htmlslide

The short story: htmlslide is a simple program that generates HTML-based slideshows, suitable for viewing collections of photographs. The original version is due to Alessandro Menegon, who deserves most of the credit. I made a few changes that are outlined below.

A longer story: There are dozens of slide-show programs out there, but I wanted something simple and portable, something that I could put on a CD-ROM containing photos that is to be sent to people who cannot be expected to set-up much software. I found only one program that fit the bill: htmlslide. It uses only HTML and CSS. No Javascript, no Java, no PHP, no MySQL, no cross-platform scripting accessing an object-oriented middleware to interface with a relational backend, etc. What we have here is something you can put on a CD and send to grandma. Any Web browser worth its salt should work for viewing. (I felt I needed to justify this claim, so I made sure my dark scheme validates with the W3C. So if your browser does not work, you should really complain to the browser-makers.) On the other hand, the template-based architecture does permit a fair bit of creative design. The included templates illustrate some possibilities.

• The main changes in my version:
  • A theme called dark that is loosely based on the orange theme in the original distribution. The dark theme generates HTML and CSS that validates with the W3C validators.
  • Simple EXIF support: EXIF data is saved in a file that is linked from the photo pages; date and time appear on the photo page. (Currently, only the dark theme uses these features, but it is really easy to add them to other themes.) The directives (for themes) are EXIFDATE and EXIFLINK. You will need the "jhead" program for this feature.
  • If files that look like thumbnails or EXIF data files from a previous run of htmlslide are found, they are reused. (Useful for saving time while debugging and fixing minor bloopers.)
  • There is now an optional index comment in the input file (index.txt) that is used to annotate the thumbnails on the index page. If an index comment is missing, a truncated version of the main comment is used. The directive (for themes) is ICOMMENT.
  • A few others that I can't recall; read the source.
• Download my modified version as a tarred gzipped file: htmlslide.tgz. You will need to read the README-chaw file included in the package (and perhaps a bit of the source code) to get things going.
• Alessandro Menegon's original version, without my changes.
• Alessandro's demo site based on the original version. (Yes, pretty pictures!) I'll try putting up a demo site for my changes soon enough.
• GNU General Public License