Multiple images in ExhibitBuilder

I am experimenting with Omeka and ExhibitBuilder with a collection of historic costume. We have great hopes for it as a tool we can share with our students. I was excited to see that the data entry stage allowed me to enter more than one image for each item, as I have many images (detail shots, etc.) of each costume. However, when I went into ExhibitBuilder, I found that only the first image for each item was available to be used in an exhibit. Is there something I'm missing? Is there a way to access those other images from within ExhibitBuilder?

My best solution so far has been to enter each image as a separate item, but that requires entering the same data multiple times. Also, a collection of 43 images is different from a collection of 8 objects, for which each has several images.

Any advice? Or is this something that we need to recommend for future development?

Thank you!

Hi arkirkland,

You are correct that the Exhibit Builder does not allow you choose from all of the files available within one item. At this point, you would have to make each image an item. Or,provide some explanatory text in the exhibit about accessing the other images since clicking on the first image takes the visitor to the full item and will show all of the files.

You will be happy to hear that we have a ticket in for that feature in the dev queue for a future release.

Good luck with the projects,
Sheila

There is an awkward work-around if you are comfortable with html and poking around the database.

In my exhibits I wanted to include some images that, for various reasons, we didn't want to catalog as items. Plus I wanted links to some pdfs and non-image items that are cataloged. For those things I added html <img> and < a > tags directly into the DB table that holds exhibit text (unfortunately you cannot currently just add html in the text area of ExhibitBuilder because the WYSIWYG editor strips it out -- I've commented on this on the Dev site).

So for your purposes you could continue to add catalog multiple images as one ITEM, but for exhibits add html and refer to the web path for the individual pics you'd like to include.

Let me know if you need more detailed instructions.

Thanks for reminding about this workaround.

Thanks so much for these recommendations!

Hi - We have the same question and I'm hoping that there is now a way to get around it without using the workaround.

We too have the same question/looking for a solution.

One of the many things on the list of to-dos for the next version of the Exhibit Builder (due out with Omeka 2.0) is a proper fix to this problem, letting users pick individual files anywhere they attach an item. Regardless of anything else that happens, I think I can say with certainty that the next Exhibit Builder will address this.

Things are slightly better than they were two years ago, because you can at least reorder files within an item now without re-uploading. This is very helpful for some, but obviously, still not enough for anyone who wants to use multiple images from a single item in an exhibit.

We are working on this as well, as part of a grant to customize the site that I use to teach a class. Our developer has set up a github for the project if it is of any use.
https://github.com/JonathanReeve/docmap/issues/27

John et al,

I want to echo what others have said and reiterate that this type of functionality allows people to use Omeka in more creative ways.

Now that I have multiple images per item (I want every item to correlate to an individual piece of artwork in my site), I'm ready to add all those images to an exhibit.

Having close up images have to be separate public items clutters up items needlessly.

I want to thank the Omeka development team for adding this functionality, hopefully, soon.

Hi! I know this thread is old, but I was wondering if there has been any update on this. I'm actually attempting something a little bit different - I'm trying to associate multiple items with a single text box, but I thought I'd post here before starting a new thread. If anyone thinks that's better though, I can do that instead.

The current Exhibit Builder's "Gallery" block should let you do that.

Hmm, I believe we are planning to upgrade to the new Exhibit Builder, so I will try again when we do.