Generic image browser Greasemonkey script
I used to keep two bookmarklets around to do quick image browsing from directory lists, and the like:
The first one even had some keyboard commands that once upon a time enabled zooming to the next and previous image and centering the present image vertically by pressing shift, ctrl and return, but I believe the code rotted sometime, and either way bookmarklets are painful to maintain if you don't keep a copy around of the code prior to minimization. I tend to misplace such data.
Anyway, I'd like to revisit the idea and make this into a handy Greasemonkey script I can keep around and perhaps auto-invoke on some pages too. The only problem I want to address first is finding some really good photo album viewer / image browser to raid some good UI ideas from. On invocation, the script should proceed to:
I'm also considering something similar to the configuration screen of Mark my links for adding sites or URLs matching some given regexps to always invoke the album view for, right after the page has loaded. Similarly for pages whose referrers match given regexps.
But first I'll have to find some good album viewers. Suggestions? While a bit off target, LightBox (and the (and JQuery greybox redux, for that matter) has some nice visual properties it might be worth lending too, though I have yet to come across a neat and tidy image browser, without clutter soup. I'm thinking something about as tidy as the Google (Web) Search front page, of a few years ago (more clutter has found its way there since, though it's still good).
Tips and feedback very welcome.
- one that took all links to files ending in .gif, .png, .jpeg or .jpeg, rewrote the window contents to show them after one another on a black background, centered and fitting as many as possible horizontally,
- one that did much the same, but opened a new window for this view, and prompting for a regexp of what URLs to show in the opened window.
The first one even had some keyboard commands that once upon a time enabled zooming to the next and previous image and centering the present image vertically by pressing shift, ctrl and return, but I believe the code rotted sometime, and either way bookmarklets are painful to maintain if you don't keep a copy around of the code prior to minimization. I tend to misplace such data.
Anyway, I'd like to revisit the idea and make this into a handy Greasemonkey script I can keep around and perhaps auto-invoke on some pages too. The only problem I want to address first is finding some really good photo album viewer / image browser to raid some good UI ideas from. On invocation, the script should proceed to:
- Pick out all linked images in the page, as do the above bookmarklets.
- Rewrite the page to drop all prior content, replacing it with the album viewer.
- Add convenient browsing hotkeys for operations like "drop image from album view", "focus previous/next image", "zoom image to full screen"; any others?
I'm also considering something similar to the configuration screen of Mark my links for adding sites or URLs matching some given regexps to always invoke the album view for, right after the page has loaded. Similarly for pages whose referrers match given regexps.
But first I'll have to find some good album viewers. Suggestions? While a bit off target, LightBox (and the (and JQuery greybox redux, for that matter) has some nice visual properties it might be worth lending too, though I have yet to come across a neat and tidy image browser, without clutter soup. I'm thinking something about as tidy as the Google (Web) Search front page, of a few years ago (more clutter has found its way there since, though it's still good).
Tips and feedback very welcome.
posted by Johan Sundström
| 02:57
|
4 comments
Greasebox was an interesting take on the lightbox bit, by the way.
Something like the thumbs only gallery browser?
Yes; decent start. The Greasebox hack had another interesting property, in catching the back/forward mouse buttons of (for instance) Logitech mice that have them; that might be interesting to pick up on, too.
Jos van den Oever's QuickGallery is even more in line with what I was thinking; I started prodding on some of the additional features I wanted for a version of my own.