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Introduction

This website contains various elements that are used to present content. The website itself is written primarily in asp.net and the C# language and some javascript. Navigation is mainly through the Site Map in the menu at the top of most pages and links in individual pages to other pages on the site. The site uses some custom controls and pages that are described in the following sections.

Custom Controls and Pages

Home Page

Home pages are the basis of most pages on the site and contain information about an individual or a family or an ancestral family name. The page has a header identifying the page and a description and may contain the following sections:

Bio: a brief life sketch of the person or family.

Images: one or more images.

Links: links to other pages on the site (such as parents, siblings, etc.) or to external sites.

Galleries: one or more Gallery Page links in Gallery Tree Views. There may also be a home gallery containing all the media on the home page. Galleries open in a new tab as a gallery page.

Documents: list of one or more documents. See Document List Control. The list shows the document title and type, links to a PDF and/or Word version of the document, and a link to the online version of the document if there is one. The online version opens in a new tab as a Document View Page.

Audio Files: list of audio files. When selected in the Now Playing list the audio file can be played with the Audio Player Control. Metadata for the audio file is shown and a thumbnail image may also be shown.

Videos: list of videos. When selected in the Now Playing list the video can be played with the Video Player Control. Metadata for the video is shown.

Home pages are constructed from directives in a home page content XML file.

Gallery Page

Gallery Pages display thumbnails of all the media files in a selected gallery (see the Gallery Tree View Control section for how to navigate to a gallery). Media file types are: Image, Document, Audio, and Video. Thumbnails representing the media files are displayed in a grid form.

Across the top of the gallery page are four settings groups: View, Files, Metadata, and Download. The View setting determines which setting groups are available. The View group has a drop down menu with three options: Files, Metadata Edit, and Download. The next sections explain the three views and what setting groups apply.

View : Files

The Files view is the default view. In Files view the View, Files, and Metadata settings groups are available. The view displays the media thumbnails with the media file name shown above the thumbnail and an ID number below the thumbnail. The ID number is not associated with the media file - it's just for convenience.

Hovering over a file name displays the full file name which may be truncated in the view.

Clicking on a thumbnail opens a new browser tab displaying the appropriate view of the media file. For example, an image file displays the image (usually larger than the thumbnail) in a new browser tab. Clicking the image in the new tab will enlarge it to it's full size. Right clicking on the image in the new tab may allow you to save the image to the computer if the browser has that option. Clicking a document file thumbnail does one of the following depending on the format of the document: a PDF file opens in a new tab, a Link opens the document in a Document View Page in a new tab, a Word file prompts to open or save the Word file. Clicking on an audio file thumbnail displays an audio player in a new tab. Clicking on a video file thumbnail displays a video player in a new tab.

The gallery page navigation control allows moving to different pages of files in the gallery.

The Files settings group contains a drop down menu to change the thumbnail size and options to set the number of files per 'page' and the number of 'columns' per row in the grid. The 'sync nav' option keeps the page navigation location unchanged when the view is changed.

The Metadata settings group controls which metadata tags are shown below the thumbnails in the Files view. The metadata is divided into an Information (basic media information) section and a Details (technical information) section. The drop down has options to view either or both sections or no metadata. The 'tag names' option displays tag names in front of the metadata values. If 'tag names' is checked and the 'empty data' option is checked all tags are shown even if there is no data for the tag. The 'hover' option enables display of metadata when the mouse pointer hovers over a thumbnail. When checked, the hover option displays both metadata sections regardless of the drop down setting.

Clicking the default buttons above the View, Files, and Metadata options sets the options to their default values.

View : Metadata Edit

The Metadata Edit view provides for editing the sidecar (XML) files that contain the metadata for each media file. In Metadata Edit view the View and Files settings groups are available.

Metadata is stored in a "sidecar" file in XML format. These are text files that conform to XML standards. In the Metadata Edit view the thumbnails are displayed on the left and a metadata editing panel is shown on the right.

At the top of the editing panel are options to:

Always create a metadata file if it is missing (if not checked a prompt to create the file will be shown).

Always update the metadata file version (if not checked a prompt to update the version will be shown. Note: the version is not user editable but is included in the sidecar file).

Always set the missing title tag (if the title is blank it will be automatically set to the title of the media file or the file name).

Always set the missing file metadata tag (if file metadata is blank it will be automatically retrieved from the media file).

When a thumbnail is clicked in the thumbnail view on the left side of the metadata edit page the metadata edit form for the media file will be activated on the right side of the page. The metadata values will be populated with the metadata from the media sidecar file. In edit mode the thumbnail view on the left is disabled until the edit is closed. Option buttons appear above the metadata values edit form.

Option buttons:

Save: Save the current edits. Once saved you cannot revert to the original data, but you can continue editing.

Clear: Clear the values in the edit form.

Revert: Revert the values in the edit form to the last saved values.

Copy: Makes a copy of the current tag values. The last copied tag data is avaiable for pasting on future image edits, including between different galleries. The copied tag data is also used during a Paste All operation as explained below. Each user has their own single saved metadata store.

Paste: Paste the last copied tag values into the form. Revert is available after a paste.

Title: Fill in a blank title from the media file title or file name.

File MD: Get metadata about and embedded in the media file.

Close Metadata Edit: You must close the current metadata edit form to select another media file from the thumbnail view. A warning will appear if there are unsaved edits for the current media file metadata.

Paste Metadata to all files button.

When no media file is selected for metadata editing the 'Paste Metadata to all files' button is active. Clicking the button displays an edit form populated with the values that were last copied during a metadata edit for an individual media file. After clicking 'Paste metadata to all files' a warning is shown explaining that the Paste All cannot be undone.

The 'Cancel' button aborts the Paste All.

The 'Continue' button proceeds with the Paste All using the values in the Metadata edit window. The values can be edited before clicking Continue. The check boxes next to each value indicate which metadata tags will be affected. Check only the tags you want to be changed for all files in the gallery. Checking a tag that has a blank value will erase the values for the tag in all metadata files. The exception to this is the Title tag which is not erased by Paste All if it's value is already set in a metdata file. The File Metadata value is always overwritten by Paste All with new data from the image file.

The 'Show Help' button displays help for Paste All.

The "Always" Metadata Options at the top of the metadata edit panel will apply to Paste All the way they are set except that Update Version is always applied.

After a Paste All operation completes a window appears showing the status and results including the number of files processed, pasted, created, and updated. To exit Paste All click the 'Close' button in the Paste All Results window.

View : Download

The Download view provides a way to download gallery files from the website to a zip file on the local computer. In Download view the View, Files, and Download option groups are available. The thumbnails in the gallery show a checkbox below each image. Individual files can be checked or cleared for downloading. The 'Check All/Clear All' button checks or clears all file checkmarks. The 'files' drop down menu allows selection of which files will be downloaded. All: all files associated with the media - full image and thumbnail (as available), metadata file, document, audio or video files (per media type) ; Media: media files only, Images: full image and thumbnail (as available) only ; Metadata: metadata file only.

Click the button next to the Download settings group title to execute the download. A prompt to request the download zip file name and location will appear.

Gallery Tree View Control

Gallery Tree View controls display lists of media file galleries in a hierarchical view. Clicking on nodes in the hierarchy either expand the node in the hierarchy or open a Gallery page in a new browser tab. Sometimes a link to a gallery will appear outside of a gallery tree view.

Document List Control

A Document List control displays a list of documents. It contains links to one or more of the following for each document: PDF document, Word document, Web link. Clicking a PDF link opens the PDF document in a new browser tab. Clicking a Word link opens a dialog with options to open or save the Word document. Clicking a Web link opens a document view page in a new browser tab.

Document View Page

A Document View page displays an online version of a document. For example a journal or a family history. The page has navigation controls to move through the pages of the document. Some documents have a two pane view showing possibly a handwritten version of the page on the left and a transcribed version of the page on the right. Pages may also have footnotes. Although online documents cannot be downloaded, most online documents also have a PDF and/or Word file version that can be downloaded from the gallery containing the document.

Audio Player Control

An Audio Player control displays an audio player which has controls on it to play and pause the audio and a volume control. It also has a buttton to reset the audio to the beginning.

Video Player Control

A Video Player control displays a small video view and information about the video. It also has a drop down control to select other available videos. It displays a link that will open the video in a new browser tab page. Videos should work in any of the major browsers: Internet Explorer, Edge, Firefox, Chrome, Safari. Some Linux distributions with Firefox support videos or can be augmented with libraries to support videos.


Media file titles

Media file titles are derived from one of the following sources in this priority:

  • Metadata file title.
  • Home page content XML file media title or media file list XML file media title.
  • Media file name without the extension.

Media for a gallery that is derived from a folder do not have an associated home page or media file list. So in those galleries media titles are either the metadata file title (if it has been created) or the file name without extension. The home page gallery is derived from the home page content XML file so each media specified in the home page may have a title as also with media file list galleries. Each media file may also have a metadata file title which takes precedence.

Documents that appear as a Link in the Document List on a home page (like Journals or Histories) have special title rules. These may have a title specified on the home page, in a separate XML document page list, or in the metadata file. Since these documents are made up of multiple files they never have a file name derived title. It is possible to see an "Untitled" document if no title has been set.

Currently the only user control over titles is to create a metadata file in the Gallery Metadata Edit view for the media and give the media a title.

A note about metadata

Metadata is stored in a "sidecar" file in XML format. These are text files that conform to XML standards. Some programs store metadata in the image itself, but there are several standards for metadata and literally thousands of metadata tags that apply to lots of situations. Most applications that allow editing metadata only support a few tags and different applications handle metadata differently and inconsistently. So when moving images between applications there is a good chance of losing metadata embedded in the file.

It was decided to be safe and store the metadata in sidecar files to avoid loss of data. The sidecar format used here is unique to this website and the tags were chosen to represent most media types. The sidecar file has one field 'File Metadata' that contains certain predetermined metadata tags embedded in image files such as file write dates and a few tags that can be editied in windows file manager.

Sidecar files are and should be given a filename that corresponds with the image, document, audio or video file name and have the file extension .xml. Data in the sidecar file is edited in the Gallery Page Metadata Edit view and the XML files can be downloaded in the Gallery Page Download view.

File scaling for the web

Many of the images on this site were originally scanned at high resolution in 'tif' or raw format and at high color depth to facilitate more accurate post editing. Some images from digital cameras are taken in raw format. This can result in large file sizes.

To make the images practical for the web they may be scaled down in size and quality and usually converted to 'jpg' format. Images on the website are not always the original and many are awaiting post editing. Most images with '_web' at the end of the file name have been scaled down.

Although the site provides for downloading images on the Gallery page, it should be kept in mind that the images may be improved on over time. If you want to improve on an image yourself you can request the original or the latest edit to work from. Also, scaling and reformatting applies to most audio and video files on the site.

File naming convention

This site contains image files from different sources. In some cases file names use the convention described below which is especially suited for collections of images from film negatives or slides. In other cases the file name may be a simple title describing the content of the file and a date. Such a file name may include elements of this file naming convention like the status and sequence numbers (described below) and may have the _web and _th suffixes.

You will see file names with the following convention or a variation for images, documents, audio and video files:


Archived file:

collection_xxx-xxxx-t-onen_date_media_desc.ext

Web version:

collection_xxx-xxxx-t-onen_date_media_desc_web.ext

Thumbnail:

collection_xxx-xxxx-t-onen_date_media_desc_th.ext

Sidecar:

collection_xxx-xxxx-t.xml

Archived multi frame film file includes an extra number field for the frame (e.g., 35mm filmstrip, etc.):

collection_xxx-xxxx-x-t-onen_date_media_desc.ext

where:

Required part:
  • collection = alpha numeric collection name
  • _xxx : major sequence number with leading 0s
  • -xxxx : minor sequence number with leading 0s
  • -x : frame sequence number for multi frame film
  • -t : type (-i digital image, -f film scan, -s slide scan, -p print scan, -d document, -a audio, -v video)
  • -oNeN : original and editied status + sequence numbers (N: 0-9)
  • .ext : extension (.jpg, .tif, .png, .pdf, .docx, .m4a, .mpg, .avi, .xml, ...)
Optional part:
  • _date : YYYYMMDD - default 00010101
  • _media : media type (e.g.: ecktachrome, etc.)
  • _desc : description
  • _web : suffix for web version
  • _th : suffix for thumbnail
The -oNeN convention allows for 0 to 9 originals with 0 to 9 edits for each original.
A status of o0e0 is the original file with no edits. A status of o9e9 is the 9th edit of the 9th original. In most cases there would be one original with one or a few edits, like o0e0, o0e1, o0e2, etc.

Variations of this convention may also be used. For example, placing the date before or after the collection part.

Examples for naming image files:

Film Multi Frame

collection_001-0001-1-f-o0e0.ext
collection_001-0001-2-f-o0e0.ext
collection_001-0002-1-f-o0e0.ext
collection_001-0002-2-f-o0e0.ext
collection_002-0001-1-f-o0e0.ext
etc.

Film Single Frame

collection_001-0001-f-o0e0.ext
collection_001-0002-f-o0e0.ext
collection_002-0001-f-o0e0.ext
etc.

Slide

collection_001-0001-s-o0e0.ext
collection_001-0002-s-o0e0.ext
collection_002-0001-s-o0e0.ext
etc.

Photo Print

collection_001-0001-p-o0e0.ext
collection_001-0002-p-o0e0.ext
collection_002-0001-p-o0e0.ext
etc.

Digital

collection_001-0001-i-o0e0.ext
collection_001-0002-i-o0e0.ext
collection_002-0001-i-o0e0.ext

Sidecar file naming convention

For simple file names the name is the same as the media file with an 'xml' extension.

For files that folow the naming convention the name is
collection_xxx-xxxx-t.xml
(without status, sequence number or optional parts)

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