 Slideshow
4.5 Object page
The ALLbum module in Site@School has the following features:
- Create main albums which can contain sub-albums and/or files.
- Sub-albums can contain sub-sub-albums. Deeper albums are not possible.
- Upload files from the
starnet/media
directory or from your local computer to a (sub-)album.
- Uploaded files are sorted on their filename alphabetically.
- Facility to upload multiple files in one go from your local computer
- Select and then delete or move the selected objects.
- Select all objects.
- Hide objects.
- Edit the title and description of an object.
- Re-order albums, sub-albums or objects.
- Configure the number of objects shown per page, the number of objects shown per row and the horizontal size of pictures and thumbnails.
- A welcome text for the album.
- Send alerts when something changes on the album page.
- The ALLbum can contain files of any type but in practice the following common formats will be used:
- Image files: .jpg, .gif, .png.
- Acrobat reader files: .pdf.
- Audio files: .wav, .mp3, ram.
- Word document files: .doc
- Video files: .avi. .mpg
- If 'imagemagick' or 'gdlib' is installed in your version of PHP, thumbnails are automatically created when a picture is added to an album.
You can test if gdlib is installed by renaming ../starnet/sas_check.txt to sas_check.php and run it in your browser.
After use, rename sas_check.php to sas_check.txt. Having this file world readable is a security risk.
- Albums can be connected to pages which can be on the public site and on the protected area.
- An album can have the form of a slideshow.
- An [Edit] function to change the module name and the program name to fit your language.
See the Module manager chapter for details on how to change the name.
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To add the ALLbum module to your school site, the programs of the module must be bound to pages.
See the Module manager chapter on how to do this.
The module has three programs:
- View Albums: Choosing this option gives you one album page for your site.
- View Album per page: With this option you can have one album per page.
The page name must be identical to the album title.
To enable this option, go to 'Create Album' in the Album module, fill in the album title and set the 'Connected to page? Yes / No' to 'Yes'.
- Album slideshow: When you have made an album and connected it to a page,
you can also show this page as a slideshow. This is a new page.
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In this section, the administrator's part of the ALLbum module is discussed.
When you first visit the administrator's part of the ALLbum module, your ALLbum is empty:

mod_albm_no_albums.png
Press the 'Create album' link in the menu at the left side of the window. The following will appear:

mod_albm_create_albm.jpg
- Title: Enter a title for this album.
NOTICE: When you want an album per page, the album name must be identical to the page name.
The page name is set in the Page Manager.
- Description: Enter a description for the new album. A description is needed before an album can be created.
- Connected to page? Yes No: Several options are possible here.
When you want one album per page:
- you have made the page name and album name identical and,
- in the options for the Allbum module, you choose 'View album per page'.
In that case, set this option to 'Yes'.
When you want one or more album(s) on one page, you:
- created a page and
- in the Allbum module manager, you choose 'View albums'.
When you set the option to 'No', the created album(s) will be visible on the created page.
- Is album for protected area? Yes No: Selects where the album is located; on the public site or on the protected area. Select accordingly.
NOTICE: This option is only available when creating a main album. When creating sub-album(s) this option is not available.
Sub-albums always reside under their main album and cannot be moved.
- Go back: To return to the previous page without creating an album.
- Create album: Press to create the album
Press the 'Create album' button. The album will be created and you will be redirected to its content overview:

mod_albm_empty_album.png
You have created an album, but it's empty. By clicking the 'Go back' button, you will be back at the main page and you can see the album:

mod_albm_empty_albm_mainpage.png
To create a new sub-album, click on the album thumbnail to enter the album, then click 'New album' from the menu.
Fill in the title and description. Choose 'No' for the 'Connect album to page' option, and click 'Save'.
When you are in a sub-album, clicking the 'Go back' button will redirect you to the main album, i.e. not to the main page.
When you click on the 'empty' thumbnail picture, you will see:
mod_albm_empty_albm_add_object.png
Now you can add an object to an album or a sub-album. To add an object to an album, click on its thumbnail and click on 'Add object' in the menu.
When you want to add an object to a sub-album, navigate to the sub album and click on its thumbnail. Then click 'Add object' in the menu.
In both cases, you will see:

mod_albm_add_object.png
- Browse: With the 'Browse' button you can select a file on your local machine. When you have selected one, it appears in the input field.
By clicking on 'Add object(s) [2]' the file(s) will be placed in the Album.
- Add object(s): You must use this option after you have selected file(s) from your own computer or when you have selected one
or more file(s) and/or directorie(s) from the media/ directory.
- These are the subdirectorie(s) under the main directory media/. By clicking the checkbox all the files in this directory will be placed in the Album.
- These are the pictures in the main directory media/. By clicking the checkbox, the picture will be placed in the Album when 'Add object(s)' button is pressed.
- Multiple file upload: With this option you can upload multiple pictures to the Album.
After clicking on 'Multiple file upload' you will see:

fileman_mupload_warning.png
This is a security warning because the (java applet) program will be running on your computer. When you want to use the program, click 'Yes'. You will see:

mod_albm_mfu.png
- Click on 'Add'. Your computer file browser will open.
- Select the files you want to upload and confirm the action in your computer file browser. Your computer file browser will close.
- The selected files will be visible in the upload program.
- Click 'Upload' and observe the upload progress bar at the bottom of the window.
- When the uploading process is terminated, the upload program closes and you're pictures are placed in the Album.
When the selected files are added to the current album and you will be redirected to the last page of this album:

mod_albm_object_added.png
- Cancel: To cancel your work
Every object in the ALLbum module has a title and a description (which of course might be empty).
By clicking the 'Select object' link below an object's thumbnail the object can be selected (to deselect it, press the appearing 'Deselect object' link). If the 'Select all' link in the menu at the left side of the window is clicked, all objects shown on the current page are selected.
After selecting one or more objects, click the 'Edit album/object' link in the menu. The following appears:
mod_albm_edit.png
In the 'Title' and 'Description' fields, the title and description can be modified.
In the 'Main picture' dropdown menu another picture can be selected as main picture for an album or sub-album.
NOTICE: When an album is empty, or when it only contains sub-albums, it is impossible to change the picture; the dropdown menu is not visible.
Next, at the bottom of the page, press the 'cancel' (if you do not want to save the changes) or 'Save' (if you want to save the changes) button.
If no objects have been selected and the 'Edit title / description' link is clicked, all objects on the current page will be shown on the 'Edit title / description' page.
When a page with albums or when the contents of an album is shown and the 'Order' link in the menu at the left side of the screen is pressed, you will see:

mod_albm_order.jpg
Every object in the current album will be listed and a new order in which these objects will be shown can be entered. After re-ordering, click the 'Order' button at the bottom of the page.
When you mark the 'Last -> First' option and click the 'Order' button, the last album becomes the first album. The other albums move one place down.
This is a useful feature when you have just created an album. Normally spoken, this newly created album becomes the last album in the row of albums.
Now you can make it the first album with two mouse clicks.
When ordering objects within an album the 'Last -> First' option is not there, objects are sorted alphabetically when added.
Objects can be moved from one album to another. Select one or more files (albums can not be moved), click 'Move selected items' in the menu to move the selected items to a different album. The following will appear:

mod_albm_move_objects.jpg
First, the files that will be moved are listed. Next, the available main albums are shown. It is not possible to move files on a main page, so a main album must be clicked.
Click an album to which you want to move the objects and you will see:

mod_albm_move_objects2.jpg
Press the 'Move' button at the bottom of the page. The file(s) will be moved and you will be redirected to the contents of the current album (which, of course, does not contain the moved objects anymore).
After selecting one or more files and or albums, click the 'Delete selected items' button in the menu at the left side of the window. A warning message will appear, in which the selected objects are listed:

mod_albm_delete.png
Press the 'Cancel' button to cancel the deletion of the selected objects, or press the 'OK' button to delete them.
The ALLbum module has some configuration options. Click the 'Configuration' link in the menu at the left side of the window.
The configuration options will appear:

mod_albm_config.png
Explanation:
- Maximal number of albums shown per page: Sets the maximum number of albums that are shown on a page before (next/previous) page links will be shown.
- Maximal number of objects shown per page: if many objects are shown, for each page much data has to be transported between the server and the visitor's machine. If there are a lot of visitors with slow connections, keep this option below 10. If visitors all have fast connections, you could set this option to 20.
- Maximal number of objects that can be added at once: see the 'Adding files' section above; this option sets the number of
browse-lines that are shown when adding files.
- Number of objects shown per row: this option sets the number of columns when the contents of an album are shown.
Depending on the width of the visitor's screen (e.g. 800 or 1024 pixels),
the maximum number of objects shown per page and the horizontal thumbnail size, you might want to adapt this setting.
Normal values are between 2 and 4 columns.
- Horizontal size of pictures (px): this option sets
the horizontal size in pixels of pictures shown in an album. For visitors using a
resolution of 800 x 600, a value of 500 is recommended, for visitors using a
resolution of 1024 x 768, a value of 650 is recommended.
- Show last added album first?: When set to yes, the last album added will be the first album on your site.
- Horizontal size of thumbnails (px): this option sets the horizontal size in pixels of thumbnails shown in an album.
Depending on the number of objects shown per row and the screen resolution of the visitors, this value might vary between 150 and 300.
- Allbum welcome text: The text above the album main page. You can use HTML tags to markup the text.
- Go back: To return to the previous page.
- Save configuration: to save your configuration settings.
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In this section, the visitor's part of the ALLbum module is discussed.
The ALLbum visitors' interface is very straightforward, intuitive and should not need any explanation. Nevertheless, for the completeness of this document we will briefly describe it.
ALLbum shows files to the visitor in an ordered way. A main page consists of main albums, which can contain files and/or sub-albums. Each sub-album can contain files and/or sub-albums again.
Every file and (sub-)album has a title and a description.
A visitor can navigate through the (sub-)albums to view, play or download the files.
An example of a main page is shown below:

mod_albm_main_page.png
Here you will see several albums on the first main page. At the bottom of the page, more page numbers can be visible.
If you want to visit page number X, click its link. If you want to visit the next (or previous) page,
click the double arrow at the right (left) side of the page numbers.
If a thumbnail of an album is clicked, the corresponding album page is loaded. See the next section.
An example of an album is shown below:

mod_albm_one_album.png
- The title of your album.
- The description of your album.
- Link to the slideshow, see for description 4.4 Slideshow.
- Objects area, on which 6 pictures are shown in this example. If the thumbnail of a file is clicked,
an object page will be shown, see the next section: 4.5 Object page
- The title of the object, in this case a picture.
- Link to the previous album page.
- Links to the other pages of the album, number of objects can be configured in the album module configuration.
- Link to the next album page.
An example of a slideshow page is shown below:

mod_albm_slideshow.png
- When the slideshow is running a [Stop] link is shown, when not running [Play] link is shown.
- Link to choose [Backward] or [Forward] showing of the objects.
- Here you can choose how many seconds your picture is shown.
- Here you can choose a transition type, this is only shown on Internet Explorer.
- Check this when you want to run the slideshow continuously.
- Shows the current picture number and the total of pictures in the slideshow.
An example of an object page containing a picture is shown below:

mod_albm_site_object_page.png
At the top of the page, the navigation-line is shown. Below that, the picture name and the double arrows which are clickable links,
lead you to the next or the previous object in the album.
Below the picture, the same double arrows can be used to go to the previous or next object.
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Author: Dirk Schouten <schoutdi (at) knoware (dot) nl>
Last updated: 2006-04-12