On 3 Mar 2017, at 06:33, Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 3/1/2017 4:07 AM, ChrisB wrote:
That looks good, Moose. Do you now use Google Photos?
Chris, I not yet entirely sure know what I'm 'using':
I've been looking at alternatives to the conventional ways of display used by
Zone-10, Singapore, SmugMug, and so on. Although I personally am often happy to
wander through posted galleries, I get the distinct impression that many folks
browse the small thumbnails and look at a few images. Well, OK, I've done that
myself. :-) To my mind, that means great images passed over, as thumb doesn't
often do justice to image.
The use of screen space is really poor, small sample images, surrounded by lots
of dead space and unnecessary stuff. Get on phone or tablet, and it's even
worse. The browser uses up a lot of screen space and presentation and
navigation are awkward, slightly to a lot. Viewing any individual image
requires moving it on the screen - for each image.
My biggest fan, Carol, doesn't see even all the images I post here. She is
almost never on a 'real' computer, and they are a pain to view on a browser.
With Google Photos, specifically shared with her, she gets notified whenever I
have added images - and I get a notice when she's looked at them. A far, far
superior model for family and friends who live on their mobile devices.
Some time ago, I did what you are doing, tried to work using WordPress. I was able to force
the 'Modularity Lite' theme into showing large, in-line images, with all the stuff about
other posts, etc. down at the bottom. <http://www.moosemystic.net/WP_Gallery/
<http://www.moosemystic.net/WP_Gallery/>>
I found the process of adding images and text between then really tedious, and
abandoned the effort after six posts. Putting full size images in-line gets
away from your display size/navigation problem. But moving the stuff from side
to bottom wouldn't be very useful for your continuous model. In any case, its
not all that good on mobile devices.
Google and Flickr both have mobile apps that eliminate the browser space
overhead and implement sizing to screen, pinch resizing and the familiar swipe
to the next image model that all mobile users are used to. Google's
implementations, both computer and mobile, are slightly better, to my mind.
(SmugMug says it allows one to create custom mobile apps for controllable
content. That's awkward for something like this list, and I have no idea how
well it may work.)
In browsers, both do a nice job of using most of the screen real estate efficiently
and providing much larger sample images by creating collages. They are quite similar
at first glance. Flickr is slightly dumber. In the above example, on my 24"
screen, Flickr actually enlarges, poorly, 'Piscine Orbits' and 'Springing Forth'
above their original size in the collage, resulting in bad looking images. Click on
one, and it's fine. On iOS, Google also does the collage thing, rather well. Flickr
gives that up, and just shows thumbnails, at least all close to each other, to
optimize space use.
Flickr has better EXIF summary data and a way to see it all (or at least most),
while Google is very bare bones. On iOS, both apps show the lens used, which is
nowhere to be found in their browser versions, or in any regular galleries I
know. (Yes, it's a pain to get, as it is in different places, under different
tags, for different makers, but certainly doable.)
The maps in Flickr are useless, as they don't differentiate between the image
at hand and those made by others in the same area. As expected, the maps in
Google Photos are excellent.
Taking into account all the above, and whatever factors I've missed, I thought
google Photos did the best overall job for both browsers and mobile app (at
least for iOS. I took the early death of an Android tablet as an omen, and have
stayed away.)