Galerie and other Better HTML Export replacements

I made extensive use of Better HTML Export to create albums from iPhoto 2 to 5. Around iPhoto 5 or so the developer sold the product and I heard no more of it. I visited the new site, but it didn't give me a warm feeling. Since BHTML Export inserted itself deep into iPhoto I needed that warm feeling prior to installation. I'm not sure it was every updated for iPhoto 6.

It turns out the reason that BHTML has been forgotten is that there were over 3 replacements. Apple made the Web export function in iPhoto 6 a bit better. Apple added iWeb integration -- an entirely new approach to the web publishing problem -- albeit a solution that at first was very .Mac centric and managed only a single site. (Only recently has iWeb become friendlier to non .Mac sites and supported multiple sites.) Utilities like PictureSync and better Web sites ( still like SmugMug) provided yet more options.

The last and best replacement, however, is Galerie. I'd looked at this years ago and I didn't like it then, but it's great now. It's free (too bad really, I prefer to see this work be compensated), works well with iPhoto 6, has lovely templates and doesn't require any intrusive plug-ins. As noted in Macintouch recently:

Galerie 5.3 works with iPhoto, iView MediaPro, Extensis Portfolio, or GraphicConverter to export photos to web pages. It supports EXIF data in web pages, picture quality selection, visitor feedback, HTML templates, watermarks, and text in generated pictures, among other features. This release is a Universal Binary and adds compatibility with iPhoto 6, an option to add a link to a photo to show its position on a Google map and satellite view (if GPS data are embedded in the file's EXIF data or by manually entering the position in a command in the photo comment), workarounds for some AppleScript problems, and other changes. Galerie is free for Mac OS X 10.2 through 10.4.

So there you go. BHTML Export was good in its day and I was happy to have paid for it, but it has been replaced. The annoying part of this story is that it's not always easy to discover replacements when favored software is sunset. In this case, as in others, versiontracker comments on the dormant BHTML Export page reminded me of Galerie.

BTW, Galerie's popup's lack scrollbars. Here's how to add them (thanks Ronald P.R.):

You can edit the used template to get scrollbars in the popup windows.

1. If the template contains a file "javascriptpopupwindow.txt", you can open it in a text editor (like TextEdit), do a find-replace, replacing "scrollbars=0,resizable=0" by "scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes" (both without the quotation marks) and save the file.

2. If the template does not contain a file "javascriptpopupwindow.txt", you can open the Galerie application package (using the contextual menu in the Finder) and navigate to Galerie/Contents/Resources/, where you will find a file "javascriptopenpopupdefault.txt". Make a copy of that file (do not remove the original from the application!), rename it "javascriptpopupwindow.txt", make the same change to it as described above and add the file to the template.