I have been using TTG since close to the beginning. I have usually lagged in my upgrades and found it a bit frustrating, especially in the beginning, to re-learn the software to do an infrequent overhaul of my site. This was often associated with a quick look around to see what other software was available before I dug in. But I like the simplicity BackLight provides for publishing straight from Lightroom. It takes little thinking on my part and admittedly, lulls me into a bit of complacency with my site at times. My general impression is that more focus has been on the underlying functionality of the software in its continued development, including the significant, and welcomed, advancement in the web-based user interface, at the expense of increasing stylistic options to foster individual creativity in the creation of oneâs site. Every once in a while I browse the gallery and see some very good web sites but there is always the common denominator that they have the look and feel of a TTG powered website. I know the focus is on the images as stated by the Backlight literature but I would really like to shake my site up a bit because I have come to the conclusion that people connect better with my images when they read the story behind it (Observed from my Instagram followers). I have never blogged but I do not think that is what I am talking about. I simply want to include a paragraph for each photo and have different creative options for doing so. If someone can suggest how I could achieve this using Backlight, I would much appreciate it. Examples are also welcome.
You could use the Theater add-on in the Still Image presentation. Add your paragraph of text to the image caption metadata field and include the caption in the metadata section of the album template. You can put as many images as you want in the album.
This is limited in the way you can format the text. For example, I donât believe you can add line breaks as html is not allowed in the metadata tokens
The most flexible way may just be by using a blog. In WordPress itâs pretty easy to add a picture with a paragraph or two of text and the text is easy to style.
If you want to do this in a Backlight page, then you could create single pages and write the copy and include the images using html.
Of the above, only the Theater Still Image option will allow you to manage the images in the album/page using Lightroom. Both of the others would require exporting images of appropriate size and uploading them to the site.
As to the available design options, there are a lot and it seems Matt and Ben keep adding them. For example, you can have vertical or horizontal navigation. You can put your masthead in any number of places. There are several options for gallery thumbnails. Lots of opportunities.
And on top of that, theyâve included access to page structure via phplugins for customization as well as an easy way to implement custom css.
I was just going to write a new post but interestingly found this one from 2020. I didnât act on anything, my site remains the same, but it looks Backlight has advanced to including some of the additional text functionality in Kookaburra that I was seeking (but I cannot seem to find any example pages showing the new essay capabilities in detail). So I am willing to give Backlight 5 a go instead of looking for another platform. Can I assume that I have to purchase everything outright again? I am currently using Version 2. Advice on how I can make this transition the least disruptive to my website would also be appreciated (i.e. building a Backlight 5 version offline before going live?).
I donât believe you need to repurchase. I donât remember if that was if you were coming from at least BL2 or BL4. I think itâs BL2, but @Matt can verify. (see this post)
If you purchase BL5 using the same email address as your earlier purchases, the new add-on versions so be then be available on your Backlight Modules page.
Just installing BL5 shouldnât change your BL2 site. You could then create a new design on test pages and test albums. When satisfied, just assign the new templates you create to the old pages, albums, etc.
If youâre sticking with you BL2 design (using Pangolin templates, I assume), then you should be good to go. You may need to clear template cache as well as update album files (from the Backlight > Admin > Special Links page.
If you want to develop a new site completely separate from your existing site, you can do that in a sub-domain or sub-folder. Then export your new templates from the development site and import them to the existing site. Then re-assign templates to pages, albums, etc.
Ok. The upgrade to Backlight 5 is complete. I really appreciate that the upgrade seemed to have gone flawlessly, although the sizing of some images in the gallery slide show seemed to have changed. But overall, a positive experience. Now I have to get into the documentation to see the benefits of Kookaburra over Pangolin to plan an appropriate transition and start looking into using the essay functionality.
One more questionâŚI use the publish module in LR Classic and it seems to me that when you update a gallery using âPublish Nowâ the entire gallery gets re-written rather than just the changes (which can take a long time if the gallery is large). Am I doing this correctly?
There is an option in LR Publisher settings to "Push metadata without updating existing photosâ
Use that option when just making metadata or sort order changes.
Ok. Thanks. I was referring more to the images themselves, that is, if you add a single image, it seems like the entire gallery has to be re-published which is unfortunate. But at least now I know its not user error.
If you add a single image, only it should need to be published. Sometimes, after Lightroom updates (or maybe even added/improved metadata capabilities in Backlight) metadata changes are made to all the images in an album. Lightroom then shows that all images have been modified and need updating.
If that happens, make sure that the âPush metadataâŚâ option is enabled. It will make republishing entire albums much quicker.
TLDR for Kookaburra vs. Pangolin is that, if you need Cart or Client Response support, or youâre really hung up on Masonry grid layout, use Pangolin; otherwise, use Kookaburra.
In particular, Kookaburra has better essay functionality.
The other option is to use both, Kookaburra for most things, and then Pangolin only for cart or client response galleries, and maybe section them off a bit from the rest of the site to minimize jarring transitions.