I have just started working with dynamic albums, and understand that I can manually edit the .alb file for complex searches, which is fine. (FYI, I have been unable to edit the stored search field after the album is created.)
Not sure what the role of the cookie is, but what I'd like to be able to do is embed the results of the last search in the .alb file (ie: the names of the selected images), and then set a 'static' flag which means, use the list in the .alb file rather than updating the search. I'd also like to have the option of storing the .alb files in an area not part of the published gallery tree, and then access those albums from custom zen 'pages'.
In other words, in order to access one of these static-dynamic-albums, the user would have to go to the specific page setup for that purpose. The rationale here is, suppose I have a group of photos relating to some specific event (like a vacation) that would only be of interest to 3 of my registered users. I'd like to make it possible for any of those 3 to go there, make comments, etc., but they would know that the pictures and the comments were "for their eyes only".
Another way of looking at it: I want to setup an ad-hoc "discussion group" of sorts, concerning some arbitrary group of photos taken from various public galleries. No need to secure or segregate the original photos individually, but I might want to secure and segregate the dynamic-album & the commentaries etc. In this context, I suspect there's no need for the cookie, and no need to rerun the search every time the album is accessed.
It appears there are plenty of ways to do this, and I'm starting to search them out. However, if there's some obvious methodology for doing this already, a heads-up would be appreciated.
