Use Picasa and SimpleViewer to Build an Online Flash Gallery

You can build an online Flash Gallery very easily by using Picasa(free) and SimpleViewer(free). Only four steps and you can let the whole world to see your nice gallery.

1. Install Picasa

Download

2. Copy SimpleViewer Picasa Template

You can download the template here. Uzip the downloaded file to Picasa's template folder(usually C:\Program Files\Picasa2\web\templates).

3. Use Picasa to create a gallery.

Select a folder you want to make as a flash gallery in Picasa.

Then Export as Web Page.

Choose the pictures' size, Title, and the destination folder of the flash gallery.

Select the SimpleViewer Template.

You got it!

4. Upload gallery to web server.

The final step is uploading your gallery to your web server to share it with your friends.

Note: You can also set some properties of the gallery by editing the gallery.xml and index.html generated in the gallery folder. These information can be found here.

Windows Live Writer Beta - Blogger Beta Update

Now a new beta version (145) of Windows Live Writer released.

Blogger Beta can be detected automatically.

Original Post - Download

Flickr4Writer

A nice and useful plugin for Writer. Insert images from Flickr easily. You can search images uploaded to Filckr by anyone or a specific user. You can also search by Photoset or Tags!

A very useful feature is that you can set many attributes(like Alignment, Spacing, Border, Size, etc.) visually.

It's a good choice for those people like me don't have a public FTP account but want to use Writer to post pictures on Blogger. Besides, Flickr is a very good service where many people share their images. You can put images on Flickr in your post in seconds.

Latest Release 1.2.60917.3 Beta @ Sep 26 2006

Download

Windows Live Writer Blogger Beta workaround

Another Update (Build 145) was released. And the Blogger Beta problem is fixed. Please visit the Writer Zone for the update. Or just download the latest version.

OK. There is a workaround at Joe Cheng's blog.

See it here. It tells all the correct details to use Writer with Blogger Beta.

My method in my previous post is not all correct. The Remote Posting URL I suggested to use in the previous post is WRONG. Use the wrong Remote Posting URL you can not edit your posts. Correct Remote Posting URL should be http://beta.blogger.com/feeds/blogID/posts/full. You can see the blogID(a long number) in your web browser's address bar when you manage your posts at Blogger Beta(like the picture below). The previous post will be corrected.

Windows Live Writer (Beta) Update

Another Update (Build 145) was released. And the Blogger Beta problem is fixed. Please visit the Writer Zone for the update. Or just download the latest version.

The following is a summary of the changes in the Writer 1.0 (Beta) Update:

• Tagging support
• Support for Blogger Beta
• Categories are sorted by name and support scrolling, plus improved support for reading categories from your blog
• Improved startup performance
• Paste is enabled for Title region and TAB/SHIFT+TAB navigation between title and body supported
• Insert hyperlink added to context menu when text is selected
• Title attribute in Insert Link dialog
• Custom date support for Community Server
• Improved keyboard shortcuts for switching views
• Change spell-check shortcut key to F7
• Add ‘png’ to insert image dialog file type filter
• More robust image posting to Live Spaces
• Improved style detection for blogs
• Fixed issues with pasting URLs and links
• Remember last window size and position when opening a new post
• Open post dialog retrieves more than 25 old posts

Although it is said Support for Blogger Beta, but I have to specify the Type of weblog and Remote posting URL by myself. The detection can not be done automatically for the moment.

TIP: The Type of weblog for Blogger Beta is Blogger (Atom), and the Remote posting URL is http://beta.blogger.com/feeds/blogID/posts/full. You can see the blogID(a long number) in your web browser's address bar when you manage your posts at Blogger Beta. Below are snapshots showing how to do this.

PS: This post is published using Writer :)

Visit the Writer Zone.

Download the updated Writer.

This post is updated at 2006-09-29 17:11.