"What!" you say? "A Windows Forms app???" Wasn't I flooding the Community Server air waves lately with talk about some sort of CS Photo Galleries Writer Plugin?
Yeah, something happened on the way to the plugin and I ended up with a Windows Form app. This is perfectly logical if you think about it. The precursor to a plugin would be a Windows app, wouldn't it? I put together a Windows app I kinda like and realized that making a nice Writer Plugin out of it would require more time than I wanted to spend right now.
Here's what I'm gonna do. I moved this app to the 20-yard line and am hoping someone else will take charge in the Red Zone to punch it into the end-zone. It's very possible I'll finish the plugin myself, but I don't like working on the same app or mod very long, and I started this over a week ago. Latenight geek sessions are precious and there are other things I want to work on right now. For any interested quarterbacks out there, the source code for the Windows Client and Web Service is located here. An MSI and DLL w/ASMX website drop-in package is available here.
The Windows App does exactly what I wanted it to do for my personal requirements. It works with Live Writer in selecting multiple images from a single Community Server Gallery and in one action generates HTML image display code for thumbnail, secondary thumbnail and slideshow sizes.
So how do you work it? First you select a Photo Album and Image Size to be generated (defaults to Thumbnails), select your images, add a description for the images (optional), then click "Select Images" to generate the HTML. When you click "Finish," the HTML is copied to the Clipboard and the window closes. If using it with Writer, a quick F12 to HTML Mode, paste, and F11 to return to normal mode with images now displayed in Writer.
As a Windows App, it doesn't suck. It's all single-threaded, which would be the first update I would make if I spend more time with it, though I'm happy with its performance. Passing thumbnails from the DBVTGalleryService.asmx keeps things moving decently. Other than that, all of the controls stretch and expand like they're supposed to and it's a decent little utility.
Now, where are those iPod and Dog notes I was saving?...