Using Masonry, jQuery, and PHP to make an album cover gallery

Question

I read about Masonry and after failing to get image appending to work was advised to switch to the successor Isotope. I was trying to improve or create variations on an album cover gallery, something I've done once or twice before using the same PHP classes.

I can get the basic functionality to work, but a button to click to add more images has always failed to work. I keep reading jQuery documentation and I've tried various JavaScript debuggers but I always end up with no images being added to my gallery when I click.

Trial and error is definitely required to get the best looking layout.

The biggest album cover seems to be 500 pixels with the smallest found in APIs was 75, choosing the right column width helps. I'm currently using 75 but 50 might have worked better. I just want to get adding images to work and be done with this little experiment.

I wanted to try something similar to this technique of appending more images to the bottom. I want to append more album covers which I fetch from various APIs (Amazon Product API, Last.fm, iTunes) using PHP. All the album covers come from APIs and I use PHP to find the URLs given the album title and artist. My code is running: http://www.muschamp.ca/Muskie/cdCoverGalleryV4.php

I've changed the CSS rule many times, now I just have the default CSS suggested by the Isotope author.

PHP Code that loops and produces 10 divs with one image per div

$myAlbumCollection->randomMember();
    $count = 0;
    print('<div id="container">');

    while ( $count < 10 )
    {
        // Check that current album is in Amazon 
        $buyLink = $myAlbumCollection->currentAlbumAmazonProductURL();
        $imageURL = $myAlbumCollection->currentAlbumRandomImageURL();
        if ( (strcmp($buyLink, '#') != 0) && (strcmp($imageURL, myInfo::MISSING_COVER_URL) != 0))
        {
            $count++;
            print('<div class="item">'); 
            print('<a href="' . $buyLink . '">');
            print('<img src="' . $imageURL . '" />');
            print('</a>');
            print('</div>');
        }
        $myAlbumCollection->goToNextAlbum(); // This could loop forever if it doesn't find enough album covers, but in reality will timeout 
    }
    print('</div>');

And lastly here is the javascript, the final problem is in here somewhere:

<script>
$(function(){

  var $container = $('#container');


  $('#insert a').click(function(){
    var $newEls = $.get('./moreAlbumCovers.php');
    $container.isotope( 'insert', $newEls );

    return false;
  });

  $container.isotope({
    itemSelector: '.item',
    masonry: {
    columnWidth: 75
    }
  });

});
</script>

The link gets called when clicked, I've stepped through it. The PHP produces DIVs As and IMG tags. I really am not sure what I'm doing wrong and repeated readings of the documentation isn't solving it. I've never really been a JavaScript guy. I'm not even a PHP guy, it seems right but repeated efforts to make it go have failed despite generous assistance and offering a bounty.

Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

Try adjusting the columnWidh value and width of item. Masonry aligns element with best fit column first layout. It works on mathematical equations. So a perfect, brick wall fitting is only hypothetical ideal case. It takes me a few tries on firebug and other tools to get the masonry working with ideally fitted layout. The key is to get the value of columnWidth and width, gutter etc in such a way that it solves the logic equations in good values.

:: EDIT ::
I found a link saved in my pockets page, of which i totally forgot about. It is a great tutorial. So i came back to give it here. Recommended to everyone who have trouble getting started with this plugin.

http://www.netmagazine.com/tutorials/get-started-jquery-masonry