Thumbnails Tab

Thumbnails

These settings control the appearance of the small "thumbnail" images displayed on multimedia gallery web pages.

Option	Meaning
Maximum thumbnail size	Enter the maximum size, in pixels, of each thumbnail image. A size of 100 or 150 pixels works well. This maximum applies both to the width and the height of an image. If the image height is longer than its width, the height is set to the maximum and the width is adjusted accordingly to maintain the aspect ratio. If the image width is longer than its height, the width is set to the maximum and the height adjusted. This means the smaller dimension will turn out to be less than the maximum size. If both the image width and height is smaller than the maximum, the image is not modified.
Rows per page	Enter the number of rows of thumbnail images to appear on each gallery page.
Columns per page	Enter the number of columns of thumbnail images to appear on each gallery page. The number of rows multiplied by the number of columns determines how may thumbnails appear on each gallery page. If you have 6 rows by 3 columns, there will be 18 thumbnails per page. Additional thumbnails, if any, will appear on subsequent pages.
Display file name	Check this option to display the file name under each thumbnail image.
Display caption/title	Display the caption or title of the multimedia item under each thumbnail. Not all genealogy programs allow you to provide this information.
Display reference number	Display the reference number associated with the multimedia item under each thumbnail. Not all genealogy programs allow you to specify a reference number.

Links to Slide Page

Each thumbnail image on the gallery page is actually a link to a slide page, which shows a larger view of the image. A visitor to your website clicks the thumbnail image to see the slide page. For multimedia items that are not images, the slide page may contain the item itself, or a link to view or access the item.

Option Meaning

Link Prompt Specify the text that will appear when a visitor holds the mouse over a thumbnail image, or link to a slide page. This indicates to your visitor how to view a larger image.

Frame Target

Leave this option empty for normal operation. When a visitor clicks a thumbnail image, a slide page displays in place of your family page.

If you want the slide page to display in a new Internet browser window, enter the reserved name _blank (i.e., an underscore character followed by the word blank).

Note

The frame target is ignored when generating pages that conform to the HTML 4.01 Strict standard. Please refer to HTML Conformance.

Advanced Users

If your website uses HTML frames, you can specify the frame in which to display a gallery page. This option controls the target attribute in the link. Enter the name of a frame window, or use the reserved name _top to replace your frameset page.

HREF Script

Leave this option blank for normal operation.

Advanced Users: This option is for users who employ JavaScript on their website and who want to customize the behavior when a visitor clicks on a thumbnail image. Specify a JavaScript function to use in the href= attribute of the anchor tag. Do not include double-quotation marks in your entry.

For example to call a JavaScript function named PopUpWindow, enter:

javascript:PopUpWindow('%PAGE%', 400, 300);

You are responsible for providing the actual JavaScript code. Use the Headers tab, Advanced tab to either provide inline JavaScript or a link to your JavaScript source file under the Multimedia Pages tab there.

You can specify two macro parameters, which GED-GEN will replace with the corresponding text. Each is one word, between two percent signs, without space characters.

MACRO	Substitution
`%PAGE%`	The file name of the slide web page. This is the page that would normally display when the visitor clicks on a thumbnail image.
`%FILE%`	The multimedia file name. This is the file that would normally appear on the slide page. It will include the relative folder path to access the file from the current folder.

Note that some visitors to your website may not have JavaScript enabled. In those cases, your JavaScript will have no effect.

OnClick Script

Leave this option blank for normal operation.

Advanced Users: Similar to the HREF Script option above, this option provides a mechanism to specify a JavaScript function for the OnClick= attribute of the anchor element. You can include the %PAGE% and/or %FILE% macro parameters just as above.

= Feature is available only in the registered version.

Thumbnail Images

For multimedia items that are image files, GED-GEN automatically creates small thumbnail images to display on the gallery pages. It does this for JPG, PNG and GIF image formats. For other multimedia types, it displays default thumbnails, which are described below.

Animated GIF

An image in GIF format may be animated. An animated GIF has two or more "frames" that display in succession and appear like a movie. GED-GEN does not resize animated GIF files to create thumbnails. Instead, for images larger than the maximum thumbnail size, it simply sets the displayed width to that maximum size. The image will appear smaller in an Internet browser, but the image file itself is unmodified.

Default Thumbnails

For image files that are not in JPG, PNG or GIF format, and for items that are not images, GED-GEN displays default thumbnails on the gallery pages. Default thumbnails give a visitor to your website something to click on to move to the slide pages.

Default thumbnails are automatically created in the thumb\ sub-folder (and only in the thumb\ sub-folder). You can provide your own default thumbnails by simply replacing the files there with files you create. GED-GEN will not overwrite a default thumbnail image if it already exists. If you create your own files, they must be named identically to the default thumbnail files.

The following table illustrates the default thumbnails GED-GEN creates and the file name of each. The thumbnails are shown smaller than actual size.

Thumbnail	File Name	Description
	`icon-avi.jpg`	A movie file with the extension `.avi`.
	`icon-doc.jpg`	A word processor document file, usually in Microsoft Word format, with the extension `.doc`.
	`icon-html.jpg`	An Internet web page file, with the extension `.html` or `.htm`.
	`icon-image.jpg`	An image file that is not in a JPG, GIF or PNG format. An Internet browser may or may not be able to display such an image. For example most browsers cannot display TIFF images without a special plug-in.
	`icon-media.jpg`	A multimedia item that is not in a standard format processed by *GED-GEN*. An Internet browser may or may not be able to display such an item.
	`icon-mht.jpg`	A MIME HTML file or "web archive," with the extension `.mht`. Some Internet browsers allow you to save a web page as a self-contained file, with images included.
	`icon-mid.jpg`	A MIDI sound file with the extension `.mid`.
	`icon-mov.jpg`	A video file, usually in QuickTime format, with the extension `.mov`.
	`icon-mp3.jpg`	An MP3 sound file, with the extension `.mp3`.
	`icon-mp4.jpg`	A video or sound file, with the extension `.mp4`.
	`icon-odt.jpg`	A word processor document, in Open Document Format (ODF) for text files, with the extension `.odt`.
	`icon-pdf.jpg`	A Portable Document Format (PDF) file, commonly used on the Internet, with the extension `.pdf`.
	`icon-rtf.jpg`	A word processor document in Rich Text Format, with the extension `.rtf`.
	`icon-swf.jpg`	A flash video file, commonly used on the Internet, with the extension `.swf`.
	`icon-txt.jpg`	A text document file, usually without word processor formatting, with the extension `.txt`.
	`icon-wav.jpg`	A WAVE sound file, with the extension `.wav`.

Default thumbnails have a maximum height of 150 pixels, but they are resized if you initially specify a smaller maximum thumbnail size. Default thumbnails are not overwritten if they already exist. If they are initially created with a size less than 150 pixels and you later increase that size, you should delete the default thumbnails so that new, larger thumbnails are generated if desired. If you supply your own default thumbnails, they are not resized or modified in any way.

Custom Thumbnails

For non-image multimedia files, you can supply custom thumbnail images for particular files. Where GED-GEN would ordinarily use a default thumbnail, you can specify your own custom thumbnail instead.

To do this, create your custom thumbnail image. Save it to a file having the same name as the multimedia item it will represent, only use a .jpg file extension instead. Place this file in the thumb\ sub-folder, where GED-GEN would have generated a thumbnail.

For example, you have a Portable Document File (PDF) named GrandpaJones.pdf as one of your multimedia files. Since a PDF file is not an image file, a thumbnail image is not created. Instead GED-GEN would ordinarily use the default thumbnail for a PDF file to represent this multimedia item. You want the thumbnail to be a picture of Grandpa Jones instead.

Create a thumbnail image of Grandpa Jones using an image editing program. Save the file and name it GrandpaJones.jpg. Place this file in the thumb\ sub-folder. For this example, say the folder scheme is such that this thumbnail should be thumb\Jones\GrandpaJones.jpg.

Before using a default thumbnail for non-image multimedia items, GED-GEN checks whether a custom thumbnail exists. If not, it uses a default thumbnail. If a custom thumbnail exists, it uses that instead. So thumb\Jones\GrandpaJones.jpg is used as the thumbnail to represent GrandpaJones.pdf.

There is a difference between custom thumbnails and default thumbnails. You can create your own default thumbnail for a PDF file, and it will be used for every multimedia item that is a PDF file. Or, you can create a custom thumbnail to represent one particular PDF file. Since custom thumbnails require some effort to create, you may wish to create only a few, and only for your most important multimedia files.