BINS(1)

NAME
bins — Generate a static HTML photo albums using XML and EXIF tags

SYNOPSIS

bins [-f config_file] [-o STR] [-d STR] [-c color_style] [-s style] [-t template_dir] [-p] [-e] [-i iKey,iKey...] [-v X] [-h] source_dir target_dir

DESCRIPTION

This manual page documents briefly the bins command.

This manual page was written for the Debian distribution because the original program does not have a manual page. Instead, it has documentation in HTML in /usr/share/doc/bins/index.html as well as a -h option.

bins is a program that takes a collection of directories and files containing JPEG images and XML descriptions, combines them with a set of HTML templates, and produces a complete photo gallery of static HTML files, rescaled images at three sizes, and thumbnails.

OPTIONS

-f config_file
    use an alternative configuration file, instead of ~/.bins/binsrc..

-o STR
    Tells script to use only one copy of image using HTML size specs (height, width specs in the image tag) for scaled versions (instead of generating several images, one for each size).

    Default is false.

    STR is an optional argument to set how the one image is generated. Possible values:

    scaled
        (make scaled copy of orig in target_dir hierarchy, sized to max size). Default.

    copied
        (copy orig to web dir)

    custom
        (use copy if filesize < 1meg resize, resave, if bigger than 1 meg)

-d STR
    Determine if tags found in EXIF structure are added in desc files.

    STR is one of "always", "never" or "exist" ("exist" only adds if the desc file already exist.) Default is always.

-c color_style
    Color style to use. Can be blue         (default one), green,
    ivory and pink or any other one defined in configuration/description files. This option is deprecated (and thus, not supported by all templates), in favor of alternate stylesheets and the customStyleSheet parameter.

-s style
    Template style to use (styles provided for now are joi, marc,
    martin, mwolson       petrus, satyap and
    swigs).

-t template_dir
    Specify location of html templates.

    Default is ~/.bins, falling back to default versions in /etc/bins/templates.style.

-p  Numbers preceding the album title, followed by an underscore are stripped. If this option is given, then prefix ordering numbers on directories are removed. For example, if one has directories may, june, and august, they can be renamed 0_may, 1_june, and 2_august and they will appear in the album in the correct order.

-e  Tells the script to generate an editable version of the album. If set, some more links and icons are added to directly access the .xml files for editing. This is for editing purposes, not for a final album.

-i iKey,iKey...
    Sets "ignore" keywords which will be compared against the contents of the ignore field of the album's XML file, in the ignore field in description section. If any of the iKeys match those in the album's "ignore" field, that album will not be processed. See also the ignore parameter.

-n iKey,iKey...
    Sets "hidden" keywords which will be compared against the contents of the ignore field of the album's XML file, in the ignore field in description section. If any of the iKeys match those in the album's "ignore" field, that album will be hidden: it will not be
    linked anywhere. See also the hidden       parameter.

-v X
    X is the verbosity level (between 0 and 3)

-h  Show the help string this man page was originally based on.

SETTINGS

bins is also controlled by other files.

/etc/bins/binsrc

~/.bins/binsrc
    The binsrc files are XML files with a top level bins tag. There are three element names with bins: parameter, colors, and sizes. Each of these has a name attribute which names the data in the element content.

    The colors element has a style attribute, that can be used with the colorStyle parameter or the -c command line option. It contains color elements. The color elements name has one of the following values which is substituted into the template files. This tag is deprecated, in favor of alternate
    stylesheets and the customStyleSheet       parameter.

        PAGE_BACK

        PAGE_TITLE

        MAINBAR_BACK

        MAINBAR_TITLE

        MAINBAR_LINK

        MAINBAR_CURRENTPAGE

        SUBBAR_BACK

        SUBBAR_LINK

        SUBBAR_CURRENTPAGE

        SUBBAR_TITLE

    The sizes element contains size elements which each have a name attribute, a shortname attribute, a height attribute, and a width attribute. These default to

        Small, Sm, 40%, 40%

        Medium, Med, 64%, 64%

        Large, Lg, 100%, 100%

    name and shortname are used in the output HTML and in generated filenames. The default values listed above are passed through gettext for localization; overrides in binsrc files are not, and should be in the desired language.

    For the parameter elements the name attribute names one of the following parameters.

    addExifToDescFile
        If set to 1 (the default), write EXIF data found in the image file to the image desc file (but see also the -d flag).

    albumThumbInSubAlbumPage
        If set to 1 (the default), display the current album thumbnail in sub-albums page if it has pictures, with links to the thumbnails page.

    allThumbnailsPage
        If set to 1, generate a page with all thumbnails in the album and sub-albums. This is deactivated because it is an alpha feature which seems to not work properly.

    backgroundImage
        Set this to the image that should be displayed as the background of the album pages. The Image will be copied to the static files directory. This works only with joi, marc, martin and petrus templates for now.

    borderOnThumbnails
        Width of the border of the thumbnail's image in
        the thumbnails page, in pixels. 0     means no border.

    colorStyle
        Name of the color style to use. Default is blue. See also the -c option which takes precedence. This option is deprecated (and thus, not supported by all templates), in favor of alternate stylesheets and
        the customStyleSheet     parameter.

    compactHTML
        If set to 1, generated HTML code is cleaned up to reduce the size of pages and thus, speed up browsing. This reduces the size of HTML BINS files by about 30%. See HTML::Clean(3) to know how optimizations are performed.

    configFileName
        Can be set in the global config file, but only influences the basename of the local user config file. Defaults to .binsrc.

    createEmptyDescFields
        If set to 1 (the default), add empty description fields in the description section when the image description file is created to ease later manual editing.

    createHtaccess
        If 1, create an Apache .htaccess file in the root dir of the album with the encoding charset bound to
        html and htm     files. This is a parameter global for the album, it
        can't be set in album.xml.

    customStyleSheet
        Set this to the CSS file that should be used as the stylesheet for the album pages. The CSS file will be copied to the static files directory. This works only with joi, marc, martin and petrus templates for now.

    dateString
        Specify the format of date strings. This variable accepts all formats supported by date(1).

    defaultSize
        Size to use when user clicks directly on the thumbnail in the thumbnails page instead of one of the size name. 0 is the first size (Small in the default config), 1 the second (Medium), and so on. Set this variable to -1 if you don't want the thumbnail to be clickable.

    deExifyImages
        If set to 1, do NOT copy exif data found in the source images to any of the generated resized images. Setting this option can yield significant space savings, especially for thumbnail and imagelist pages.

    emptyAlbumDesc
        If set to 1, and album desciption is not set, no message will be displayed (instead of the "No long/short description available" one).

    enlarge
        If set to 1, small images are enlarged in the "med" and "large" series. (defaults to 0).

    excludeBackgroundImage
        If set to 1, the image with the name given in backgroundImage will be excluded from the current directory.

    excludeDirs
        Exclude directories that match this regexp (if set). Set to CVS$ in default config, so that CVS subdirs aren't processed by bins.

    excludeFiles
        Exclude image files that match this regexp (if set). No image files are excluded in default config.

    globalConfigDir
        Can't usefully be set, since it has already been used when the first config file is read. Defaults to /etc/bins.

    hidden
        Put here a comma separated list of keyword. If one on this keyword is found in the ignore field in the description section of an album.xml, then this sub-album will be hidden, i.e. it will be generated but not linked anywhere. You can also use the -n command line option.

    homeURL
        Set this to your home page's URL. This is used for the leave button in some templates.

    htmlEncoding
        HTML pages charset encoding.

    ignore
        Put here a comma separated list of keyword. If one on this keyword is found in the ignore field in the description section of an album.xml, then this sub-album will be ignored, i.e. it will not be processed. You can also use the -i command line option.

    imagePageCycling
        If set to 0 next/prev-Links will be hidden if the actual page is the last/first Image page.

    javaScriptPreloadImage
        If set to 1, add some javascript code in image pages to preload the next image of the same size when current one is loaded, to speed up the album browsing.

    javaScriptPreloadThumbs
        If set to 1, add some javascript code in thumbnails pages to preload thumbnails of the next page when current one is loaded, to speed up the album browsing.

    jpegQuality
        Quality of scaled jpegs (lower number = more compression, lower quality) in 1-100 range (default of 75). See imagemagick docs for more details.

    linkInsteadOfCopy
        If set to 1, we link the picture instead of copying it if possible (i.e. scaleIfSameSize is set to 0 and destination image doesn't have to be rotated: rotateImages is set to original or none, or orientation is already correct). Warning : if whenSrcSmaller is set to enlarge, original image can be modified.

    linkRelative
        If set to 1, we use a relative path for the link if linkInsteadOfCopy is set to 1.

    maxAlbumsForLongSubAlbum
        If the number of sub albums is greater (than this value which defaults to 20), generate a short sub album page instead of the long one. (Short sub album pages appear to be unsupported at the moment; this option is disabled.)

    noRotation
        Don't perform rotation on files matching this regexp. This can used in conjunction with scaleIfSameSize=0 and a scaled size of 100%x100% to keep original pictures in your album.

    numThumbsPerPage
        Number of thumbnails (default of 16) displayed in each page in an album.

    pathImgNum
        If set to 1 the path in the imageview contains the number of the current image.

    pathShowIcon
        If set to 1 the path contains icons.

    previewMaxWidth

    previewMaxHeight
        Max thumbnail width and height (default 150x150).

    jpegProgressify
        whether to convert generated jpegs to progressive using jpegtran (if available). can be never, always, or smaller (if the progressified file is smaller than the baseline).

    reverseOrder
        Are we reversing sorting order for pictures or directories ? 0=none, 1=dirs, 2=pix, 3=both. See also -r command line option.

    rotateImages
        Do we rotate images if the
        Orientation EXIF     tag is found? If set to original     (the default), the original image is rotated the first
        time, and then it is left untouched. If set to destination, this is all the scaled images and thumbnails that are rotated. This is less efficient, but the original images are preserved (and is useful if the original images are read-only). If set to none, no rotation is performed.

    rotateWithJpegtran
        If set to 1, bins try to use the jpegtran program to rotate JPEG images if it is available. jpegtran is faster and lossless, but some versions fail to perform rotation correctly, so it is deactivated in default config. If set to 0 or if jpegtran is not found, mogrify (from ImageMagick) is used.

    scaleIfSameSize
        If set to 1, we scale the picture even if destination size is the same as the original picture, if set to 0 (the default), the original image is just copied if the size is correct.

    scaleMethod
        What method should be used to create scaled pictures and thumbnails ? Can be either scale or
        sample. sample     is faster, scale is better.

    searchEngine
        If 1, generate a search page. Images can be searched on description fields set in the searchFields parameter.

    searchFields
        Space separated list of description field names used by the search engine, if searchEngine is set to 1.

    searchLimit
        Maximum results returned by the search engine, if searchEngine is set to 1. Note that if this number is too high, it can hang the browser.

    stripDirPrefix
        If 1, numbers preceding the album title, followed by an underscore, are stripped. If this parameter is set, then prefix ordering numbers on directories are removed. For example, if one has directories may, june, and august, they can be renamed 0_may, 1_june, and 2_august and they will appear in the album in the correct order. This can be overridden by the -p command line option.

    templateStyle
        Name of the template style to use. Default is swigs. Other templates provided with BINS are joi, marc, martin, petrus and satyap. Several templates can be used for different sub-album of an album, by using this parameter in the bins section of the album.xml files. See also the -s option which takes precedence over binsrc (but not album.xml).

    thumbnailBackground
        If set to 1, add a background colour (SUBBAR_BACK) to the thumbnail's cell in the thumbnails page so that if the top and bottom borders are wider than the image (for example, if it is in portrait mode), instead of spilling over, there is a border around the whole picture. By default, use the PAGE_BACK color.

    thumbnailInImageList
        Display thumbnails on the Image List page, set to 1 by default.

    thumbnailPageCycling
        If set to 0 next/prev-Links will be hidden if the actual page is the last/first Thumbnail page.

    thumbPrevNext
        If set to 1 (the default), display thumbnails close to the previous and next link at the bottom of the image page.

    thumbsPerRow
        Number of thumbnails (default of 4) displayed in each row in an album.

    titleOnThumbnail
        Should the title be displayed on top on the thumbnail in the thumbnails page? (defaults to 1.)

    treePreview
        If set to 1, preview thumbnails will be showed in the album tree page. This works only with joi, marc and petrus templates for now.

    updateOriginalPerms
        If set to 1, read permissions on images will be set, to ensure http deamon will be able to read them.

    userConfigDir
        Can be set in the global config file (since after the user one is read, it is too late). Defaults to ~/.bins and is processed by bsd_glob (see File::Glob for details.)

    xmlEncoding
        XML files charset encoding.

image.jpg
    The EXIF tags are extracted from the image. Currently only the Orientation tag influences the processing, but a variety of settings are copied into the HTML file generated via the details.html template.

image.jpg.xml
    The XML file contains an image element, which contains three child elements:

    description
        which has field children that
        contain per-image data.  The name       attribute names the tag (allowing simple
        extensibility, see the
        bins_edit       --generic flag) but
        bins itself currently only makes use of

            title

            description

            people

            location

            date

            event

    bins
        which works as described with the binsrc file settings, except that many of the settings are not meaningful in the context of a single picture.

    exif
        which has a cache of values copied from the EXIF tags in the image, to allow simpler processing by other tools.

        If a user wants to override the EXIF values and provide a replacement (such as a corrected Orientation or an Owner setting that reflects who you loaned the camera to) adding a priority attribute with a value of "1" will prevent bins from replacing it with the value in the image.

album.xml
    This file contains an album element, which contains
    description and bins         stanza as described for an image.  The are extensible in
    the same manner, but bins only makes use of

        dirname

        descFileName

        shortdesc

        title

        sampleimage

        longdesc

include_images.txt
    includes image filenames (relative to the current album, i.e. the directory where the include_images.txt file is stored.) Each filename appears on a line by itself; a line beginning with a # is a comment, and lines composed entirely of whitespace are ignored. Otherwise, the line is exactly the filename. These images are included in the order listed, and added after any that actually appear in the directory.

template.html
    There are a number of template HTMLfiles which are used to generate the actual images. The base names of these are

        tree

        imagelist

        subalbum

        thumbnail

        details

        image

    The default versions of these files in /etc/bins/templates.default should show how they work, as does the HTML::Template documentation. Aside from the COLOR substitutions described above, a template can also reference

        BINS_VERSION

        ENCODING

        GENERATED_DATE

        BINS_ID

SEE ALSO

bins_edit (1), jpegtran (1), File::Glob, HTML::Template, imagemagick.

AUTHOR

This manual page was written by Mark W. Eichin eichin@thok.org for the Debian system (but may be used by others). As it is mostly derived from the bins program itself, it is covered by the GNU General Public License.