1 Topic by sageo (edited by sageo 2010-10-17 08:41:55)

  • Registered: 2010-10-17
  • Posts: 4

Topic: Convertion/upgrade of a SV 1.8 gallery to 2.1 fails with svBuilderPro

According to the description in the FAQ I tried to convert the "gallery.xml" of an older gallery (created with Picasa template for SV 1.8) by using svBuilderPro 2.1 (most recent).

Problem: The local folder with then contents was parsed, the old image descriptions could be extracted successfully, but the reference to the images (file name and subfolder) seems to get lost completely. In svBuilder, no thumbnails are shown after opening the folder with the complete contents, there's no filename either.

In the FAQ I found the remark

To convert an existing gallery from v1.9 to v2 check here.

Does that mean I can't convert v1.8 galleries?

There's no such remark regarding a minimum version number in the description of SV 2.1:

Upgrading Previous Galleries to Version 2.1

Its easy to upgrade your existing SimpleViewer galleries to v2.1. The original config options, images and captions will be preserved.

To upgrade your gallery, follow these steps:

   1. Make a copy of your existing gallery folder.
   2. Download the latest SimpleViewer files.
   3. Install and run svBuilder.
   4. Use svBuilder to open your copied gallery folder.
   5. Go to the Publish panel and click 'Save'. To avoid overwriting your existing HTML, enter a different name as the Index Page Name.
   6. Your gallery has now been upgraded to v2.1. To embed a v2.1 gallery into an existing HTML page, check here.

I did everything just as described here. Only, there are no pictures in step 2 of the opening process in svBuilder.

Now I'm not sure if there is a migration path from 1.8 to 2.1 and if there is one, why the import of the 1.8 gallery fails...

Looking forward for a helpful answer,
regards,
Georg

  • Registered: 2008-07-06
  • Posts: 6,334

Re: Convertion/upgrade of a SV 1.8 gallery to 2.1 fails with svBuilderPro

I'm not sure where your problem lies.
I've just successfully converted a couple of old v1.8 galleries to v2.1 using this method.
If you upload and post a URL to the gallery (after completing the convertion process, albeit, unsuccessfully) we could probably diagnose the problem and fix it manually.

Steven Speirs
SimpleViewer Support Team
  • Registered: 2010-10-17
  • Posts: 4

Re: Convertion/upgrade of a SV 1.8 gallery to 2.1 fails with svBuilderPro

Here are the examples:

This is the gallery AFTER I processed it with svBuilderPro 2.1:

http://www.sageo.de/test/index.html

When you take a look at the gallery.xml

http://www.sageo.de/test/gallery.xml

it's quite evident why no pictures are displayed (xml structure of first image as example), the references to the image files are all empty:

<image imageURL="images/" thumbURL="thumbnails" linkURL="images/" linkTarget="_blank">
<caption>
<font face="verdana">wettfliegen: wer kommt als erster an? unser gepäck hat verloren - es kam als letztes an, einen halben tag nach uns...</font>
</caption>
</image>

This is the original gallery (SimpleViewer 1.8, gallery made with Picasa):

http://www.sageo.de/madeira/hotel/index.html

You'll find the gallery.xml here:

http://www.sageo.de/madeira/hotel/gallery.xml

Again, the xml structure for the first image:

<image>
<name>20081021_082442_img_0945s.jpg</name>
<caption>
<font face="verdana">wettfliegen: wer kommt als erster an? unser gepäck hat verloren - es kam als letztes an, einen halben tag nach uns...</font>
</caption>
</image>

It seems svBuilder doesn't parse the "name" tags of the 1.8 gallery.xml when the gallery is opened, because the image and url tags of the 2.1 format are all empty after the conversion.

I hope you're able to understand my problem now...  :)

I also made 3 screenshots of svBuilder showing the process of conversion from the 1.8 gallery to a 2.1 gallery. You'll notice that no images or thumbnails are shown on the "image" screen:

http://www.sageo.de/svbuilder1.jpg
http://www.sageo.de/svbuilder2.jpg
http://www.sageo.de/svbuilder3.jpg

  • Registered: 2009-03-17
  • Posts: 2,725

Re: Convertion/upgrade of a SV 1.8 gallery to 2.1 fails with svBuilderPro

I was also able to convert  a 1.8.5 to a 2.1 gallery using svBuilder. Looking at your SimpleViewer 1.8 XML it looks like the image path is not set, imagePath="". Try setting the imagePath param in your SimpleViewer 1.8 XML to imagePath="images/".

If that does not work, is it only this one gallery which is failing to convert?  If it is only this one gallery and you still have the images in Picasa I would suggest exporting them again using the SimpleViewer 2 Picasa template.

Mike Richards
SimpleViewer Support Team.
  • Registered: 2010-10-17
  • Posts: 4

Re: Convertion/upgrade of a SV 1.8 gallery to 2.1 fails with svBuilderPro

I changed it:

imagePath="images/"

But still the same, the images are not recognized.

I also tried to add the path to the "name" tag like that:

<name>images/20081021_082442_img_0945s.jpg</name>

But that didn't do it either.

I've got the same problem with other galleries as well, this one is not the only one.

As these (and other) galleries on our homepage are 2 years or older, I need to update a lot of galleries. The problem is, that I do not have the same computer any more, and I don't have the Picasa database that contained the image descriptions. So it was an awful lot of work to rebuild this Picasa database.

I still hope that there is a solution. You and your colleague obviously succeeded in upgrading the XML-files. I wonder if Picasa generates a slightly different format. Did you use a Picasa generated XML for your tests? Have you tried to use my gallery.xml for a conversion? Perhaps you could download two or three of the first pictures and try that. I'm quite sure it could be a minor glitch, like having different CR/LF sequences or something the like, but I think that there might be still an issue with svBuilder.

  • Registered: 2008-07-06
  • Posts: 6,334

Re: Convertion/upgrade of a SV 1.8 gallery to 2.1 fails with svBuilderPro

In your gallery.xml file:

(1) Change thumbPath="thumbnails" to thumbPath="thumbnails/"
(2) Change all instances of <name> to <filename> and all instances of </name> to </filename>

Steven Speirs
SimpleViewer Support Team
  • Registered: 2010-10-17
  • Posts: 4

Re: Convertion/upgrade of a SV 1.8 gallery to 2.1 fails with svBuilderPro

Thanks a lot, that finally does it! Now UltraEdit can do the work instead of me...  ;)

I just wonder why this problem occurs. Obviously, the tag for the filenames in SV 1.8 is <filename> instead of <name>. SV 1.8 could interpret still the <name> tag (downward compatibility?), but svBuilder doesn't recognize it.

Anyway, thanks a lot for your help, that saves me a lot of work and time.