Good evening all --

Had a question to pose to the masses -- hopefully this is the right spot and maybe someone out there has some opinions. I was comissioned to create an online photo album -- the guy originally mentioned Flash (you know -- roll over the thumbnail and the main image changes, that sort of thing). I'm wondering a couple of things...

First of all, I feel kinda dumb for not knowing this, but does anyone know how, in Flash, to pull in an image but not have it be imbedded within Flash? Similar to the concept of an iFrame or something like that.

Second of all, does anyone happen to have an opinion on whether or not Flash is really the best development area for something like this, or if some sort of DHTML would be better (faster, more efficient, etc.)

The main goal is to create a system that pulls images from some folder where my client can continually dump new images in but he won't have to alter the photo album system... it'll always just pull everything that's in that folder.

I'm sure there's actually something out there too -- not sure if I should bum something else or create from scratch. He's definitely got a custom interface he has in mind.

Dunno -- if anyone has thoughts, I'd appreciate it!

Cheers,
Shannon

Hi

Actually i cant say that flash would be the ideal choice.
you say you want a dynamic one
what does that mean?
Almost all flash based tools embed the images to the file and not maintain it as seperate.
i dont know of anyway to not embed the image

PM me with more details as to what exactly you want
Maybe i can help

yni420

well, for your second question,
I was once flipping through this book entitled: "DHTML and CSS for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide" 3rd edition I believe -- and the author gave a [biased] comparison of dhtml vs. flash.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...810718-6141534

he stated that dhtml was more efficient and gets the job done -- however, flash is well, more flashy. Pending on what you want -- each has their own strengths and weaknesses.
goto your local bookstore and flip through it to read about it more.

Some other factors on your side are the cost of flash. Flash MX 2004 professional is running at $700 retail. DHTML is "free".
Both will require diligence as they both have large learning curves.

I use flash and it has a photo album template -- and here is another site that may be of help:
http://whatdoiknow.org/archives/001629.shtml

If your client wants ease of use and customability? I think he is asking for a nice ride to the moon -- right now web photo albums are "either or".
It's hard to get both right now.

I'm not sure if this topic is dead, but give us more details if you need more help.

Soral 3.0

creating a flash photo album is possible with the intergration of dynamic language such as php. ive seen flash based forums and photoalbums but i hear its very difficult to code and make it work

www.flashkit.com. Great tutorials. Also if using Macromedia's FlashMX, you might wanna check out their site too at www.macromedia.com/flashmx

Dear Shannon,

I was also comissioned to create an online photo album , so I tried my best to know more about this, and I got one important information from my best friend, we can use one photo album maker software, wait for a moment, I checked the name to you ,oh, it's Photo Story Platinum, not too expensive, but I felt it is easy to operate, just follow the basic steps, you can create a stunning flash photo album, to our surprise, you can publish your photo album on website or burn it on DVD and share it with your friends and family.
I am not familiar with PC operation, but applying this software is not difficult , when I watched the dazzling samples created with this software, I can't believe it , I collect that website : http://www.photo2vcd.com/samples.html and commend to you ,I wish it would be helpful to you!


Cheers,
stacy

I agree ....Flash is the best choice if you want to make a photo album it have a feature of animation that will be the best thing...

Sure, to make a photo album animative is the best thing. and now, Christmas is coming, I want to preserve the Xmas memory, Making a Christmas Photo movie should be a good idea. I also know about Photo Story Platinum, but I have strong interest to get some tutorial about it. Today, I am excited because I find one tutorial just for creating Christmas photo movie, so I share it here, Hope it is helpful for you to create your own Xmas photo movie.

why not use a flash aobum maker? actually they build the flash album easily and quickly. see this one: a photo album maker

Flash is great for creating and maintaining a photo album if you are willing to maintain it. You would have to build an application involving [I]actionscript[/i], XML, HTML and PHP, for Flash to present these images that are constantly dumped into a folder. In other words, if your client wants the ability to update the album for the end-user or browser, it requires programming, and/or maintenance.http://www.flashgallery.org

The above posts mention some great alternatives, but these are more like public photo albums with personal links. Although these would be easy to maintain by your client, he/she will lose out on the personal aspect of it being part of their website. A link would the best relationship.

I think Flash is great, and welcome the challenges various projects present. But considering what you and your client are looking for, I think that Flash might be a bit daunting unless you want to learn a bit (a lot?) of actionscript.

I just googled flash photo gallery tutorial and got some pretty good hits too.