Catagories and albums without catagory listed

[Peter R]

Hello,
I am new to Coppermine (in fact all photo gallery programs), but not new to PHP. Looking to all photo gallery programs, Coppermine looked the best solution for me.
Together with the documentation and forum/google, I found a lot, but there is something that I couldn't find. In all demo themes', categories with albums in it are presented on top, and albums without a category are place underneath. I want to place all categories under each other, with under them the albums that are in it, with album names shifted to the right, as in a list. Albums without category should be shown in the same list, with its first letter of the name under the same position as the categories (as it where category names). To make it nicer, it should be possible to order the list of categories and albums without a category. In this list, no thumbnail should be shown from the albums or categories. To make this fuzzy story a bit clearer, please take a look over here:
http://ozone.oscraps.com/gallery/index.php
Downstairs is the list that I am looking for. They call it Categories, but if you look to the bottom, you see what is called category Kido O', is an album without category in Coppermine.

Of course I can start making changes to the Coppermine core, but I can imagine that I'm trying to get this done the wrong way. So my question is, what is the way to go with this?

[Joachim Müller]

The page you refered to doesn't contain a gallery driven by Coppermine, but one that is driven by Photopost.

[Peter R]

The page you refered to doesn't contain a gallery driven by Coppermine, but one that is driven by Photopost.

Thanks for answering.
I fingered that out already, and I don't know if is it is a standard feature of Photopost, but still like Coppermine more than Photopost. I also found out that is has nothing to do with templates, so I guess my question is not in the right section of this forum. It has something to do with the core.
I need to find out where the category list and the album list are build. I am struggling through all the files to find out where this is done. The nice part of a template system, is that all code is out of the html files. The disadvantage of a template system is, if you don't know all the ins and outs of a program yet, you keep on searching where this small piece of code is hidden.

Can you give me a hint where look?

[Peter R]

Oeps, stupid!
I never worked with a template system before. Of course, a template system doesn't mean you don't have an index.php page.
Correct me if I am wrong:

Function list_cat_albums  creates an array with categories to show, calling  function theme_display_album_list_cat out of themes.inc.php to show these categories on screen

Function list_albums creates an array with albums to show, calling  function theme_display_album_list out of themes.inc.php to show the albums on screen

And again, correct me if I am wrong, what I need to do is write a function for index.php, creating an array for the combined category and album list. And also a function  for themes.inc.php for showing this list.
That's it I guess.

[Fabricio Ferrero]

Can you give me a hint where look?

--> http://www.photopost.com/forum/

If the question it's not related to Coppermine, you should not be posting in Coppermine's forum looking for support.

[phill104]

Not quite sure what you are trying to achieve.

Drawing a mock up might help understand what you want.

Try having a look at some of the galleries shown off here.

http://forum.coppermine-gallery.net/index.php/topic,22690.820.html

In that thread there are many layouts that have been tried so you might see something similar to your requirements.

[Peter R]

@Fabri
For my girlfriend, I'm creating a website for digital scrap booking with an easy to use CMS as portal (WB), and behind it, a forum (SMF), shop (osCommerce), and photo gallery. The forum, shop and gallery should be bridged. Looking for available photo galleries and experiences of users, Coppermine seemed to be the best choice. I already started implementing Coppermine, and I really like this program, so no way I will switch to an other program. I am asked if it is possible to change the way of navigating through the categories and albums, and as an example, the site of oscraps was shown to me. Well it seems that oscraps is using Photopost. I don't know if this way of navigation tree is standard for Photopost, or it is an adaptation of the code, but I definitely don't want to use Photopost but stick to Coppermine. If Coppermine hasn't got a navigation tree as default feature and I really want to use Coppermine, I have to write a piece of code for this. Navigating is only a small piece of all the great thing of Coppermine that I really like. I have lots of experiences with osCommerce so I can bend it any way I like. Coppermine is brand new for me, so for some features I don't know if it is already there (even not by struggling through the manual and searching through this forum), and if not, how to build in, in a mannerly way so it is still the Coppermine way.
So as you can see, my question is really Coppermine related.

@phill104
I have seen all themes displayed in the demo photo gallery on this site, and also a lot of galleries from other users in the topic you mentioned, but no one has the way of navigation I am looking for. Some of them are getting there a little bit. In the gallery box on top, a list of galleries is shown, without a thumbnail. Clicking one will show a list of albums/categories without thumbnails, and so on. I want to show the categories with its categories/albums, all in one list. This is also known as a category tree. This brings more rest into the site. Don't know if this is the right word for it. In Dutch we would say that it bring more quietness.
If I make a mock up of the demo gallery, written the way I would like to have, it would look like this:

-nature
   *animals
   *plants
-coppermine screen shots
   *admin screenshot
      +admin tools
      +album manager
      +user manager
      +batch-add
      +version check
   *themes that come with coppermine
   *user-contributed themes
-password-protection
-multimedia
   *archives
   *audio
   *documents
   *exotic image formats
   *video
   *exotic image formats
-user galleries

In my case, the list wouldn't be that long, so less messy. In case of such a long list, folders with subfolders in should be closed and opened by selecting. This way it looks more like navigating through a shop.
So this is what I want to achieve.

It is getting clearer to me by the minute how I should do this. I shouldn't use albums without a category anymore, but create one category, e.g. called HeadCategorie. In it, all albums that normally would be placed under "album without category", and al categories with albums in it. So don't use "albums without categories" anymore. This way, in the admin I can order everything the way I like. After this, I need to write a new function in index.php to create the category/album tree instead of the function list_cat_albums, and a function in themes.inc.php to display this tree in instead of the function theme_display_list_cat.

I'm not sure if my PHP knowledge for achieving this is good enough, but with my experience of osCommerce, that is using this kind of tree, I really want to give it a shot.
If you think I am trying to achieve this the wrong way, please feel free to correct me.

[Fabricio Ferrero]

Hi, ok, I think I get the idea. Anyways, the tree navigation it's not given by the template but by the software. The main feature of Coppermine it's tree navigation. You should read this: http://coppermine-gallery.net/demo/cpg14x/docs/index.htm#getting_structure to understand how Coppermine works and that's it.

You could see a list of features (not all of them) in the main page of this forum.

Hope this answer leads you to solve your doubt. 

Regards,

[Peter R]

According to the "endless features" and "near future" list, a tree listed feature as I am looking for is not available yet, and also not in the near feature. Am I really the only one who likes this way of showing the navigation tree? I can almost see how great it would look. Left sided from the middle this tree list, right sided a box with 3*3 random thumbnails, or a box with some welcome words.

Looking to "getting structure" information, it looks like I am right with how the structure is. But for starters, because there is still a lot to do, and days are to short, I will create a list on index.php with hard coded links in it.
When I am finished integrating SMF and osCommerce, I will give it a shot.
If it works, I will comeback with this, if it doesn't work, I will keep it silent. 

[Fabricio Ferrero]

Like I said, this feature it's available: Tree navigation with dTree

So, in my opinion, you should install Coppermine and give it shot to this. This it's not about templates.

Ok, I will let the chance to other supporter assist you because maybe I'm missing something. 

Regards,

[Peter R]

Is available, how could I miss that?!?
It took me a long evening searching the forum, and sorting out how it works, but is was there all the time.

I have Coppermine already up and running, and busy customizing it. This was the major part that had to be changed. All others are just cosmetic and can be done with the templates (I think). I will implement it tonight and see if it works as expected.

Thanks a lot for this!

[Fabricio Ferrero]

You're welcome...