ralber - a static web album generator written in ruby

ralber is a (command line) tool to create a static HTML web album from a folder containing images. It is completely file-based and does not destroy the original images.

Note that this library is in a VERY EARLY development stage and is not yet fully functional.

ralber is for people who:

• are not afraid of editing config files
• need a database-independent, VCS-aware static web album
• don't want to fiddle with thousands of settings but just want a simple web album

• Creates static Web Albums from a bunch of images
• Creates Index pages with configurable nr of images per index page
• Creates detail pages for each image
• HTML templates based on ERB-templates
• simple JSON configuration files for the album and the images
• Each template can define its own formats like thumbs, detail sizes etc
• extract EXIF data from the images
• Support for index-only albums for JavaScript-based image galeries
• Support for index pages, like this:
• Support for detail pages, like this:

You can watch a published demo at http://bylexus.github.io/ralber/demo/output/

• support sorting by meta data (e.g. exif creation date)
• support for single images (e.g. title banner image on index page)
• renaming original files

• ruby >= 2.0
• The ImageMagick library
  • OS X using MacPorts: sudo port install ImageMagick
  • using Homebrew: brew install imagemagick
• (optional) ruby bundler - gem install bundler

gem install ralber

1. cd into your image directory cd my-images/

2. create the album ralber.rb create --title "My holiday pictures"

3. publish the album ralber.rb publish --to /path/to/static/output/

ralber.rb help

ralber.rb create [--title STRING] [--subtitle SRING] [--description STRING]

The create command initializes the album in the current directory. This is the directory where your original images should be stored. A bunch of JSON file will be created in the .ralber folder, your original images won't be modified.

ralber.rb publish [--to PATH] [--template NAME|PATH] [--force]

Publishes the final web album:

• --to defines the output path. All files and images are copied to this folder. Existing files will be overwritten.
• --template defines the html template to use. If omitted, the default theme is used. The following bundled templates are available for now:
  • default: A index / detail page template
  • fancybox-dark: A single index page template with javascript gallery functionality
• --force re-recreates all images in the destination, even if they already exist. Otherwise, only generate new images.

ralber.rb update

Updates an existing album: Finds new images and deletes orphaned config entries.

TODO: (see examples bundled with the gem)

ralber.rb list templates

list the available pre-bundled templates in the gem. Use with ralber.rb publish --template [name].

TODO Just a brain dump for now:

{
    "image_dir": "images",
    "images": {
        "thumb": {
            "dimension": "200x150",
            "format":"jpeg"
        },
        "detail": {
            "dimension": "1024x768",
            "format":"png"
        }
    },
    "index": {
        "pagesize":5,
        "filename_template": "index<%= page_nr if page_nr > 1 %>.html"
    }
}

TODO

... TO BE CONTINUED ...