[Clipart] Transitioning to the automatic/dynamic screenshots gallery

[Nathan Eady]

Hi, I'm the same person as Jonadab, but this is my work
address.  (Off-list messages should be sent to my home
address only, jonadab at bright.net, though really on-list
replies are even better in almost all cases.)

Anyway, what I want to discuss here is the screenshot gallery.
I have two questions.  The first is long, and the other one
is the last couple of paragraphs at the end of the message.

Currently, the screenshots link on the sidebar points here:
http://openclipart.org/screenshots/index.php

However, that page has to be manually updated, for each new
screenshot.  As of now it hasn't been updated for the last
three screenshots submitted.

Screenshots submitted using the new screenshot upload facility
are automatically shown here:
http://openclipart.org/cgi-bin/view_screenshots.cgi

That one doesn't have to be updated manually, because it globs
up all the screenshot description files that have been put in
the screenshots directory by the screenshot uploader.  From
the description file it reads the author and description to
display, as well as the locations of the thumbnail and the
full-size screenshot.

So here's the first question...

It's possible to get the old screenshots to show up there too,
by faking the description file.  These are simple text files in
the screenshots directory with a filename that looks like
screenshot_n_description.txt where n is an integer.  I went
ahead and created the description files for the ones that
show the clipart being _used_, but my question is about the
very early screenshots that just showed the clipart being
created e.g. in inkscape.  There's nothing wrong with these
shots really, except that they just show the clipart itself,
not actual usage.  So my question is, before we change the
"screenshots" link on the sidebar to point to the new
automatic gallery, do we want to add description files for
those screenshots?  Anyone can do this.  They're just text
files and they look like this:

ID-Number:   7
Submitted:   Before the screenshot uploader tool was in place.
Author:      Here you put the name of the person who submitted it.
Description: This is where you can put a one-line description.
ThumbMethod: Unknown.
Screenshot:  ocal-OOClipart.png
Thumbnail:   thumbs/ocal-OOClipart_thumb.png

The author and description for most of them can be taken from
the existing static screenshot gallery.  There's no limit on how
long the lines (e.g., Description:) can be, as long as they
don't have any line breaks in them.  The ID-Number should match
the number in the description filename.

It's probably best to chmod g+w the description files, so anyone
in the clipart group can update them if necessary.  The screenshot
upload tool now does this automatically for the ones it generates.

Also, the new gallery sorts newest-at-top based on the modification
time of the description file (not by ID number), so these will come
out on top, but they can be reordered back into their original order
by strategic use of the touch command.

If we decide to disable gallery display of any given screenshot,
that's as easy as renaming its description file so that it
doesn't match the pattern, e.g. by adding a prefix or suffix.

If we don't want the just-clipart (i.e., non-use) screenshots
to show in the gallery any more, then the new gallery is ready
to go now, and all that needs to be done to switch to it is
change the link in the sidebar.  But if we want to include those
screenshots (some of which are rather nice-looking, for all
their simplicity), then we should add description files for
them first, before switching the link over.

Also, before the link is switched over, someone besides me
needs to compare the two pages and make sure the new one is
okay, in terms of look and feel.  If something's not quite
right, this is the time to point it out, before it gets linked
from the sidebar.  That's the second question.

Once again, here's the address of the new gallery:
http://openclipart.org/cgi-bin/view_screenshots.cgi