26 Reply by haggis999

(45 replies, posted in Juicebox-Lite Support)

Some more issues and observations:

  • JuiceboxBuilder-Lite does not display thumbnails for images which contain a comma in the filename, though the gallery preview appears to work fine

  • One of my images had the wrong orientation after processing by JuiceboxBuilder-Lite. What factor does it use to determine the correct orientation? The original image is shown the correct way round in both Windows File Explorer and Photoshop.

  • JuiceboxBuilder-Lite has never offered me any guidance when it failed to open a gallery whose config.xml file contained a problem caused by an error in manual editing. It just sits on the Images page displaying no images. Some attempt at pinpointing the source of the problem would be useful. Even a simple error message to say that the config.xml file was faulty would be better than nothing at all.

  • I have now taken the plunge and upgraded to Juicebox Pro, but I am having problems in persuading it to show more than one gallery on the same html page. Despite doing my best to follow the instructions on the Juicebox website, and using a different containerId for each div, it only shows the first gallery listed on the html page. To plug the gap, I've written my own html code to create a gallery menu. Is that what you are expected to do?

  • Is there any way to make image titles and captions wider than the image? All my captions for portrait mode images are being wrapped over two lines when there is plenty of horizontal space to fit them on a single row. In some cases, both the title and caption are wrapped, which just looks silly.

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27 Reply by haggis999

(45 replies, posted in Juicebox-Lite Support)

Steven @ Juicebox wrote:

... you might like to look into other methods of creating a Juicebox gallery.
There are plugins available for other programs (such as Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop and jAlbum) and you can also create a gallery manually.

Just a quick disclaimer, though... I do not know if you will encounter any issues with any of the plugins regarding the ' character in image filenames.

I've already tried modifying an existing Juicebox gallery by manually adding an apostrophe to a couple of the filenames (in both images and thumbs folders) and making matching changes to the config.xml file, but the modified images appear as blanks in the gallery preview. That suggests to me that no plugin would be able to bypass the 'no apostrophes' rule.

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28 Reply by haggis999

(45 replies, posted in Juicebox-Lite Support)

Steven @ Juicebox wrote:

... In any case, including a ' in an image filename does not actually cause any functional problems (a warning message appears asking the user to rename the image) and it is discouraged (as it is not a web-safe character).

However, it is, admittedly, an inconvenience for those wishing to use the ' character in image filenames and, as such, a bug report has been logged (but I do not know if or when it will be addressed by the developers).

You appear to be suggesting that I could just ignore that warning message, but a quick test has shown that JuiceboxBuilder-Lite does not not simply "discourage" the use of any image with an apostrophe in the filename. It actually refuses to import them into a gallery. Is there a way to bypass this refusal?

Many thanks for raising a bug report.

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29 Reply by haggis999

(45 replies, posted in Juicebox-Lite Support)

Steven @ Juicebox wrote:

The ' character is noted as being a reserved character in a URI in section 2.2 of this document (in the sub-delims list).
This is unlikely to be the reason that JuiceboxBuilder does not accept images with ' characters in their filenames ...

I also think that JuiceboxBuilder's issue with apostrophes is unlikely to be due to that rather obscure reference. To me it looks far more like a bug! Over the past 10 years, I have never found an operating system or software application with such an unexpected limitation.

If there is no meaningful reason for this limitation then surely it ought to be removed when time allows? I certainly hope this happens, as eliminating apostrophes from current and future image filenames would create a lot of extra work for me if I choose to replace my current Flash gallery with Juicebox Pro.

On the positive side, I have yet to find any other issues with Juicebox and I appreciate the fact that it comes with a very responsive user forum  :)

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30 Reply by haggis999

(45 replies, posted in Juicebox-Lite Support)

Steven @ Juicebox wrote:

The apostrophe (single quote) is a reserved character and, as far as I am aware, there are no immediate plans to allow JuiceboxBuilder to accept this character.

I have never previously seen any reference to the apostrophe being a reserved character. The Wikipedia article on Filename contains a lot of detailed information about reserved characters, but I can't find any reference to the apostrophe (I did a search for the ' character).

Reserved characters are a context sensitive concept. In which environment (apart from Juicebox) is the apostrophe forbidden? It's certainly not reserved by Windows or the web server software used by my ISP or the Linux-based NAS box where I back up my image files.

While I appreciate the warnings, I doubt if my failure to follow strict 'web safe' guidelines is a significant issue for me. I've done a few searches on the subject, but it's not a simple matter. Most of the objections to specific characters appear to relate to rather obscure technical scenarios that are not relevant in my case, or are out of date throwbacks to the days when several operating systems had more stringent character restrictions. My primary website has been using commas, apostrophes, hyphens and spaces (and even the occasional extra period) in image filenames for over 10 years without any known problems. Users upload these images, but can only view their own images. I am the only person allowed to download any images. Perhaps I am living in a fool's paradise, but in the absence of problems I tend to assume that all is well.

The only issue I've ever had was with hash characters (#) in filenames. Windows allows this, but my web server software doesn't like it, so I now stop my users from uploading images with a hash in the filename.


NOTE: Original text has been edited to improve clarity

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31 Reply by haggis999

(45 replies, posted in Juicebox-Lite Support)

Steven @ Juicebox wrote:

... I notice that your image titles and captions are outside your CDATA tags (your CDATA tags are empty and are closed before the custom text begins). I think that this might be what is causing your problem.

Oops. I'd missed that. Perhaps I need new glasses (or a new brain). As it happens, earlier this evening I'd been having some problems in recreating the problem. That is almost certainly because I hadn't repeated my earlier error!   

I'd also had some problems associated with the fact that, in addition to simple manually edited config.xml files, I have been experimenting with config.xml files generated automatically from a database. However, I now realise that those problems were caused by some unexpected truncation of long lines. The devil is very much in the detail here, but I think I'm now on the right track.

Incidentally, I also notice that your image filenames have spaces in them.
As an image filename forms part of a URL when uploaded to a web server, it would be wise to use only web-safe characters within image filenames.

I don't quite follow what you are saying there. Under what circumstances would any of my image filenames appear in a URL?

Another issue has just come to light, which is your current lack of support for apostrophes in image filenames. The images I am dealing with are submissions to an annual international photographic competition and the filenames are intended to be the image title plus the .jpg file extension. As we try to avoid being illiterate, apostrophes appear wherever they are needed (in addition to the spaces already mentioned). Do you have plans to remove the prohibition of apostrophes?

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32 Reply by haggis999

(45 replies, posted in Juicebox-Lite Support)

Steven @ Juicebox wrote:

There should be no need to look inside the C:\Users\Username\Documents\JuiceboxBuilder-Lite\ folder. This is used internally by JuiceboxBuilder-Lite (to store the gallery files whilst the gallery is being created or edited) but it is not a location that a user should be copying gallery files from. The .tempGallery folder is used for JuiceboxBuilder-Lite's live preview window only.

The only reason I mentioned the temporary folder is that JuiceboxBuilder-Lite failed to pick up the existing config.xml file from the gallery folder I had selected. Changes had been made to a couple of titles and captions in that existing config.xml file, but they were ignored by JuiceboxBuilder-Lite (even after exiting and reopening the program).

Note that I am only wanting to use the preview window at this stage. I don't plan to upload files to my web server until I have things working properly on my PC.


EDIT: I've just realised that JuiceboxBuilder-Lite does not automatically use the same location for saving the gallery as that used for selecting the images. It appears to use the same location that was used to save the last gallery. That might explain some of my confusion.

However, I still have issues with config.xml files. The attached config.xml that was manually edited in Wordpad does not let me preview the associated gallery in JuiceboxBuilder-Lite. It doesn't even display the thumbnails after I tell it to open the gallery in the relevant folder (which contains the images, jbcore and thumbs subfolders). Before the edit, I had no problem previewing this gallery.

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33 Reply by haggis999

(45 replies, posted in Juicebox-Lite Support)

Hi Steven,
Thanks for the rapid and comprehensive response.

I now have some more issues.

  • On several occasions, after opening JuiceboxBuilder-Lite and selecting an existing gallery folder, I see my image thumbnails on screen but clicking Customize or Publish has no effect. What might I be doing wrong?

  • I am getting confused between the folder I have selected for my new Juicebox gallery and the '.../My Documents/JuiceboxBuilder-Lite/.tempGallery/' being used when I run a preview. The temporary folder does not use the correct config.xml file.

  • When creating a new Juicebox gallery, I browse to the folder on my PC that contains the required images, but Juicebox then copies the selected and resized images to a new subfolder called 'images'. However, for some applications this is a waste of space, as I will always want to use all the images in the selected folder and they will already have the required pixel dimensions. Is there an option to stop Juicebox from making unnecessary copies?

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34 Topic by haggis999

(45 replies, posted in Juicebox-Lite Support)

This is my first day of experimenting to see if Juicebox could be a suitable replacement for my existing Flash-based gallery and I have a couple of questions.

  • Is there any way to stop captions, titles, etc, from disappearing when the mouse strays off the browser window?

  • I want part of a caption to be in italics, but surrounding the text with <i> and </i> in config.xml doesn't work. Is this supported in the Pro version?

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