TTG Client Script
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[download id=”2″ format=”2″ autop=”false”] Released under the GNU GPL version 3 license |
This PERL script converts TTG Client Response Gallery, TTG Highslide Gallery and TTG Highslide Gallery Pro gallery selection emails
e.g.
Selections: EX_20080914_153823, EX_20080914_154715
GalleryTitle: Test Gallery
Name: Sample
Email: <
into smart collections that can be imported into Lightroom. Details regarding the usage of these web galleries can be found at The Turning Gate.
Pre-Requisites
This script is written in PERL. Mac OSX users should already have PERL available on their system. Windows users may need to download and install PERL from here.
Usage
- Unzip the [download id=”2″ autop=”false”] file on your HDD.
- Copy the body of a TTG Client Response Gallery, TTG Highslide Gallery or TTG Highslide Gallery Pro gallery selection email into a text file. (Example: ttgclient-sample.txt, in the test directory of the download ZIP)
- Run the ttgclient.pl script installed in step 1, passing one or more filenames as parameters. Do this using a command line similar to the one (in bold) below. Upon successful execution of the script the “Smart Collection” response will be provided.
e.g. on Windowsttgclient.pl test\ttgclient-sample.txte.g. on Mac (assumes perl is in you path)
Smart Collection TTGClient-Sample-Selections.lrsmcol ready for import to Lightroom.perl ./ttgclient.pl test/ttgclient-sample.txt
Smart Collection TTGClient-Sample-Selections.lrsmcol ready for import to Lightroom. - Open Lightroom’s Library module.
- In the Collections panel, right click on a Collection. Select Import Smart Collection Settings from the context menu, then select the file generated by ttgclient.pl (e.g. TTGClient-Sample-Selections.lrsmcol).
- If the client specified ratings for any of the photos you will also have a separate import files generated for each rating level awarded. Repeat the previous step until all of the collections are imported.
You should now have a new Smart Collection (e.g. TTGClient-Sample-Selections) containing all of the selections and rated images included in the email from the gallery.
History
| Version | Change Log |
|---|---|
| 20091216.002 | Worked around LR2 web gallery bug that renames files if they have a hyphen in their name (Issue #40). Added support for TTG Highslide and TTG Highslide Pro gallery email format (Issue #41). |
| 20081102.001 | Initial public release |
[…] galleries cover part of the workflow gap – allowing clients to inform you of selects – and my TTG Client script addresses the remainder by converting the response emails into Smart Collections ready for import […]
This version still requires Mac users to save the file with Unix “line feeds” (not a easy task for the typical user). Macs create text files with “carriage returns” only.
This version now fails if the image name uses an underscore, which everyone of my files do have. This is the default naming for shooting in RAW with Canon “_MG_0120”.
Signed,
Mac user
@Jim, I don’t have a Mac so it makes testing this sort of thing a bit difficult. I’ll try to grab a Linux VM which should be close enough to OS X to replicate the issue on a budget. I did start working on the issue but the Perl doco around this is a little difficult to work through if you can’t personally test the resulting code.
Can you please clarify what “fails” means? All my images use underscores, and I’ve just retested to ensure leading underscores don’t cause a problem (hadn’t checked that before). All seems to be working as expected so I’ll need a bit more information to track down the issue you are encountering.
I’m not using hyphens, but underscores. The underscores are in the client response email that comes back from my client, but after I run the script, and look at the .lrsmcol file, the underscores are gone (value = “MR 2010 03 6”,), so when I load the file into Lightroom, I get more files than I should.
Short of renaming my files before I load them onto a gallery, is there a way to have the underscores remain in the resulting .lrsmcol file? I’m using the 12-5-09 version of the ttgclient.pl script.
Thanks,
Reid
@Reid, The workaround to resolve the hyphen issue would cause extra files to appear when using a naming scheme like that. The quickest solution for you would be to use the old version of the script. You can download the original release here direct from my project site. I’ll also add an issue/feature to make the hyphen workaround an option supplied at the command line.
Matt,
Thanks for your help and quick response.
Would the older script work for both the TTG Highslide 2.0 gallery and the Client Response Gallery (ver 2.15), or would I need to use one script for one gallery, and one for the other?
I seem to remember that the older script worked OK for the Client Response Gallery.
Thanks,
Reid
@Reid, From memory the only difference between the output for CRG and Highslide is the name of the line that tells you the selected images. One starts with “Image:” and the other starts with “Selections:”. So you can use the older script to process Highslide as well provided you change the name at the start of that line in the Highslide email to use the other line prefix. I can’t remember which is which right now.
Sorry for asking this, but what’s the benefit from using smart collections as opposed to simply copy-paste the email text to the library browser, as described in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqA4NnDCxkw&feature=player_embedded @ 2:40 ?
Thanks,
Udo
@Udo, the main reasons are you can work around the Lightroom “feature” that messes with filenames containing dashes, and you can process multiple emails (and multiple selection types within a single email) at a time, and you don’t need to. If these benefits aren’t relevant to you then the library method will work.
Hello, I am trying to use the script but still does not understand how to run the perl on mac, tried with Terminal.
Could you post more steps to do it right?
Thanks in advance and great work!
@Pablo, Still haven’t been able to try this out on a Mac so don’t have the information at hand. If anyone has managed to use this script successfully on a Mac please let us know.
You say you use the Publish Services now to grab clients comments – but is there a way to filter on the comments/ratings/Likes? Or do you manually walk through all photos and pick the ones where they left a comment?
I tried to setup a Smart Collection but could not find a way to filter on the comment… 🙁
@Robin, I mainly just step through the photos one by one. Hadn’t really thought about trying to setup a Smart Collection to go through the feedback. I imagine you could access some of this information as plugin specific metadata but haven’t actually tried it so could be wrong. I’m in the middle of writing a new Publish Service right now so will have to test whether I can expose that information somehow so it can be queried/filtered. Sorry I can’t be more help right now.