Gallery export
What Gallery export actually does
The tools that build a static gallery site are almost all command line programs. They want a package manager, a container or an interpreter before they will make you a web page, which rules them out for anybody who simply has a folder of pictures and somewhere to put them. This does the same job in a tab. It writes an index page, a stylesheet, a few lines of dependency-free script, a full-size copy of every picture and a thumbnail for each, and hands the whole folder back as an archive that will run from any static host, any object store, or a memory stick with no server at all. Nothing about it phones home and no part of it needs to stay online for the gallery to keep working. The gallery itself is shown running before you download it, in a frame carrying the same markup, the same stylesheet and the same script that go into the archive, so the site you approve is the site you get.
How to use it
- Choose pictures. They are read in this tab, listed in the order visitors will meet them, and any file that cannot be decoded is named in that list instead of stopping the build.
- Arrange them. Digit-aware ordering is the default so picture 2 precedes picture 10, and the arrows beside any entry move it by hand.
- Set the title, the column count and the thumbnail edge. Each change rebuilds the site in the frame beside the list, thumbnails and all.
- Try it, then download. Open a picture in the frame the way a visitor would, close it again, and take the archive when it behaves. Upload the contents to any static host.
Useful for
- Publish a set of pictures on your own domain without handing them to a social platform or a gallery service.
- Send somebody a self-contained folder they can open from disk, with no server and no internet connection.
- Keep a permanent, dependency-free record of a collection that will still open in a browser in ten years.
Limits worth knowing
- Full-size pictures are copied as they are. They are not re-encoded, so the archive is at least as large as the originals.
- One flat gallery per build. Sub-folders do not become albums and there are no tags or filters.
- Captions are file names. There is no field for a description or a credit.
- Video is not handled.
Questions people ask
Where can I host what this produces?
Anywhere that serves files. It is plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript with no build step and no server code, so a static host, an object store or a folder opened from disk all work.
Does the gallery need this site to keep working?
No. Once the archive is unpacked it is self-contained and has no link back here.
Can a visitor open a picture with the keyboard?
Yes. Each thumbnail is reachable by tabbing, Enter opens it, the arrow keys move between pictures and Escape closes the viewer and returns to the thumbnail that was open.