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thumb

Jeff Poskanzer wrote a great script called thumbnail_index for indexing image directories for the Web. Here's a sample of its output.

I modified it to add optional HTML text to the front of the index, to produce links that work whether you're viewing via the web or directly from the filesystem, to extract comments from JPEG files and create links to them (the jpgcomment script can be used to add these comments), and to use filenames that are more portable across OSes.

To distinguish it from Jef's original script, I call it `thumb', which isn't a very good name. (A command named thumb ought to cause one to be picked up by passing spacecraft, of course.)

Most of these changes were inspired by wanting to use the script to make indexed CDs of digital photographs - a sort of personal photo gallery on a CD. I also use it to create web indices. You can see some samples in my photo gallery.

Here's the script:


It takes zillions of options now. Particularly useful are `-cd', which sets up defaults appropriate for browsing the resulting index on a CD or other filesystem (not via the web) and `-web', which sets up defaults appropriate for browsing the resulting index via the web.

It uses a couple of special files if they exist. Neither is required. They are:


For more details, type `thumb -h', which will produce a help message.
Jay Sekora <js@aq.org>
last modified 1999.12.18