Flickr Tool: BlackMagic

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    9 March 2010: Read on further below to see how to add any
    color background you would like to a blackmagic view... a new
    feature. .

    B l a c k M a g i c, a new Flickr tool is available.

    Blackmagic is very easy to use. Paste:

    <a href="http://flickrhivemind.net/blackmagic">better view</a>

    into your photo description underneath any of the photos in your
    photostream.

    Adding it in a photo comment on your or other's photos is also just
    fine.

    You can replace the " better view " with any text you would like shown
    for the link.

    Those of you that use more advanced uploading tools can add this to
    the text template of each of your photos.

    What you get:

    From any of your photo pages, an "On Black" style photo view -
    view your pictures in medium or large size on black, grey, or white
    backgrounds.

    From your Flickr home page, you get a Flickr Hive
    Mind
    view of your photo stream. From there, clicking on any photo
    gets you the BlackMagic view.

    Strengths of BlackMagic

    BlackMagic uses something called "referer" information to figure out
    the picture you were looking at, so you don't have to craft a new
    link for each picture
    .

    If you want to create custom links you can do so - there's a
    custom link as well as example link text available on every BlackMagic
    page (follow the "more" link).

    Blackmagic is often faster than other tools that do this type
    of display, as it makes only a single, simple call to the Flickr API
    to do its work.

    Weaknesses of BlackMagic

    If you click on a BlackMagic link on a person's home page, BlackMagic
    can't figure out which of the the photos you were
    looking at. However there's a solution: BlackMagic sends you to a
    custom view of all pictures on the user's home page (via Flickr Hive
    Mind ), and then clicking on any of those pictures gives you a
    BlackMagic view (as mentioned above).

    Super-paranoid web browser settings shut off "referer" information -
    BlackMagic can't figure out which picture you are looking at. You
    can still use custom links, which will work on all browsers (as
    opposed to 99% of them).

    BlackMagic links generally do not work from emails or RSS
    feeds. Again, if you are concerned about this working then
    creating a custom link works in all cases.

    Updates:

    New March 2010 feature you can now specify the background color
    you want for any or all of your photos. Follow the example link
    formats below:

    flickrhivemind.net/blackmagic.cgi?bg=blue

    flickrhivemind.net/blackmagic.cgi?bg=white

    flickrhivemind.net/blackmagic.cgi?bg=333333

    (this is web color #333333, a dark gray)

    flickrhivemind.net/blackmagic.cgi?bg=ff0000

    (this is web color #ff0000, bright red!)

    a pasteable example:

    <a href="http://flickrhivemind.net/blackmagic.cgi?bg=333333>view on dark grey</a>

    To see how these colors are specified, see:

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colors

    the 'Hex Triplet' colors (without the leading #)

    and the 'HTML color names'

    should all work...

    Michael Brush has sent me another invaluable link for colors. Thanks, Michael!

    www.w3schools.com/html/html_colornames.asp

    www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_colorpicker.asp

    23 May: A bug that led to your default small/big black/grey settings
    not being used has been fixed. Let me know if I've broken anything!

    23 May: the display has been made even more minimal! Click on "More"
    to see other options and links from Blackmagic pages.

    22 May: Fiveprime.org was switched to new DNS Servers for what I hope
    to be added stability during the day. It seemed the old DNS servers
    were flaking out sporadically and were not sufficiently redundant.

    6 May 2009: New server for added speed and (eventually) stability.
    Added html to paste into your flickr page at the bottom of every Black
    Magic page. (only necessary if you want a specific, customized
    view)

    16 March:

    nobleaaron67, origamidon, IceNineJon, Jay_Carlson, and 263 other people added this photo to their favorites.

    View 20 more comments

    1. bmse 29 months ago | reply

      Great job dude!

    2. Roses&Rails Photography [deleted] 27 months ago | reply

      It seems to work so far.

    3. CutiePie201 12 months ago | reply

      What is this picture i think i have been here i think that riding this boat it would be fun to ride.

    4. artland 9 months ago | reply

      Congratulations!
      This is a wonderful shot!
      You are invited to post it to:


      artland

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