The future of photo hosting

wibbi Member
edited November 2019 in General support

For many years I host my photos myself. From the beginning I have adopted the method of creating photo albums. A method known from conventional cardboard photo albums. Nearly. Because in cardboard photo albums can also be glued several photos per page. For a while now I had been thinking about how to do this in ZenPhoto: Several photos on an image page. The previous and next click should continue to work. It would be possible somehow with another database entry. But I think that would be an interesting feature, but not the future.

The future of photo hosting looks like this:

  • endless photo stream
  • Photo Story telling

A single stream with all photos and every single photo a foto page. The competition like Flickr shows exactly this. What else is added is a blog in which photo story telling are published.

The problem: A single stream as a single album is possible, but has practically limits on the number of photos. A single stream page can only load a certain number of photos, or the thing is regulated with Ajax.

The stream software for endless photo stream would be ZenPhoto. The blog software for Photo Story telling is ZenPage. Can ZenPhoto already have endless stream pages? It's possible.

Edit: Oh well, what I forgot to write: I noticed that because I need a lot of time when compiling photo albums. This time is out of all proportion to the Viewer Flow. Most never look at the albums pages. You click a fotopage and then some photos back and forth. So the order already plays a role, but not in individual album pages, but in the "stream" of the individual fotopages. With a real stream instead of albumpages I would save the time compiling albums, which almost nobody ever looks at anyway. Much more blog posts with photo stories are clicked.

Comments

  • acrylian Administrator, Developer

    Because in cardboard photo albums can also be glued several photos per page. For a while now I had been thinking about how to do this in ZenPhoto: Several photos on an image page.

    Sounds to me you like to use several albums. There are functions for prev/next album on the same hierachy.

    Can ZenPhoto already have endless stream pages? It's possible.

    If you mean an an infinite scroll type page. Certainly you can create a theme doing that. The chunk to load would be the number of pages set on the options.

    If you also mean an endless stream containing all images of the site. Yes, create a dynamic album with very general query that might match all images you have.

  • wibbi Member
    edited November 2019

    Yes, but the Ajax is missing for reloading the content. You can not pass an array or object with all the photos on the first call. that's too much data, too much traffic at once. Ajax is needed. And then by JSON. JSON generated by PHP, on the fly. I have never done some thing like this before.

    You have to keep track of what Google plans. So send very little data on the first call, an absolute lightweight page. When the viewer is first on the page, it can be loaded endlessly. See, for example, the OSM map button load, which I made myself. OSM Map and all related, as ol.css and ol.js reload on viewer request, button click. You can also load content with active view (by scroll). That's all possible.

    The future of photo hosting is no longer a digital conventional cardboard photo albums for a very long time. I call it stamp collection. In german: "Briefmarkensammlung". That's out of date. Unfortunately, I have such a "stamp collection", which unfortunately eats a lot of time.

    .oO(it's needed a ZenStream, like flickr for selfhosting)

  • acrylian Administrator, Developer

    Yes, but the Ajax is missing for reloading the content.

    You can easily do this via some JS. You don't even need JSON. You can create a theme loading the content of the next page as well. I have done this in the past but don't remmeber it.

    Besides there is a third party JSON API plugin that offers JSON you can use.

    Besides I personally don't like infinite scroll as I never know where I am and I never can get back/revisit it again.

    Infinite scroll is not new and it is one UI way of presenting content. It is not the solution for everything.

    You have to keep track of what Google plans. So send very little data on the first call, an absolute lightweight page.

    This is nothing new and has nothing to do with Google itself. Of course a site/page should load only what it needs.

    The future of photo hosting is no longer a digital conventional cardboard photo albums for a very long time.

    I would not want to make such a statement for all. Perhaps for your purpose. But there are more than one way or type of websites. For a portfolio site an endless stream is a very bad way of presenting things. Each his own. As before you are free to create and share the theme you envision.

Sign In or Register to comment.