Balance in CpmFetch with unbalanced categories

[cgc0202]

I have no background in programming/scripting nor have taken any computer course, at all.  One of the reasons why I chose Coppermine PhotoGallery (CPG), aside from its great features and being actively developed by a group, is that it has a very detailed installation procedure that was quite easy to follow, once I understood some of the scripting conventions. The browser based installation is also a great plus.  Now, I can install CPG in a matter of minutes. 

CPMFetch  is even easier, in a sense, also once you get the hang of it.

Because of my lack of background in scripting language, to say that I have struggled to understand CPMFetch is an underestimation.   However, I did because I saw its potential for the applications I want to use it for.  And,  to reiterate, once you understand it, CPMFetch is very simple and very powerful.  If you do not understand its potential, as the criticism posted here, then you are not imaginative enough.

I like CPG very much, but it has some inherent limitations for the applications I want to use it for -- like proper presentation of images when there is imbalance in the number of images for each category or album.  CPMFetch happens to provide the solution with very simple (i.e., not bloated) script -- that was why I took the time to understand how it works or to make it work.  Here's a seemingly simple solution to solve the aforementioned issue of statistical imbalance of images among categories and albums:

Likas-Philippines

While seemingly simple, the solution is also very complex.  The above site, though the layout is crappy, involves at least 16 different Coppermine PhotoGalleries, actually -- not the usual strategy by most users or would have a need for.  There are quite a number of reasons for my decision to do use multiple CPGs, but I will not go into that here.  Suffice to say, through CPMFetch, I can export and selectively focus on any content of any of the multiple galleries, or even mix and match them anyway I want, and place them in gazillion pages, if I want to.  As important, each resulting page is dynamic whenever a vistor views a page.

When used properly, I can find many educational and scientific applications for CPMFetch; the focus of my internet projects.  To name one major scientific application, for example, it is possible to use CPMFetch to show  how living organisms are interrelated with each other in a manner that would be understood by anyone with minimal use of words -- although brief descriptions would help so that anyone who is interested to learn about such things on their own will grasp a concept much more clearly.  This and many more  are among the more useful applications of CPMFetch -- as opposed to the gratuitous  placement of images in  many webpages, today.

This is the reason why I devoted time to learn how CPMFetch works.  It took me months of learning the basics of CPMFetch --  one after another -- with patient guidance from Vuud.  [Please view old Forum for CPMFetch.   I also detailed how I understood Vuud's explanation and gave examples, for those who might have been confused by the instructions.]

The aforementioned application of CPMFetch, in
Likas-Philippines and other pages, uses the old CPMFetch 1.6.4.  A new version, 2.0 is planned in the future and it is configured differently from CPMFetch v1.6.4.  So, I have to learn how to use it too:

Trying to learn CPMFetch 1.9.4

and then eventually find a way to adapt it to the multi-CPG format that I adopted, for applications like Likas-Philippines. 

Indeed, there was something that was not clear to me, after reading the instructions for CPMFetch 1.9.4.  However, instead of simply criticizing Vuud,  that the procedure was not clear (as the previous respondent did)  I focused instead in presenting what I did, as clearly as I could. 

Vuud's response and suggestion turned out to be the simple solution to the problem I encountered.  Now it works.

I re-wrote the procedure, as I understood it.  However, I have not posted my simplified procedure (intended for people like me who do not have scripting background) because I want to couple my response to the next stage -- to make the CPMFetch work for multi-GPG format that I use (and was able to implement using CPMFetch v1.6.4).

I am a bit busy, but I took the time to write this response because I found the aforementioned criticism posted in this thread not only nasty but uncalled for, as I already outlined above. CPMFetch in conjunction with CPG are very powerful tools, if you know what they can be used for. 

There was nothing gained from all the negativity that was posted in the response.  To begin with, it is a bad strategy and poor taste.  As a result, instead of both sides working to solve a problem, the collective effort  was wasted to respond to the nastiness of the criticism.  Yes, there is a great room for improvement in the instructions.  However, it should be incumbent among users to help Vuud and others who have devoted their time in sharing endeavors like this.  Instead, we remain simple recipients of their good intentions and we demand, as if they owe us anything.

I do not like Microsoft products and strategies myself, for a number of reasons, but I do not waste my time in the internet criticizing Microsoft or Bill Gates.  Instead, I use Mac because it the technology that works for me -- even if 95% of the world use Microsoft.

It should be pointed out also that people like Vuud, and the entire team behind CPG and others involved in open source initiatives should be commended for what they are trying to do and have done.  If only there are more people like them, the world  would be a better place to we live in.

Cornelio