hover over image text

In a way, I agree with you that I would like to have the filename populate the Alt field, but on balance that’s not the best idea.

The Alt field is populated from IPTC>Status>Title. If that’s blank it uses the filename
The Title field is populated from IPTC>Content>Description. (or blank)
The Tags field is populated from IPTC>Content>Keywords. (or blank)

So the gallery fields are filled from IPTC metadata which preserves what is known and provided by the originator or subsequent editor. That supports image attribution, as it should.

@anytechsolutions!

Thank you so much “mbsharp” for that feedback.
I feel that I got nothing to add here.

But, as far as I know, that’s not possible at this moment.
We have some feature request to enable some meta description in the Pro Lightbox display for example.

Feel free to add your vote for new features in this link: https://www.imagely.com/feature-voting/

– Gaby

Maybe its my lack of understanding but I have found no help at all?

Why has the gallery started showing the ALTID all of a sudden while all other galleries are showing the filename which is what we want.
That is the answer I need so that whatever we have done on this last gallery we can chnage it.

Obviously I am not Imagely, but I have an interest in displaying photographs.

There is a filename of every image, of course. But the gallery display does not, and never has displayed the filename. What the gallery displays when you hover over the thumbnail image is whatever is in the Alt field. As I noted above, the Alt field is populated at image upload time using IPTC metadata if any is available, or otherwise by the filename.
As it happens, I use file names which do credit the author, so having IPTC metadata prevent that from loading into the Alt field is an annoyance which I just have to manage. On balance it is easier for me to edit a few Alt fields in gallery management than to destroy the IPTC data in all files before upload.
There are EXIF/IPTC editors which can be used before upload, but really you should retain metadata if the photographer has provided it.

PS. Olympus cameras a particularly annoying in putting OLYMPUS in the IPTC Title field. That may be an example of your original description of the camera ID appearing.

Hi @anytechsolutions!

As @mbsharp explained (beautifully):

…the gallery display does not, and never has displayed the filename. What the gallery displays when you hover over the thumbnail image is whatever is in the Alt field.

About your filename.
– You can try to rename your photos before upload using software like Adobe Lightroom for example or any available batch editing software in the market.

NextGen gallery currently uses the Gallery “title” as the “alt” information as well.
I actually would love to have an “alt” as a separate field as some of our users.
If you want to support that idea, we need your vote.
You can add the requirement in here: https://www.imagely.com/feature-voting/
And we can include that in our feature request board.

We truly want to make our users feel comfortable.

– Gaby

Thanks for taking the time to reply however, and I say this with some reservation: this doesn’t appear correct.
This gallery shows the file name when you hover over:
https://beta.5929.co.uk/aircraft-2/
which is what we want. Then all of a sudden and I think its because some galleries are ordered by ALT/Name and some are ordered by Filename and I believe this is what is dictating what you see when you hover over. If I’m wrong please explain how the gallery above is displaying the filename, I can also send you one of the files and you can see for yourself. Either way from your replies I don’t think we are going to get an answer for now at least which is disappointing. Other than that nice piece of software. Also, never got an answer to a previous question, can I make slideshow background black rather than the white/transparent. We’d prefer the whole screen blanked out.

We need to distinguish between the filename of the image file offered for upload and the filename used to store the image in the Nextgen upload folders: the stored filename may be different if Nextgen has to change special characters and/or avoid duplication.

The Alt property of the HTML tag has always been used as an option to display a text label for an image file. It was intended so that browsers need not necessarily download the image itself, especially if the file is large. Hence, ‘Alt’ is the name of the field in Nextgen gallery management which is displayed when you hover over a thumbnail image.

As explained before, Nextgen populates the Alt field with the IPTC Title data, OR with the filename only if there is no IPTC Title data. It is slightly confusing that Nextgen also has a Title field (from IPTC Description) for each image which appears under the image when it is shown full size.

Rather than just saying that one gallery shows filename on hover and another does not, can you look in gallery management for both and compare the contents of the Alt fields. You should find that the text shown is always the Alt field content.

As the Alt display is on an image by image basis, the sort order of a gallery should not be relevant.

PS (again)
Changing the filename of your images before upload will not make any difference. If the file contains IPTC Title data, that will always be used in the Alt field.

I had a look at your site and the gallery mentioned.

In all the galleries I checked, and it was quite a few, it looked like your original filename is displayed on hover. If you compare that display with the source file in the browser status bar, you can see that the stored filename is usually different because blanks are filled with ‘-‘ and brackets are removed. So the display is of your original name and the stored name has been made cross-server compatible.

What I couldn’t find is any images in any galleries which did not show your filename. Perhaps you can indicate where I could look.

I have found a gallery with your problem. See Great Dorset Steam Fair 2007. Many of the images show ‘KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA’ both on hover and with the full-size image.

I recovered one image “GDSF 2007. Picture 1 001.jpg” and examined it. The file has the Konica text in the IPTC Description field. As noted before, some cameras do this. This example is a MINOLTA DYNAX 5, the others I have seen are for OLYMPUS.

If you look at this image in gallery management for this gallery (GDSF 2007), I think you will find both the Alt and Title fields show the Konica text.

I admit to being slightly puzzled because the IPTC>Status>Title field is blank in this image file. My review of how Nextgen fields are populated goes back to 2015 and there may have been a slight change since then. But the principle remains the same. The hover text is whatever is in the Alt field.

I have rechecked how the gallery fields are populated, and there is a minor change from my previous statement.

Gallery Management has two boxes under the heading ALT & TITLE TEXT / DESCRIPTION. The upper box is the Alt field and the lower box is the Title field. There is a third box for Keywords (or Tags).

The Alt field has three possible sources. First choice is taken from IPTC > Status > Title. If the first choice source is null, the second choice is taken from IPTC > Content > Description. If both those choices are null then the final choice is to use the file name offered for upload.
The Title field is taken from IPTC > Content > Description (if anything).
The Keywords field is taken from IPTC > Content > Keywords (if anything).

That does mean that if the IPTC > Status > Title field is null and the IPTC > Content > Description has data, which is the case for images in your GDSF 2007 gallery, then both the Alt and Title fields will be filled with the same content.

The Alt field is displayed on hover over the thumbnail, and the Title field is displayed with the full-size image. In your GDSF 2007 gallery, both fields have the same content, and both text displays are therefore the same.

That’s the automated filling of those fields. If that s not what you want to see, then the fields must be manually edited in gallery management.