jekyll-flickr-generator

A page generator for allowing page generation based on sets from flickr.

This allows for automatic creation of a complete gallery, based on a users sets and collections on flickr.

Also, instead of providing a complete plug'n'play setup, this generator uses template files for rendering the set index as well as the actual set gallery, allowing for customization as you want.

Note: This generator was originally created for Octopress, however it should work with both Jekyll and Octopress, as I've used it in both.

Additional features

One very special thing about the generator, is that it has a special "clever" way of listing the flickr sets.

It will per default make an index of your sets, sorted by the time of the newest image in each set. However, if a set is part of a collection, the generator will group these per default.

This allows for basic grouping, something I've been missing in most other plugins.

####Example

I've been on a vacation to Asia, and want a set for each city I've visited. Instead of simply having an index that lists the sets chronologically like so:

• Tokyo
• Beijing
• My very cute cat
• Calcutta

jekyll-flickr-generator will, if you use Collections in flickr to gather the asian cities sets in a "Asia trip" collection, render the list like so:

• Asia Trip
  • Tokyo
  • Beijing
  • Calcutta
• My very cute cat

Prerequirements

jekyll-flickr-generator uses a few things, like flickraw and memoize for caching. To get these, add these to your Gemfile:

gem 'flickraw'
gem 'builder', '> 2.0.0'
gem 'persistent_memoize'

After adding these, run bundle install in the jekyll installation to fetch and install the needed gems.

##API setup

You'll need an API key and a secret wors from flickr to get the generator running. It's available from flickr's API pages

Once you have these, you may add the following to your _config.yml:

flickr:
  api_key: 'API key gotten from flickr's API services'
  secret: 'The secret word gotten from flickr's API services'
  user_id: 'The user id of the user whose sets you want'
  thumb_size: 'n'
  large_size: 'b'
  dir: 'photos'

The fields not obvious above, are as follows:

user_id This is your user id (NOT username). It's a bit hidden on flickr - This service gets it easily for you
thumb_size The flickr size of your thumbnails - a list is available from flickr
large_size Same definition as thumb_size. This is the image you probably want to view in a gallery as it's a larger version of the image.
dir The basedir of your gallery. Mine is ´photos´, causing all gallery URL's to start with /photos

##Setup

This is pretty simple. Copy or symlink the plugins from the plugins folder in the repo to your jekyll plugins folder.

The _layouts folder should of course be in _layouts of your jekyll installation, as this is where the generator will look for them.

I've included some simple examples which you will probably modify a lot to your needs.

When this is done, run the rake generate task as usual, and the gallery index should be generated.

##Beware - here may be dragons

It seems flickr's image sizes are not always available for all images. The generator should try another format if the requested does not exist. However, the size you get may not necessarily fit your template.

Also, I use flickr caching to avoid extensive flickr API calls every time generate is called. If you make changes to sets or photos after they have been indexed, you may want to clear .flickr-cache folder in your installation.

Acknowledgements

flickrcaching and sizes (flickr_helpers.rb) based on the work of Neil