I'm fairly new to zenphoto and am loving it short of not being able to customize my thumbnail photos for albums as much as I'd like. Specifically:

• If I have an album consisting of only sub-albums, there doesn't seem to be a way to specify which sub-album's thunbmail photo I should be able to use for the parent album.

• Also, if there is an album containing a mixture of sub-albums and photos, I don't see a way to choose a sub-albums highlight photo over one of the photos that exist in that album.

Essentially, I like being able to organize my photos making extensive use of sub-albums but am finding my options on selecting a highlight photo for the parent(s) of those sub-albums quite limited?

For a case where I might have photos organized in a fashion:

AlbumA -> SubAlbumB -> SubAlbumC

It would be nice to specifically choose the thumbnail for AlbumA as being in any photo in SubAlbumB or SubAlbumC. Likewise for SubAlbumB, I'd like to be able to choose its highlight photo from any photo in SubAlbumC.

You can select the album thumbnail on the backend from the album itself or one of its subalbum. Since Zenphoto is filesystem based you of course cannot use an image from another album that is not at least a subalbum of the album as an album thumb.

If that is not what you wish I probably did not fully understand the question. Then please specify.

You have to set the option.
In the administrative panel, go to "Options –> Gallery"
About one screenful down, you'll have something called :

Gallery Behavior: – show subalbum thumbs
If that checkbox is clicked, you will be able to select a vignette from either Album A (i.e. not hidden in a subalbum), or any of the subalbums within it.

Ah, ok, makes sense. The "forest for the trees" syndrome...

Thanks, Michel! I didn't see this option initially, but it does get me what I want!