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A webpage batch-creation tool for customized image galleries. 

"You're a GOD!"
- Daniel Brown, Web Products Evangelist at Adobe, upon trying PageThing 1.0.

You can also still get PageThing 1.x.

 

  Information

PageThing is an application which automates a tedious part of web-design: the creation of webpages to show a series of images, with navigational links between those pages.

Say you had 20 images, and wanted to make a page for each image - like a gallery. You'd normally make one page, insert the image and links, then copy it 19 times. Then you'd have to alter every single one of those pages, updating the links and changing the image as appropriate. How annoying, boring and time-consuming!

That's where PageThing comes in. You can just choose the basic formatting of your pages, choose a few options, and your pages will be created automatically! PageThing will even take care of making sure all your navigational links are in place, and won't place a "previous page" link on the first page or a "next page" link on the last page.

PageThing 2 includes the following improvements over previous versions:

  • Full compiled application; no more reliance on AppleScript
  • Much faster generation of pages: up to 14 pages per second, depending on chosen settings
  • Progress dialog to show you how many pages have been made, and how many will be made in total
  • Ability to choose colors with the Mac OS color-pickers
  • One-click "snap to web-safe" feature for all web colors
  • You can still enter color values from the keyboard if you choose, and be warned immediately if the color isn't web-safe
  • Online help for every control in every dialog
  • Online tips and information about how colors are specified on the web
  • Ability to choose whether to use text or images for First, Last, Previous and Next links
  • Ability to add numerical links on each page, linking to all other pages
  • Relative text sizes
  • Choice of which application the pages will belong to (i.e. which app they'll open in when double-clicked)
  • And more!

Changes in version 2.1.1:

  • Now writes default encoding information into pages (META HTTP-EQUIV tag, using the Western ISO-8859-1 encoding).
    Thanks to Gary Coyne for suggesting this.
  • Modified META GENERATOR tags and comments.
  • Fixed the icon in the Progress dialog (it didn't display in version 2.1).
  • Added checking for spaces in the Filename field. If spaces are found in the chosen filename, PageThing won't let you make pages.
    Thanks to Gary Coyne for pointing out that PageThing didn't check for this problem previously.

Changes in version 2.1:

  • Now PowerPC native (requires a PowerPC Mac).
  • Added ability to load/save multiple settings files.
  • PageThing now generates pages which are compliant with the W3C HTML 4.0 Transitional specification.
    Verified by various checkers, including BBEdit. Actual changes to PageThing's generated code:
    • Addition of the HTML 4.0 Transitional "!DOCTYPE" tag to all generated pages (required).
    • No longer using CENTER tags for alignment.
    • Now using nested DIV tags with the ALIGN=CENTER parameter (removes redundant code).
    • Now correctly nesting P tags within DIVs (fixes 'implicit P close' warnings).
  • Removed "Save settings when quitting" checkbox. Now, PageThing will always use default settings when launched.
  • Added Open and Save buttons. These open and save settings files from anywhere on your computer.
  • PageThing now loads settings files if you just double-click the settings files in the Finder.
  • You can drag folders into the main PageThing window, and onto the Choose buttons for either the folder of images or the destination folder. You can also drag a folder onto PageThing's icon in the Finder, to use that folder as the folder of images.
  • You can drag images (GIF, JPEG or PNG) into PageThing's windows and dialogs to specify the background image or any of the link images. You can also drag an image onto PageThing's icon in the Finder, to use that image as the background image for the gallery pages.
  • Started adding basic AppleScript support. Doesn't do anything useful yet - just plays sounds or shows the About dialog. PageThing will eventually support several AppleScript commands for generating pages.
  • Added ZoomRects to the PageThing button and the "Help with web colors" button.
  • Added DropZoomRects to menu commands for About PageThing, Beta Testers, and PageThing Web Color Help.
  • Resized the 'About' dialog slightly.
  • Added an Easter Egg somewhere. ;-)
  • Modified the PageThing 2 button to conform with Open/Save/Defaults buttons.
  • About a zillion internal code-changes and optimizations. Mostly abstracting values from the main PageThing window.
  • Fixed focus/tab-order in the main window. The first field (Gallery Name) now correctly has the initial focus.
  • Updated the GoLive page-icon for GoLive 5.

You can also read the complete 2.x release notes.

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  When will 2.5 be available?

PageThing 2.0.2 users may remember a text file called "The Future of PageThing", which detailed some of the features which would be in version 2.5. Some people have emailed me asking when version 2.5 will be ready, and wondering about the reason for the delay.

The bad news is that 2.5 will take a little longer than expected. The good news is that it's currently under development, and it will be substantially better than PageThing 2.0.x and 2.1. The key news is that, rather than generating a fixed, proprietary style of HTML, version 2.5 will read HTML templates you create. You'll simply insert markers into your HTML files, telling PageThing 2.5 where to insert images, links, thumbnails and so on. PageThing will duplicate and interlink the pages as necessary, including the creation of multiple thumbnail pages as appropriate.

This approach offers almost unlimited customization, but keeps the PageThing interface uncluttered and easy to understand. PageThing will still have dialogs to configure things like Previous/Next links and such, but most attributes of your pages will be read directly from your template files - which you can create in any HTML authoring tool or text editor.

So, hang on just a little bit longer. It'll be worth it.

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  Screenshots

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  Download

If you're having problems downloading, read the Information section on the main Products page.

IMPORTANT: Scotland Software provides no warranty or guarantee of any kind for this software. Whilst every effort has been made to assure that the software always functions as expected, this is not guaranteed. In no event will Scotland Software be held responsible for any damage or loss of data or otherwise which may occur due to use of the software. Please contact us if you have any questions.

By downloading PageThing, you acknowledge that you have read and understand the above statement in full.

Note that this version of PageThing is compatible with both 68k and PPC Macs.

Please take a moment to read the "Charityware" section below!

 

From Chicago, USA via HTTP (preferred)

PageThing 2  (StuffIt 5.x archive, encoded as BinHex - 966k)

From London, UK via HTTP

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  Charityware

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  Made with PageThing 2

If you use PageThing 2 to create a web image gallery, we'd appreciate it if you'd include this button somewhere on the gallery pages, or on a page linking to your gallery. This isn't required, but we'd be very grateful. :-)

If you do use the button graphic below, please download your own copy of it to put on your website. Link the graphic either to the main page of this site, or to this PageThing page. The URLs for both those pages are shown below, after the button image.

https://scotlandsoftware.com/
https://scotlandsoftware.com/products/pagething/index.html

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