Flickr in ASP.Net

[david7777]

Can someone tell me how Flickr works with regards to the directory structure:

If you want to see all photos tagged with "flower", enter URL http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/flower/

So every tag gets its own directory and subdirectories. i.e: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/flower/interesting (for most interesting pics with the flower tag) and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/flower/clusters (For clusters of flower tags).

Ok, so then does every tag have a static web page? Or is it one generic, server side script that displays all tags?

I'm very confused as to how it all works in the background...

I would really appreciate if someone could shed some light on what is going on behind the scenes, and how to do it in ASP.Net if possible??

Thanks!

[kampfer]

This is a guess:

each directory has an index.html page and within that page is a reference to an include file ( in asp.net user control ) that include file talks with a database to retrieve the images and they are displayed on the page in a table.

the header / footer / left navigation are probably all include files that are put together when the page is loaded.

hope that helps

-john

[david7777]

This is a guess:

each directory has an index.html page and within that page is a reference to an include file ( in asp.net user control ) that include file talks with a database to retrieve the images and they are displayed on the page in a table.

the header / footer / left navigation are probably all include files that are put together when the page is loaded.

hope that helps

-john
So are you saying that a new directory and index.html file is created for each tag / user etc? That sounds like a lot of maintenance..? Also, if you type in a tag name that does not exist, like http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/dsgdfgdfgd/ - A page not found error is not displayed - it knows that you are looking for a tag, and tells you that the tag does not exist. How is that done?

There must be a "cleaner" way to replicate what they are doing rather than using html files with includes etc..!?

it seems no one knows for sure how to do this - is it maybe a new technology or something? Forgive me if i am being ignorant - Its just that I have not been able to find an answer to this question anywhere...

Thanks for your reply kampfer!