Sorry, I try to teach people how to help themselves via the tools available here. Normally it's more helpful, but then again I'm a user who learned that way. As far as I understand it, you've selected an image and did your own cropping via the admin-backend. What acrylian said is that we can't use the getCustomImageThumb call, you have to use the default one.

So you'd want to use `printAlbumThumbImage()` which will then call the default album thumb image (which you've assigned via the backend tool already).

thanks. i'm getting there. just getting frustrated over this. here is my problem.

i want the index to have 350x150 custom cropped images. they will be uploaded as "customcropalbum1.jpg" with dimensions already set. when i upload them, i cannot select the image from the thumbnail dropdown in edit>album. it only has the photos in the album folder.

on the album pages, i want to have 85x85 crops that can be randomly generated by Zenphoto.

when i deleted the printCustomAlbumThumbImage and used printAlbumThumbImage, i had to go into options>theme options and change the Crop Thumbnails to 300x150. this then throws off the album thumbnails. i do not want the index page and the album page to have the same thumbnail dimensions.

when using the printCustomAlbumThumbImage, my only issue is that i don't like Zenphoto choice of crops from the index page and would like them to be my own. the sizes are all correct both on the index and album pages.

again, thanks for the help. maybe we can keep the dialogue going now and i can relieve myself of a headache.

sorry that first mention should be 300x150

Alright, if that's the case then your first question makes more sense, the customalbumthumb since you're not using the zenphoto admin-crop. So the issue then gets to your initial question which was "how to point it to the url?". The way the printCustomAlbumThumb image works is that you set your variables, and where on the picture the thumb is centered. You don't actually point it to a separate file.

Now there's a couple ways you could accomplish what you're looking to do. You could create your own index.php/splash page into the gallery and use standard html/img tags linking to your gallery albums.

Another way would be to upload those customcrops you made into your different albums, setting them as the custom thumbs. The only problem with doing it that way is that where you're putting the printCustomAlbumThumImage is in a loop, so it's going to use the same dimensions etc for each time through the loop.

Probably the best way to accomplish what you're looking to do is blend the two. Modify the zenphoto index.php so that it's not looping and use the printCustomAlbumThumImage calls placed on your index page and styled how you want with the html/css elements. Doing that gets more into the theming aspects, which you'd want to familiarize yourself with by visiting the theme guide (sorry habit):

http://www.zenphoto.org/2009/03/theming-tutorial/

You can't uploaded images with already set dimensions to be used as custom thumbs separatly, unless you want to do a lot of extra coding. Zenphoto considers every image within the albums as full size image and use them to generate the thumbs and the sized images.

yeah this is getting beyond my knowledge level. i think i will just work with the custom image thumb attributes and find a crop that is "suitable enough" to go with. seemed like a straightforward thing that i thought was easily available to do. upload an pre-cropped image with whatever extra design you add to it, select it as your thumbnail, have it link to your gallery. guess it is more complicated.

could you tell me how this site is doing their thumbnails? it does not seem possible that Zenphoto generated those exact thumbnails for each album. maybe, but it seems to me that he has cropped the faces for each separate album just how he likes them, and then has it link to the album.

http://www.stefanoginella.com

guess i don't have to write it every time, but thanks.

If you're willing to invest the time to make your own thumbnails manually, you may be able to set individual thumbnails similar to the way described here: http://www.zenphoto.org/2009/03/troubleshooting-zenphoto/#19 (I don't know if this only works for videos or not, but it may be worth a try)

@kagutsuchi: That will only work for videos and audio files as we of course can't create thumbs from those.

If someone wants special predefined thumbs not generated from the uploaded images you have to store them elsewhere and create a function that links to them maybe using an image filter or whatever.

@ryan_nerone: We of course don't know anything about that site's theme but it will surely use the custom image functions we mentioned above.

Thanks for all the assistance. I've abandoned the need for the custom thumbnail of my own, but now I need to understand how to use Zenphoto's custom thumbnail cropping. I cannot get it to function in my admin. I understand from reading that if you use any functions that include "Custom" then it will override the Zenphoto cropping. So, I have changed them but it is still not working and now I cannot have different thumbnail sizes for my index and album pages.

Backticks with the code is not working correctly for me, so, to keep this forum's formatting clean, here are links to the code.

Here is the index.php

http://www.thegoldbrick.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Index.txt

Here is the album.php

http://www.thegoldbrick.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Album.txt

Again, I want 300x150 thumbs on the index and 85x85 crops on the album. I also want to be able to use the custom thumbnail cropping feature from the backend (mostly for the index page only, it is no problem if the album page is randomly generated).

In my options>theme options>crop thumbnails; I have the setting at 300 and 150 with a checkmark. this makes both the index and album have the same which is a problem.

Could someone please take me through the steps to do this? I have been referencing the theming tutuorial and other code (i don't have the default theme to reference), but I cannot get it working. Posting the exact functions to use would be a huge benefit. Thanks in advance.

Ok, what I would do in this situation then is to have your index.php use the `defaultAlbumThumbImage()` call in it's loop. Set your default image thumb sizes in your backend to 300x150.

Then in your album.php I'd use the `printCustomSizedImage()`. Based on your album.txt you'd want to use:
`<?php printCustomeSizedImage(getImageTitle(),NULL,85,85,85,85); ?>`

Now your album.php file is missing stuff for if it's got sub-albums etc, you may want to compare your album.php to the original default theme to see what I mean.

You can see what it would look like here (my dev gallery):
http://michealmalone.com/zenphoto/

i used the defaultAlbumThumbImage() in my index.php and it returned errors. when i look in the functions guide, i don't see this function. seems like everything i am doing is exactly in line with what you mentioned. however, i cannot get the custom thumbnail cropping to work in the admin. is there something else i need to do. i assume when i navigate to that page, it will have a crosshair or something to let me select the custom crop. right now, it just shows the image.

also, in the string <?php printCustomeSizedImage(getImageTitle(),NULL,85,85,85,85); ?> what can i add to adjust the scale of the crop. i would like it to zoom in more. i have read the functions guide and experimented with the x and y axis, but it came out very distorted. what is the range of values for that attribute?

i also have the default theme to reference now should you need me to look there.

really, it is pretty simple, everything is how i want it. only thing is that i cannot crop my index thumbs and i would like to change the scale/zoom of the album thumbs.

Sorry, should actually be `printAlbumThumbImage()`, that's the function to use for that. Not sure about adjusting the scale of the crop, I don't use the custom crop much myself. Sorry I can't be a huge help more on this. Btw, your gallery is beginning to take great shape!

Thanks for the help. Very much appreciated. However, I still have the cropping issue which I want to resolve. Any others reading this; could you please comment on why I cannot get the custom thumbnail cropping to work when using the code listed in the link below. It does not call for anything custom so it should be working.

Again, backticks aren't working for me, so here is the upload.

http://www.thegoldbrick.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Index-php.txt

Look at the comment on top of the file `zp-core/i.php` that directly explains the crop/sizing options.

I am not sure if the admin crop values really are used for the album thumbs and not only the image thumbs...but I really assume they are...

Thanks acrylian. In regards to the x and y axis, I found the similar information in the functions guide, but that explains it a little better. Never would have known to look in zp-core/i.php by the way. What are the range of values for this data or is it infinite? I'll experiment with it.

However, I really(!) want to know why the custom thumbnail cropping on my admin does not work. If you could take a look at the code to see if anything is wrong that would be great. If you need other information or want to log in as an admin, let me know.

No custom functions means it should work properly, but I cannot get it to do so. I think I must be confused how this works.

Ryan, backticks aren working for me either when I type them on my keyboard..
but when I copy the backtick from the line below the send post form and paste it in the form twice it works..

An interesting aspect I've noticed... the admin-crop feature works, but it's only a square for me. It won't drag to a rectangle, only changes the scale of the square. A bit of a pain, perhaps a ticket is in order?

You have to hit "space" after typing a backtick, otherwise it gets deleted (as it is actually used for adding accents to characters).

The admin crop is tied to the measures set on the admin option. You can't freely crop say width > height if you set the option to width = height. So if you set for example 100px x 100px you can use only square crops as Zenphoto always uses the same dimensions for all thumbs. You can just set the part you want to be cropped.

Well the problem is not that I can't freely crop. In fact, I'm not interested in that at all. I want to keep all the index thumbs at 300x150. The problem is that when I go to the custom thumbnail cropping in the admin, I cannot select anything. It only shows the Zenphoto generated crop and gives me no freedom in adjusting anything. Acrylian, can you login and check this for me?

Maybe I just don't know how the admin functions. Could you clarify the following for me.

I am assuming that if I have my admin options set to 300x150, then when I go to the custom thumbnail cropping in the admin, I will be able to maneuver a 300x150 (2 to 1 ratio) box around the picture and place it over the portion of the image that I wish to have as the thumbnail. Is this a correct assumption? I figure it is, but I just want to confirm that I am not frustrated over something that the admin is not even capable of.

I am not interested in freely cropping the picture. I just want a fixed width/height box that I can drag around the image to the position of my choice and then set the album thumb as that selected position.