Ordering and Naming

Simple Gal uses a numeric prefix convention (NNN-name) to control the order of albums, images, and pages. This convention applies uniformly to all entry types: directories, image files, and markdown pages.

The NNN-prefix convention

Prefix any filename or directory name with a number followed by a dash to set its sort position and make it visible in navigation:

010-Landscapes/
020-Travel/
030-Minimal/

The number can be any non-negative integer. Leading zeros are stripped during parsing (010 becomes 10). Items are sorted by their numeric value, not lexicographically.

Common numbering patterns:

Display titles

The name portion after the numeric prefix becomes the display title. Dashes in the name are converted to spaces:

This conversion applies to all entry types: albums, images, and pages. For pages, the display title is used as the navigation label (link title). For images, it is used as the photo title in breadcrumbs and image detail pages.

Entries without a number prefix

Directories and files without a number prefix are still processed, but they are hidden from navigation. They remain accessible via direct URL.

content/
├── 010-Landscapes/    # In nav, accessible at /Landscapes/
├── 020-Travel/        # In nav, accessible at /Travel/
└── wip-drafts/        # NOT in nav, accessible at /wip-drafts/

This is useful for:

• Work-in-progress albums you want to preview but not publish in navigation
• Draft pages you want to generate but not link from the site
• Unlisted content shared via direct link

Unnumbered entries still get a display title with dashes converted to spaces (e.g., wip-drafts displays as "wip drafts"), but since they have no number prefix, the directory name is used as-is for the album title.

The same rule applies to pages:

content/
├── 010-about.md       # In nav
├── notes.md           # Generated at /notes/ but NOT in nav

Number-only entries

An entry can be just a number with no name:

Number-only images have no title and will not display a title in the breadcrumb.

Thumb convention for album thumbnails

An image whose name starts with thumb (case-insensitive) is used as the album's representative thumbnail on the index page:

content/010-Landscapes/
├── 001-dawn.jpg
├── 005-thumb.jpg              # Album thumbnail
└── 010-night.jpg

You can add a title after thumb-:

005-thumb-The-Sunset.jpg       # Thumb with title "The Sunset"

The thumb prefix is stripped from the display title — 005-thumb-The-Sunset.jpg displays as "The Sunset", not "thumb The Sunset". The image still appears normally in the album.

Only one thumb image per album is allowed. Multiple thumb images cause a build error. See Thumbnails for full details.

Duplicate numbers are errors

Two images with the same number prefix within the same album will cause a build error:

content/010-Landscapes/
├── 001-dawn.jpg
└── 001-sunset.jpg     # Error: Duplicate image number 1

Error: Duplicate image number 1 in content/010-Landscapes

Rename one of the files to use a different number:

content/010-Landscapes/
├── 001-dawn.jpg
└── 002-sunset.jpg     # Fixed

This rule applies only to images within the same album. Different albums can freely reuse the same numbers.

How ordering works in practice

Images within an album are sorted by their numeric prefix:

content/010-Landscapes/
├── 001-dawn.jpg       # Displayed first
├── 002-dusk.jpg       # Displayed second
└── 010-night.jpg      # Displayed third

Albums and groups are sorted by their directory number:

content/
├── 010-Landscapes/    # First in nav
├── 020-Travel/        # Second in nav
└── 030-Minimal/       # Third in nav

Pages are sorted by their file number:

content/
├── 040-about.md       # First page in nav
└── 050-github.md      # Second page in nav

Unnumbered images are sorted after all numbered images, preserving filename order among themselves.