[SOLVED] Storing/displaying html links in an array? (or perhaps a better way?)

[somewon]

Okay, I'm not sure if this is the right way to do this, or that it's even possible.

 

The situation is that I am making image gallery pages with 100+ links/images each. I want to display about 15-20 per page, and have a small numerical link bar that will let you select between the pages.

 

For example, say I had a page of 100 image links with thumbnails. I don't want to display all of them at the same time, so I'd rather it just show 15 of those to the user at a time, and let them select between pages with a small linkbar that looks like: "Page 1 2 3 4 5 6" having those all as links.

 

I hope this makes sense, because I'm pretty bad at explaining myself sometimes. =p

 

What is the best way to go about this? Would an array work, or is there a better way? The site isn't uber-complicated or anything, so the easiest way to do this is probably best. =p I just want to be able to add/update the galleries all the time and have them separated by pages automatically rather than hard coding them all.

 

Thanks!

[DarkWater]

That's called pagination.  Do you have a database set up with all of these images and stuff, or are you actually doing it by hand? (I hope you aren't)

[Maq]

If you use pagination, here's a tutorial, Pagination.

[somewon]

Well, actually, I'm uploading my images to an image hosting service that automatically generates a list of links to the images in your galleries for you, like:

 

<a href=http://imagehost.com/img.php?id=12345><img src=http://imagehost.com/thumb/12345.jpeg></a>

<a href=http://imagehost.com/img.php?id=23456><img src=http://imagehost.com/thumb/23456.jpeg></a>

...

etc

 

So they're not really in a database or anything, just a long list of links. I just want to be able to display them in my own simple gallery on my website in a way that's easy for people to browse.

 

Is pagination doable without having a database?

[fanfavorite]

The simplest way I think is to just read from a directory.  Make a directory called "gallery" or whatever you want and then use opendir, readdir, store them into an array and then sort them.  I use _small at the end of each thumbnail to determine that it is the thumbnail.  Heres a start: 

 

if ($_GET[pg]) { //if pg is passed

    $curpg = $_GET[pg]; //set var

} else {

    $curpg = 1; //default to page 1

}

$dir = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/gallery'; //gallery directory

$dirHandle = opendir($dir); //open directory

while ($file = readdir($dirHandle)) { //read directory

    if(!is_dir($file) AND strpos($file, '_small')>0 ) { //don't read directories or files with _small in the filename

        $files[] = $file; //array for all the pictures

    }

}

closedir($dirHandle); //close directory

asort($files); //sort the files

$numpics = count($files); //get the number of ipictures

$numpages = ceil($numpics/20); //get the number of pages if 20 per page

$startpic = $curpg * 20 - 19; // get the picture to start with

 

Then list your pictures how you want using that.

[DarkWater]

I'd probably create a file that contains each of your links separated by a newline or something, then read it into an array using file(), if you don't want to use a database or host your own files.

[somewon]

Ahh, thanks guys. I'll try to do a combo of what you've suggested and see how it works. =p