more flexible way to call different views?

[eke]

maybe I just can't see the forest for the the trees but I was unable to do the following:

a) show thumbnails of an album PLUS the album description (ALB_DESC is not available in thumb_view)
b) click on a thumb and show the intermediate img in a different DIV (or table) while keeping the thumbview active, snugly beside the the intermediate view (or above or below...)
c) place the "media/info bar" anywhere (either on top or bottom of thumbview or left or right of it or anywhere around the intermediate view)
or switch it off...
(d) have comments and ratings off per default when creating albums.)


basically what I am aiming is an easy way to "call" certain "viewmodes" from template.html.
e.g. lets assume there are the following functions:
{THUMB_VIEW}, {INTERMEDIATE_VIEW}, {MEDIA_BAR,1,1,1,1,1,1)

now imagine a table layout:
note: {MEDIA_BAR,0,0,0,0,1,1} and {THUMB_VIEW,1} take simple BOOLEAN arguments, telling  the function what the user wants to be processed.
e.g.: thumb_view: 1-4 -> split output of # thumbnails up into 4 sections (the layout makes use of 2 split thumb section).
media_bar: 1-6: first 1/0 slideshow control, second 1/0 pic info. etc.
the following could also be done completely table less therefore it would be imparative that the coppermine functions return just the minimum markup necessary to place the element thus integrating seamlessly into the template layout.

Code Select Expand

<table width="100%"  border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
  <tr>
    <td colspan="3">{breadcrumb}</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>&nbsp;</td>
    <td><div align="center">{ALBUMS_MINI_THUMBS_SCROLLER}{ALB_DESC_ONHOVER_USING_OVERLIB}</div></td>
    <td>&nbsp;</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>&nbsp;</td>
    <td><div align="center"></div></td>
    <td>&nbsp;</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td><div align="right"></div></td>
    <td><div align="center">{IMG_TITLE}</div></td>
    <td><div align="center"></div></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td height="50" valign="top"><div align="right">{MEDIA_BAR,1,0,0,0,0,0}</div></td>
    <td rowspan="3" align="center" valign="middle" bgcolor="#000000"><div align="center"><img name="intermediate" src="" width="400" height="300" alt="{INTERMEDIATE_VIEW}" style="background-color: #666666"></div>      <div align="center"></div></td>
    <td valign="top"><div align="left">{MEDIA_BAR,0,1,0,0,0,0}</div></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td height="150" align="right" valign="middle"><div align="right">&laquo;&laquo; {THUMB_VIEW,1}</div></td>
    <td align="left" valign="middle"><div align="left">{THUMB_VIEW,2} &raquo; &raquo;</div></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td height="50" valign="bottom"><div align="right">{MEDIA_BAR,0,0,1,0,0,0}</div></td>
    <td valign="bottom"><div align="left">{MEDIA_BAR,0,0,0,1,0,0}</div></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>&nbsp;</td>
    <td><div align="center">{MEDIA_BAR,0,0,0,0,1,1}</div></td>
    <td>&nbsp;</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>&nbsp;</td>
    <td>&nbsp;</td>
    <td>&nbsp;</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td colspan="3"><p align="right">{breadcrumb}</p>    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

I can make a nice GUI for this in photoshop too

If anything like that is already possible then please delete this! But first please please tell me how!
Thanks.

cheers
eke.

[MLKE]

ya i would really like to  show thumbnails of an album PLUS the album description