Put Your Pictures On The Web

ThmIndxr^TM automatically writes all of the HTML code required for building a Web page, and creates the thumbnail images that are a key part of building a page that will load quickly. The pages it builds are compatible with any hosting solution: Whether you use a free service such as GeoCities or MSN, or have your own Web site, displaying your image collections with pages produced by ThmIndxr^TM is a simple task: After running ThmIndxr^TM, all you have to do is load the HTML file, the thumbnail directories, and your original images onto your server. After doing so, you can immediately either publish the URL where you installed your new pages, or provide link(s) from your existing pages: As soon as the pages ThmIndxr^TM creates are loaded onto the server, they are "ready to go."

The next release of ThmIndxr^TM is planned for fourth quarter 2004, and will include creation of slide show pages, creation of intermediate-size images for high-resolution originals (an important feature if you're working with a 3+ megapixel digital camera), and support for arbitrary caption text. (For hints about the updated user interface, which show the new options that will be available for controlling ThmIndxr^TM's operation, check out the TixrCmd User Interface and TixrCfg User Interface pages.) Registered users will be entitled to a free upgrade when the new version is released. Avoid the registration fee increase by registering your copy today!

• Pages created using ThmIndxr^TM
  If you would like to have a page you generated using ThmIndxr^TM included in our link list, use our URL Submission Form to let us know. (Sorry, but we cannot accept "adult" pages for this list.)

ThmIndxr^TM is a powerful, flexible HTML table generation tool. It is used to automatically create thumbnail index pages for collections of image files. The pages it produces are designed to load quickly and give the surfing browser a rapid indication of what they contain.

Unlike general-purpose page layout tools, ThmIndxr^TM is optimized for creation of thumbnail image table pages. The HTML code it generates is clearly understandable and automatically produces balanced table rows, even when there are an incomplete set of images to fill the final row.

In addition, ThmIndxr^TM does something no ordinary page layout tool can claim to accomplish: It creates the actual thumbnail images needed to speed delivery of your index pages across the Web. Rather than sending the full-size graphic images, which would then be resized by the surfer's browser (further adding to the time it takes a page to load), the pages ThmIndxr^TM produces utilize the thumbnail images that it creates during page construction. Since the thumbnail images are typically between 1/10 and 1/100 the size of the full image, your pages are perceived as being dramatically faster in loading.

Whether you're maintaining a graphic-intensive Web site with thousands of pictures in the collection, or just have a page with a few pictures you'd like to update once in a while, ThmIndxr^TM can simplify the task and save hours of time.

If you are producing a CD-ROM collection of images, you will also want to consider ThmIndxr^TM for development, rather than shipping a "slide show" program: By installing HTML pages in each of the directories on your disc, you will be practically guaranteed it will be usable on nearly any computer or operating system your users are running: Anyone with a Web browser (practically everyone with a computer) will be able to access your collection with their existing software. How's that for cross-platform compatibility!

ThmIndxr^TM was run on a 133 MHz Pentium system using Windows NT 3.51 with a small MPEG movie being displayed when it produced the sample pages on this site. Faster systems, obviously, will get better results.

• A recent "sample" page generated by ThmIndxr^TM
  

• Sample Page generated by ThmIndxr^TM
  As you can see from the log file, creation of this page took approximately 12 seconds.
  • Files used to create this sample page

• Another Page generated by ThmIndxr^TM
  I decided to use a "random sort" of the images and changed the page title. Since the thumbnails had already been created, I set the "Have Thumbnails" flag so the source images wouldn't get re-read. The log file shows that recreating the page took less than a second!
  • Files used to create this sample page

• The Online ThmIndxr^TM Manual
  • A Brief Tutorial

  • TxLaunch ThmIndxr^TM Launcher Utility

  • TixrCfg ThmIndxr^TM Configuration Utility

  • TixrCmd ThmIndxr^TM Command File Creation Utility

  • Command Line Usage Instructions for ThmIndxr^TM
    • Command line parameters
    • Environment variables
    • Default operation
    • Usage examples

  • Configuration File
  • Command Files

  • The current ThmIndxr^TM README file

• Status & Availability
  • Pending Updates
    
  • Suggestion Form
  • Bug Report Form

The current version of ThmIndxr^TM is shareware, with a registration fee of only $49. For that bargain price, you'll be receiving the results of well more than 1000 hours of development effort - over 59,000 lines of code written directly into this application and its supporting utilities. Download a copy, try it out, then send in the registration fee (or use the convenient online registration form) if you decide the program meets your needs: You are only obligated to pay the registration fee if you use the program to build pages that you publish on a Web site, a CD-ROM, or any other electronic media. However, in the spirit of shareware, if you use ThmIndxr^TM for personal entertainment on your own machine, on a regular basis, you should send the fee in as well.

ThmIndxr^TM is a "console" (text mode) application, and its configuration and command files are plain ASCII text. For a power user, this provides the maximum level of control and operational flexibility. It can also be confusing for the average user, so the ThmIndxr^TMpackage includes a set of dialog-based utilities. These can be used to edit the ThmIndxr^TM control files as needed, and to set up the correct command line to run the program. With the dialog graphical user interface, even novice users can easily harness the power offered by ThmIndxr^TM.

ThmIndxr^TM was written and originally tested under Windows NT 3.51. It has also been tested under Windows95, Windows98, Windows NT 4.0, and Windows 2000 Server. It should operate just as happily in these or any later 32-bit versions of Windows. The program can be run quietly in a minimized window, or executed with an informative display that shows its progress as each image is read, processed, and added to the output page.

ThmIndxr^TM, its supporting utilities and their Help files, and the program documentation were written by Fred Koschara.

Libraries used by ThmIndxr^TM

ThmIndxr^TM is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.
The Graphics Interchange Format is Copyright by CompuServe Incorporated.
GIF(sm) is a Service Mark property of CompuServe Incorporated.

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Status & Availability

ThmIndxr^TM is shareware, so please, feel free to download a copy and try it out. It won't cost you anything more than the time you need to evaluate the program. You will be pleasantly surprised at the power and flexibility it offers. If you are in the business of creating Web pages, this is a tool you can't afford to work without. Even if you only occasionally put together an image index, the time you save will easily justify the small cost of registering your copy of the program. Once you've tried ThmIndxr^TM, you can register your copy with our convenient online registration form, and charge your credit card, if you wish. A table explaining the pricing options is included on the ThmIndxr^TM license page.

This beta software is provided "as is" and cannot be guaranteed to perform exactly as it is expected to. However, L5 Software is making this program suite available with the intent of fixing any bugs that are reported. When the production version is released, ThmIndxr^TM will be guaranteed to perform substantially as is described in its documentation, and on its Web page.

Although we strive to test ThmIndxr^TM thoroughly to insure it operates correctly, there are limitations on the process. As a result, bugs do occasionally get past us, and into the field where users find them, instead of the development team. ThmIndxr^TM is guaranteed to perform as is described in its manual, and in the online documentation. In order to honor that guarantee, we need to know about any bugs you find so they can be corrected. If you do find a bug, please use our Bug Report Form to let us know, no matter how trivial it may seem to you: We want this program, and its supporting files, right!

We are also willing to accept suggestions for improvements or requests for additional enhancements. If you have an idea, feel free to fill out and submit our Suggestion Form to send it to us.

ThmIndxr^TM Version 01.22 (beta)

The following updates are included in the ThmIndxr^TM version 01.22 beta release:

• New features:
  • ThmIndxr^TM has been upgraded with recursive directory processing, and the TixrCfg and TixrCmd utilities have been modified to support the new functionality.
  • TxLaunch, TixrCfg and TixrCmd now remember their most recently used files.
  • TxLaunch, TixrCfg and TixrCmd can now remember their main window's positions.
  • TxLaunch, TixrCfg and TixrCmd support files dropped onto their open windows or icons.
  • A status bar and keyboard accelerators for file menu items have been added to TxLaunch.
  • TxLaunch modifies control colors when changes have been made.
• Enhancements:
  • A 32-bit installation is now used, allowing long filenames in the directory name where ThmIndxr^TM is installed, and supporting more automatic deinstallation.
  • An icon has been added to the ThmIndxr.exe file.
  • The directory picker used in the GUI utilities now starts in the current directory, rather than at the Windows desktop.
  • The Registry keys used by ThmIndxr^TM and its utilities have been moved from the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive. Therefore, Administrator rights are no longer required to install ThmIndxr^TM on Windows NT/2000.
  • TixrCmd uses a tabbed property page dialog for its settings, rather than individual dialogs called up by buttons from the main window.
  • TixrCfg no longer hides its main window when child dialogs are displayed.
  • TixrCmd and TixrCfg convert filespec components passed on the command line from 8.3 format to long names. This makes dialog titles less cryptic.
  • TixrCfg now defaults image name case processing to "keep case", rather than "force lower".
  • TixrCmd doesn't ask to save changes if none made.
  • TixrCmd only enables the sort radiobuttons in the list pages if there is more than one image.
  • The OK button is disabled in TixrCmd until a title is set.
  • TxLaunch has an active link to L5Development.com in its About box.
  • The utilities now use the current directory as the default location for saving or opening files under "NT 5.0" and Windows98, rather than in the "My Documents" folder. This update was necessitated by Microsoft's changing the way FileOpen handling is performed.
• Bug fixes:
  • Directory selection bugs reported by users in TxLaunch have been fixed.
  • Invalid URL and address information has been removed from ThmIndxr^TM and its utilities. ThmIndxr^TM now writes the correct URL for L5Sofware.com to the HTML pages it creates.
  • Filenames passed to spawned programs are quoted to support long filenames.
  • Additional checks have been put in place for NULL pointers which could crash ThmIndxr^TM or its utilities.
  • TixrCfg was not setting the default ".cfg" extension. This was fixed.
  • TixrCmd now correctly sets the current directory after reading a file.

ThmIndxr^TM Version 01.21 (beta)

The following updates are included in the ThmIndxr^TM version 01.21 beta release:

• New features:
  • The HTML 3.2 prologue is now written at the start of created pages.
  • Pre- and post-processing support is now available through TixrCfg for both command file sets, and individual images.
• Enhancements:
  • The bDirAsTitle and bInheritCmd defaults have been changed to TRUE.
  • Separate background image case correction controls have been provided.
  • Extra dialog initialization steps have been eliminated in the utilities to improve performance.
  • A system call was added to the error exit code to insure the log file is written to disk.
  • ThmIndxr^TM version information is written when starting the log file.
  • More visual separation is provided between the ThmIndxr^TM home link in the footer and the rest of the HTML page.
  • The click prompt text is now additive.
  • "Exit on Go" and "minimize on Go" support have been added to TxLaunch.
  • More information is provided in the About ThmIndxr^TM dialogs in TxLaunch.
  • The positions of the height and width editfields have been switched in the TixrCmd Table Properties dialog.
  • The multiline editfields in TixrCmd now accept "Enter" to start a new line rather than requiring "Ctrl+Enter."
• Bug fixes:
  • An extra paragraph mark was being inserted after adding the link lists.
  • The banner LOWSRC image was not being properly addressed in the HTML code.
  • An unhandled exception occurred if there was only one subdirectory in the Add or Ignore file lists.
  • The word wrap feature for the HTML code was not working properly.
  • The default text for the click prompt incorrectly included spacing codes.
  • Some subdirectories were not processed when sorting changed the list order.
  • Pre- and post-processing would only work with batch files. Arbitrarily complex command lines can now be used.
  • LOWSRC images were not created if the target is smaller than the thumbnail maximum size (when the target image is used as the thumbnail).
  • An unhandled exception occurred when "write all settings to file" was selected in TixrCfg. (Thanks to Klaus Allerman for reporting this.)
  • Path separator insertion was not using the selected character when building subdirectory URLs.
  • Case correction was not being done before building thumbnails and LOWSRCs.
  • TxLaunch was not setting the current directory properly.
  • TxLaunch was not telling ThmIndxr^TM to not write a log file when the log file field was emtpy in both the TxLaunch and TixrCfg dialogs.
  • The current directory display could not scroll to show long paths.
  • TixrCmd was improperly inserting the default click prompt even when a different string was supplied in the command file.

ThmIndxr^TM Version 01.20 (beta)

The following updates are included in the ThmIndxr^TM version 01.20 beta release:

• Design checks and changes:
  • ThmIndxr^TM and its utilities have been verified for Y2K compliance: Any date information in the program includes a four digit year, so there will be no problem due to misinterpreting "00" as "1900."
  • The DirLowsrc, DirThumbnail selections were moved from command files to configuration files.
• New features:
  • ThmIndxr^TM now supports a configurable "click a thumbnail" prompt.
  • ThmIndxr^TM supports the option of erasing the LOWSRC and thumbnails when it is started.
  • ThmIndxr^TM supports selecting adding links at the top or bottom of the page.
  • ThmIndxr^TM includes a configurable limit for table cell width to reduce page formatting errors, such as when long filename are used.
  • ThmIndxr^TM now includes the version 6B JPEG code, including support for progressive JPEG images.
  • ThmIndxr^TM will optionally show the color depth for images in the HTML page.
  • ThmIndxr^TM can be configured to show file sizes as either bytes or Kbytes.
  • ThmIndxr^TM now checks for missing thumbnails if the "Have Thumbnails" option is asserted. This is slower when first building a page, but reduces problems associated with missing thumbnails when rebuilding.
  • ThmIndxr^TM can be set to break large directories into multiple linked pages.
  • ThmIndxr^TM supports recursive directory processing:
    • command files in recursed directories
    • subdirectory icons
    • stop file
    • halt at level of recursion
    • process command files in recursed directories
    • support command environment inheritance
    • get the subdirectory's title string from its command file
    • optionally use the directory name as the page title
    • support including icons representing subdirectories in the HTML page
      • retrieve icon from subdirectory command file
      • use a configurable default icon if none supplied
    • stop at specified file option
    • halt at level of recursion option
    • stop if no command file option
    • create an advisory HTML page if the child directory is empty
  • ThmIndxr^TM includes the total number of files being processed with the count showing which file it is processing.
  • The configuration and command confirmation screens were updated to provide more information about the settings in effect for the program run.
  • A directory picker is used in the utilities to select the input directory, rather than a File Open dialog, to provide more intuitive operation.
  • Menus were added to each of the utilities for access to additional windows that were previously accessed through dialog buttons.
  • Each of the utilities now has a "Settings" dialog that saves operating parameters for the program in the Windows Registry.
  • The utilities include an option to write all settings, including default values, to the command, configuration, or setup file being created.
  • The utilities now have "File/New" and "File/Exit" options.
  • Tool Tip support has been added to the utility dialogs.
  • TxLaunch updates:
    • system information has been added to the About box
    • an "About ThmIndxr" dialog has been added
    • notifications when child strings override dialog settings
  • TixrCmd updates:
    • color inherited variables' labels red
    • color picker dialog
    • background, banner, and image preview support
    • folded Edit menu option
    • recursion parent page ("trunk") link inclusion controls
    • home page link controls to turn inclusion on and off
    • sort checkbox in add/ignore list views
    • add "ancestors" link control
    • apply sort in add/ignore list views when images are added
    • don't write a "Title String" entry if none is supplied and "directory name as title" is selected
    • "directory" label in table control
    • directory picker for changing current directory
  • TixrCfg updates:
    • support recursion stop file selection
    • support default subdirectory icon selection
    • support halt at level of recursion option
• Bug fixes:
  • Empty entry strings in the command and configuration files were not being handled properly. This has been fixed.
  • ThmIndxr^TM was using the maximum thumbnail dimensions for images smaller than the specified maximum size. The thumbnails are no longer expanded.
  • Don't always use .GIF as the thumbnail extension if "Have Thumbnails" is asserted.
  • The "sort by extension" option was using the first extension found, rather than the last one. This has been corrected.
  • ThmIndxr^TM was incorrectly writing a fully-qualified path name for the banner image to the HTML page. It now only includes a relative path.

The beta release of ThmIndxr^TM and its utilities does NOT include an update to the manual or the Help system. These will be incorporated, along with any bug fixes resulting from the beta test program, when the final version is released.

Due to the substantial work involved in creating the new release of ThmIndxr^TM and its utilities, we will be forced to increase the registration fee for the program when the final version is released. If you want to use ThmIndxr^TM to build Web pages, we therefore are strongly encouraging you to register your copy today, to avoid the coming price increase.

Pending Updates

The following work items remain in the ThmIndxr^TM development program. These features are enhancements that will be available in future versions of the program. Please feel free to send email if you think one of these items should have higher priority than its position on the list indicates.

• version 01.30
  • property-page dialog interface
  • status bar support in utilities
  • create slide show pages for full-size images
  • support for arbitrary image caption text
  • create intermediate-size images for high-resolution originals
  • replace spaces in filenames with underscores ('_')
  • "stop at directory" recursion control (e.g., "_vti*" on IIS servers)
  • write operating statistics to output HTML page
  • detect & handle multiple source images with same base filename
  • automatically recognize previous registered versions

• port to other operating systems
  • Macintosh
  • Linux/Unix
  • OS/2

• translation to other languages