Search…

X3 Photo Gallery Support Forums

Search…
 
4I8eA8LpIR5
Topic Author
Posts: 15
Joined: 15 Apr 2019, 12:08

Time sequenced videos

16 Apr 2019, 16:39

New licensee. Sharp product.

I like to present my images in date sequence. I'd like my videos to be part of a single timeline with the photos, both on the gallery thumbnail page and in the sequence of full-size viewing. How can I do that?

It would be nice to have a timestamp field in X3's Gallery Edit Mode (to use as equivalent to jpg's EXIF timestamp).
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: Time sequenced videos

16 Apr 2019, 23:20

4I8eA8LpIR5 wrote:I like to present my images in date sequence. I'd like my videos to be part of a single timeline with the photos, both on the gallery thumbnail page and in the sequence of full-size viewing. How can I do that?
This is not yet possible unfortunately. The problem is that we can't create "thumbnail" (preview image) for videos on self-hosted servers. Thus, how can we include the video in the gallery layout if it does not have an image that represents it?

We have two options for this: 1) Use an extension called FFMPEG, but this needs to be installed on your hosting (unlikely), or 2) Require you to manually upload your own images that represent videos (tedious).
4I8eA8LpIR5 wrote:It would be nice to have a timestamp field in X3's Gallery Edit Mode (to use as equivalent to jpg's EXIF timestamp).
You mean for images that don't have their own EXIF DateTimeOriginal? For sorting purposes, if image "dates" are not already correct, you should perhaps be using "custom" sort instead of sorting by "date".

If only for display purpose (displaying the date in caption), you could simply append the date into your image title or description. I don't think X3 should have it's own native image "date" setting, as date is computed from the image's camera date, falling back to the image's creation/upload date on server.
 
4I8eA8LpIR5
Topic Author
Posts: 15
Joined: 15 Apr 2019, 12:08

Re: Time sequenced videos

20 Apr 2019, 13:28

In the (home grown) product I replaced, videos were paired with like-named images. e.g., IMG_999.jpg would be linked to IMG_999.mp4. It's not nearly as tedious to rename a (copy of a) video file as to use a custom sort of 200 images when the number o videos is relatively few compared to the number of images. Thanks for the timely reply.
 
4I8eA8LpIR5
Topic Author
Posts: 15
Joined: 15 Apr 2019, 12:08

Re: Time sequenced videos

27 Apr 2019, 13:48

I just custom sorted a 200-image gallery that included about 50 videos. With the videos hidden, X3 respects the gallery setting for displaying a grid and presents them in proper sequence. With the videos unhidden (and no other changes), the display changes to a single list of full-page-width thumbnails (if full-width images can be called thumbnails) with all videos at the top of the list. So, both the gallery's display setting and custom sort are overridden by including videos. It takes forever for full-width photo placeholders to fill in. Perhaps that's on my ISP. Poking an image placeholder brings up the full-screen view and the sequence works but does not include videos in the custom sequence.  :-(

To clarify the video date setting, my idea is to continue to use embedded image datestamps AND to accept a custom timestamp in the edit mode for videos. Those video timestamps could then be used in a date sort along with the image embedded timestamps.
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: Time sequenced videos

27 Apr 2019, 22:59

Videos in X3 do NOT display in the GALLERY GRID alongside image. The explanation for this is simple: Unlike images, it is not possible on your shared hosting to create thumbnails (preview images) for videos you upload, and therefore we cannot include the video files themselves inside complex gallery grid.

Therefore, unfortunately, videos uploaded will display separate from the images uploaded, in a plain vertical layout. Images on the other hand, with videos excluded, will still sort with the custom sort you have applied (if sort settings are set to custom), but without the videos naturally ... Videos will instead be displayed above the gallery, at full width of the gallery module (we don't create grids from embedded videos naturally).

I don't know how many videos you had in your gallery, but if you have many, then yes it would definitely take some time for your browser to preload video meta data into all the embedded videos ... Likewise, if you had your gallery layout set to plain "vertical", you are basically telling the gallery to load all original images, stacked in a vertical layout, in which case this would also incur longer loading times.

I would recommend that you abstract your videos from images, and perhaps even add them into separate folders. You cannot have a GRID that contains both videos and images, simply because it's not possible to create image-thumbnails from your videos. In my opinion, this would be confusing to visitor anyway, not knowing if what they click is a video or an image.
 
4I8eA8LpIR5
Topic Author
Posts: 15
Joined: 15 Apr 2019, 12:08

Re: Time sequenced videos

28 Apr 2019, 13:38

Not to be stubborn but videos could use a static placeholder icon instead of a preview image. The grid and sort could then be maintained.

Please explain what folders would do for me. Thx.
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: Time sequenced videos

28 Apr 2019, 23:35

4I8eA8LpIR5 wrote:Not to be stubborn but videos could use a static placeholder icon instead of a preview image. The grid and sort could then be maintained.
You are right, and something like this will be incorporated into a future release.

Although tedious, there is a workaround to achieve the above:
  1. Hide all your videos (click the "eye" hide icon).
  2. Upload a preview-image for each video, with same name as each video (for example myvideo.mp4 should have myvideo.jpg).
  3. Add a link for each of the video images, instructing them to open the video file with the same name.
Image
4I8eA8LpIR5 wrote:Please explain what folders would do for me. Thx.
Sorry, I don't understand what you mean.
 
4I8eA8LpIR5
Topic Author
Posts: 15
Joined: 15 Apr 2019, 12:08

Re: Time sequenced videos

30 Apr 2019, 11:58

I like the workaround ... but it isn't completely working. The gallery's grid setting is respected and that's cool. Should the workaround allow in-sequence viewing? Perhaps I'm missing a parameter or something. When the linking image is displayed by poking its gallery's thumbnail, the video is shown. When the linking image is reached while hitting next-next-next in the pop-up view, the linking image and video are skipped. The literal use of {path}{file_name}.mp4 did not work at all but using an absolute full path did provide the described partial success.Image
 
User avatar
mjau-mjau
X3 Wizard
Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: Time sequenced videos

30 Apr 2019, 23:01

4I8eA8LpIR5 wrote:Should the workaround allow in-sequence viewing?
Unfortunately, considering this is a workaround, it doesn't work like this. Since the video-items are specifically defined as LINKS, X3 will not include them in the POPUP-sequence because technically it's not logical to display links in popup (X3 doesn't know the content of the link, and in most cases, it's external links). Furthermore, the X3 popup is specifically optimized for "images" in regards to touch/swiping/transitions and sizing of images within ... If we want to add videos into popup sequences, this will have to be planned and implemented appropriately into X3.

I agree that it should work as you have specified, but currently, with this workaround, it doesn't. I hope to improve video support in a future X3 release. Until then, you will need to consider if the workaround is worthwhile.
4I8eA8LpIR5 wrote:The literal use of {path}{file_name}.mp4 did not work at all but using an absolute full path did provide the described partial success.
Are you sure the image name and video name are 100% identical, except for the file extension? I tried this myself, as you can see in the screenshot of my previous post. The variables {path} and {file_name} will dynamically create the link from current folder path + file name. If you want me to look into it, I will need a link to a gallery where you are unsuccessfully using {path}{file_name}.mp4 for the link.

Having said that, there is not much advantage of using the vars, except it means you can just copy-paste into link fields for all items that you want to link to videos, instead of manually resolving each path.