Post Archive
› April 14, 2004
Flash Gallery
Jennifer points to a very slick Flash based photo gallery called SimpleViewer from Airtight Interactive. The documentation shows how simple it is load up with your favorite images (save out images, thumbs and edit 1 xml doc), and the demos show how the gallery indicates load-progress and includes slick transitions.
Perhaps you're interested in a nicely thought-out and pre-packaged gallery system like this, but you'd prefer an XHTML solution? I suggest you try out PhotoStack, you won't get load progress bars and animated transitions but both are cool solutions to the common need of a web based photo gallery. Do you have photo gallery solutions you've tried and would recommend to others?
Comments
1. April 15, 2004 12:05 AM
2. April 15, 2004 12:08 AM
Chris Z. Posted…
Oh yeah... you dont have to use MySql.. Its default set up is tied to text files, so there's really no need for any databases or whatnot. The text files makes it easly portable too!.
3. April 15, 2004 03:32 AM
Sérgio Nunes Posted…
I've used QDig a couple of times - http://qdig.sourceforge.net/
It's just a php file that will generate thumbnails in various sizes. Very very easy installation.
4. April 15, 2004 03:52 PM
Pete Prodoehl Posted…
PhotoStack looks nice, but worries me... It's been released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial License, (see here: http://photostack.org/documentation/#license) That license states "No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work." To me that means I can't hack at it, as that would be "altering" or "transforming" it. I can't make any edits to the code or I'm doing something very wrong... To me this software sounds like as much of a black box as any piece of commercial software I'd get from someone like Microsoft. Am I reading it wrong?5. April 15, 2004 04:02 PM
Nate Posted…
Pete, that's a really good question - I've emailed Noel in the hopes of getting some direct clarification.
But for anyone who doesn't want to hack, I think it's pretty obvious that the use of the template system wouldn't be considered "altering" or "transforming".
6. April 15, 2004 08:05 PM
Noel D. Jackson Posted…
The software basically is like Moveable Type, in the license sense. Don't re-distribute the code, but modify your internal install as much as you want. The license is basically there until the program matures enough to the state that it will be easy to hack and modify it, and until it is stable enough and mature enough to be popular enough to warrant hacks by others. This is not some conspiracy. I'm not locking the world out of the code. But I am saying that I don't want a million versions floating around... that is until the program is solid enough to move to a different license. Opensource software is all well and good, but non-opensource software is not evil. To myself, it's not Derivative unless you redistribute it.
No one knows what you do behind closed doors. I don't either.
7. April 16, 2004 06:48 PM
jmmygoggle Posted…
Singapore (http://singapore.sourceforge.net)
I've been looking for ages for alternatives residing somewhere between full-blown multi-user photo galleries (http://gallery.sourceforge.net or http://coppermine.sourceforge.net) and my own simple homegrown "put this magic index.php file into every album directory" galleries.
Minimum features I wanted: Upload a batch of image files via FTP and have my gallery "happen" (auto thumbnails, resized main image to an optimum size). Full album thumbnail index. Forward and back. Easy to customize template. No pop-ups or complicated resize options and the cleanest simplest interface possible (avoid unnecessary horizontal scrolling).
The two galleries I finally found (recently) are Photostack and Singapore (http://singapore.sourceforge.net). Singapore does some nifty things that Photostack doesn't but I need to spend a bit more time on a custom template. Very minor changes to Photostack templates gave me the minimal interface I was after.
I've been hooking friends' sites up to both of these with positive results and I look forward to adding them to the upcoming redesign or my own site(s).
8. April 16, 2004 10:18 PM
Nate Posted…
Thanks for the links Jmmygoggle.
I've used coppermine for a specific scenario, with very positive results. In that instance, the audience was limited, and the project did not call for much more than the default template. I would greatly prefer if one of it's default templates were XHTML and validation friendly - but it was very nice to allow multiple authentication types, batch uploading, and complete web based category control without breaking a sweat.
All the other links look new to me, so thanks for the heads up and report!
9. April 20, 2004 01:44 AM
Andreas Posted…
Nate, as for Gallery, we've been using it for a while and are quite happy with it; it's extremely easy to use and excellent for big photo collections. A minus though: no XHTML and tables for layout.
10. April 20, 2004 09:39 AM
Pete Prodoehl Posted…
Noel, thanks for the clarification. I try to adhere to the licensing restrictions of the software that I use, and I think many people don't really do that, they just assume if they can download it, they can do what they like with it. I'm not against non-open-source or commercial software, I use it myself, but I've seen Movable Type described as open-source more than a few times, and it's always a little bothersome.
The wording of the license just seemed a little vague to me, but your comments helped to clarify it. I'll probably consider using PhotoStack in the future. Thanks...
11. April 20, 2004 12:29 PM
Michael Suodenjoki Posted…
Thanks for the link to SimpleViewer. I think it's great but do not particular like that it is Flash based - not that I know of any alternatives.
I have for some time tried to find - as many others - the perfect way of photo presentation in a browser. In 2001 I actually created my own XML/XSLT browser based slide show (IE6 only, sorry!) and created an article about. If interested, you can find it at www.suodenjoki.com
12. June 3, 2004 05:45 PM
Nate Posted…
SimpleViewerAdmin (php) looks like a pretty robust tool to use with the SimplerViewer gallery. http://www.redsplash.de/projects/simplevieweradmin/. via jdb
13. June 5, 2004 12:22 AM
Nate Posted…
Check out the demo for PhotoKorn, it's not free, but looks to have a very high attention to detail. PhotoKorn seems to fit in the "comprehensive administration application" style of photo gallery apps, unlike a bunch of similar systems I've tried this one seems to be relatively easy to use.
14. August 9, 2004 05:34 PM
Ray H Posted…
Has anyone had this problem with Simple Viewer? The gallery works well as a stand alone but when it is imported into a website using FrontPage it slows down tremendously and only a portion of the thumbnails load even though all of the thumbnails are in the "Thumbs" folder.
15. August 23, 2004 06:46 AM
crbn Posted…
hello there, is there any chance to use a gif pattern as background with this SimpleViewer? At 1st glance seems very attractive and useful. Thanks, crbn
16. October 7, 2004 05:33 PM
chris Posted…
I use imagevue at my personal site located at http://chrisvalk.com and have been very impressed with it thus far! Click the gallery link on the left side of the site!
Chris Z. Posted…
I've personally used http://www.slooze.com/ a couple of times. It is php & MySql based, but its not too hard to set up. I've been able to modify it so that it spits out valid xhtml strict code. The only anyoing issues I faced were making the thumbs display on the same page as the large image. This is a very robust, and very free app, that comes aviable with comments and rating options. Categories and subcategories are infinite, and new images can be added through an web bases admin. After the initial set up there is no need to open source files again. If you don't mind the funky urls and can handle a bit of php scripting then this is a perfect gallery for you.