Last updated 10/31/02.
Image Rodeo stores all the information about your photo web site in a project file with a pp extension. You can work with projects like you would work with any sort of file. Use the commands in the File menu to create a new project; open an existing project; save a project and so on.
A web site, on the other hand, is a collection of files and folders that’s served up by a web server. Typically there’s one file in the web site with the name index.html that acts as a home page, and the rest of the files contain the other web pages and all the pictures and graphics used to create a nice-looking web site. For simple sites, Image Rodeo creates a home page with a bunch of thumbnails (small pictures). Clicking on a thumbnail will take you to a details page with a larger version of that picture and an optional caption. In all, Image Rodeo creates at least 4 files for every picture. The good news is that Image Rodeo takes care of all of this for you. All you need to do is to edit your project file – say by importing a few pictures – and then choose Build Web Site… and Image Rodeo will create and update all the necessary files.
Note that your project file and the web site may not be stored in the same folder on your computer. In fact, they probably won’t be. The project file should be stored somewhere in your Documents folder, while the web site might be in your Sites folder.
Also note that your project file and the web site may not match each other 100%. If you make a change to a picture caption in the project file, but forget to update your web site, you won’t see the change in your web site. It’s up to you to decide when to update your web site. For example, if you’re going to make a lot of changes over a few days, but you want them to appear all at once on your web site, you may choose to delay your update by several days.
The first thing you’ll need to do when creating a photo web site is to add some pictures. Image Rodeo only works with JPEG files, and they must have a .jpg or .jpeg extension, or have a file type of ‘JPEG’. Use GraphicConverter or another fine Macintosh program to convert your files if you’ve got some other sort of picture file.
To import pictures choose Import… from the Photo menu. You can select any number of JPEG files at once, or even select an entire folder. If you select a folder, Image Rodeo will search the folder and all sub-folders for JPEG files, and add them all. Try this on your home folder and see what you find. Tip: don’t try to scan the entire disk where OS X is installed – Image Rodeo will follow all the UNIX symbolic links, and OS X contains some cyclic links that will cause you to scan forever. Hit the Cancel button if run into trouble.
Once you’ve imported pictures you’ll see the titles and a tiny preview picture, one per line, in the main project window. If you click on a line you’ll see a larger preview picture on the right-hand side.
Once you’ve imported your pictures, you can rotate them, add captions and so on. As you read this section, please note that Image Rodeo never changes your original picture in any way – all the changes are made to the project file and the web site instead. Also, like any good Cocoa application, Image Rodeo includes a spell checker, the clipboard works everywhere, and every change to the project file is fully undoable. Feel free to experiment.
If a picture isn’t in the correct orientation, simply rotate it until it is. Choose Rotate Clockwise or Rotate Counter Clockwise from the Edit menu. Image Rodeo rotates in 90-degree increments.
Every picture has a title that typically appears underneath the thumbnail for that picture, and typically at the top of the details page for that picture. By default, the picture’s title is the same as the JPEG file name. If the JPEG file contains IPTC information, then the IPTC title is used instead. To change it, click on the picture in the list view and edit the Title box. Alternatively, you can double-click on the title in the list view to edit it there.
Every picture can have a caption that appears on the details page. If the JPEG file contains IPTC information, then the IPTC caption is used. Otherwise, the caption starts out empty. To add one or to change an existing caption, click on a picture in the list view and edit the Caption box. Tip: you can add HTML commands to your captions or titles to get special effects. These will be copied directly to your web pages, and placed between <P> and </P> tags.
There’s no limit to how many pictures you can have on your web site, but there is a limit to how many thumbnails you’ll want to appear on any particular page. Many web designers try to make sure web pages stay under 100K, so assuming 2K per thumbnail you may want to make sure that your pages contain less than 50 thumbnails.
To help you keep your pages small and organized, Image Rodeo lets you create new index pages to group your pictures. You already have one index page: the home page, which starts out with the title My Photo Album. Index pages can contain pictures or other index pages. You can change the title of an index page or add a caption to an index page as if it were a picture.
Note that Image Rodeo index pages are not the same thing as folders on your disk. In particular, you may choose to organize your pictures one way on the disk (e.g., by date) and organize them differently on your web site (e.g., by subject). If you import an entire folder at once Image Rodeo will create index pages to match your disk organization, but you’re free to reorganize your pictures a different way once inside Image Rodeo.
To create a new index page choose New Index Page from the Web Site menu.
Once you have several index pages you can move pictures and index pages around much like you would in the Finder. Select the objects to move in the list view, drag them over the destination page, and let go. This works within the same window, or from one Image Rodeo window to another. If you hold the option key down while dragging you’ll make copies of the pictures and pages. You can also use Cut and Paste commands to move pictures or pages.
If you drag files and folders from the Finder to Image Rodeo it will behave as if you selected Import... Image Rodeo will scan the files and folders for JPEG files and add them to the project file, neatly organized into pages.
Image Rodeo version 1.2 and later includes the concept of templates, which allows you choose from several different styles. Most templates give you control over the size of the thumbnail and photo, and whether or not titles and captions are shown, etc. However, not all templates implement all features, often because they don’t make sense. You can experiment with templates and re-build your web site as often as you want to see the effects. If you’re comfortable with HTML and scripting languages then you can edit the templates, or create your own. See the editing instructions for details.
To change the template or template setting such as thumbnail size, select the Template Settings... item in the Web Site menu.
Once you’ve finished organizing your pictures you’re ready to create your site. Make sure you’ve saved your project file at least once, then choose Build Web Site... from the Web Site menu. Image Rodeo will start building the various files needed for your web site. Depending on the number of pictures, this can take seconds or minutes. You can stop at any time and continue where you left off later.
By default, Image Rodeo places your web site in your Sites folder, inside a folder with the same name as the project file. For example, if you’re login name is Me and you’ve named your project file mysite.pp, then the web site will be found at the following path:
/Users/Me/Sites/mysite
To select a different destination, choose Building Settings... from the Web Site menu. There you’ll find several suggested destinations. You also have the ability to choose an arbitrary folder.
If you have web sharing turned on, then congratulations! You’ve just published your web site. A quick way to test this is to use the name localhost, which means “this machine.” Try this URL (again, where Me is your login name and mysite.pp is the project file name):
http://localhost/~Me/mysite
To hand this URL to your friends and family be sure to substitute your real IP address or your DNS name (if you have one) for localhost. If this test didn’t work, or you need more help, check out the troubleshooting guide.
Image Rodeo doesn’t actually copy your picture into the project file, but instead stores a link, or reference, for later. Image Rodeo stores two references: a UNIX path and a MacOS FSRef. The UNIX path is a simple text string, such as
/Users/Me/Pictures/Myphotos/photo1.jpg
Image Rodeo will use this path to search for the photos. If you change the name of the file, or move it into a different folder, then the path with break - that’s when the FSRef comes into play. This usually contains enough information for Image Rodeo to track down the original file, and so the path can be updated. Changes to file locations are only noticed when the project file is opened, so don’t move files around around when Image Rodeo is running. Also, be sure to save your project file after re-opening it to save the updated paths.
You can manually fix a broken link, or just change a link, by dragging a new JPEG file into the preview pane. Simply select the photo to update in the list pane on the left-hand side, then drag a new JPEG from the Finder into the preview pane on the right-hand side. From that point on Image Rodeo will use that new JPEG as the source file.
If you move your project file and photo archive to a new machine (say, a G4 rather than a G3), then it’s quite possible and even likely that both the path and FSRef will be broken for all the source photos. In this case you'll need to use the Change Path... or Change Paths... commands in the Photo menu to update all the paths at once.