make-photo-pages (mpp.py)

mpp.py is a free python program that generates static web albums (HTML) based on Google Picasa's export to XML feature or from a directory of pictures. It's 100% template based and supports i18n, exif and other features common on software of this type.

download | documentation | examples | contact

It was created for a personal need: even on this flickr era, I like to keep my pictures on my personal website and it was a nightmare to sync my local repository with the web. I tried several approaches and different softwares for more than two years, but none worked well or scaled enough on my scenario:

Static pages (no sql, no php, no cgi)
Templates based
Support multi-language albums (i18n)
Support image captions
Support descriptions on albums (arbitrary text/html)
Support (show) EXIF information
Import pictures from a local directory
Import pictures from Google Picasa(TM)
Open Source
Simple, fast, etc... :-)

Download

The current version is 1.1 (stable). You have two options:

make-photo-pages-1.1.tar.gz (full-package - includes templates, documentation, tests, examples, etc)
navigate through SVN source code (useful to update only mpp.py to the latest development snapshot).

You may find it interesting to take a look at the albums.ini example as well.

Software requirements:

ImageMagick
Python 2.5
Python Image Library (python-imaging)
A program to extract EXIF (optional). Suggestions: metacam | libexif | jhead
Unix (tested on Linux)

Please contact the author if you have any questions, bug-reports or contributions.

Examples of albums

The look-and-feel of the albums is 100% dependent of the template used. I'm not a good web designer, but so far the best examples are my personal albums. Here are some of my favorites:

Pictures from Porto de Galinhas - Brazil (my honeymoon)
Pictures from Presidente Figueiredo - Amazonas - Brazil

Here's the default output when running mpp.py with the standard template:

If you're using this software and would like to share your albums with the world, please let me know and I'll add a link here.

Documentation

Using it is quite simple: it doesn't require installation, so all you have to do is create a .ini file with information about the albums (see below) and run mpp.py inside your albums root directory.

Step-by-step guide

If you're using Google Picasa, export your pictures as an html album and choose the XML format;
Create a .ini file with information about the albums (examples below);
Run mpp.py on the albums root directory (destination). mpp.py will create the album directories, thumbnails, rescale pictures, extract exif information, etc;
If you want, edit on each albums the files captions.txt (image captions) and html-description.txt (html text added on the album main page);
Run mpp.py again at any time if you've made any modifications on the config file, on the .txt files or if you deleted/added pictures. You can use --local_only if don't want to reimport the files;
See --help.

Some highlights:

When importing data from Google Picasa's XML, mpp.py merges image captions imported with the ones written by hand (via captions.txt);
mpp.py avoids rescaling pictures if they're already of the correct size;
By default mpp.py creates a bkp/ directory inside every album before overwriting files;
Implementing or changing a template is trivial. All you have to do is insert text variables inside the html code and mpp.py will replace them with the real information. See mpp-templates/README for more details.

You may be interested in a complete albums.ini example, including comments on each option, but a minimal yet full-featured .ini example is below:

[global]
albums = dot, curitiba
embedded_label = "http://www.mydomain.com/"

[dot]
title = "Pictures from dot, my little cat"
title2 = Dot
period = December 2006 - present day
from_dir = /home/ademar/picasa-exports/album-dot

[curitiba]
extra_langs = pt_BR
title = "Pictures from Curitiba - Paraná - Brazil"
title2 = "Curitiba - Paraná - Brazil"
title.pt_BR = "Fotos de Curitiba - Paraná"
title2.pt_BR = "Curitiba - Paraná"
from_dir = /home/ademar/pictures/album-curitiba