I have been doing some research into Open Source PHP Image/Photo Galleries for a couple clients. The first Gallery I have created is using Plogger 3, and I’m pretty happy with the results.
You can see the Gallery I created on Delphi Troop 555 Website.
Plogger Gallery Installation:
Plogger is as simple to install as WordPress is. All you do is upload it to your server, create a Database on your server, and give the coordinates to the program when you go to the install file. I had one problem with installing Plogger, and that was that for some reason the program couldn’t create new folders, so I had to create a couple folders (including “/upload/”).
Plogger Gallery Organization:
Plogger has a lot of things going for it. It is easy to create “Collections” and “Albums.”
Plogger Photo Uploading:
You have two choices when uploading images to the Gallery. You can either upload one image at a from your computer, or you can use FTP to upload the images to the “upload” folder. Unfortunately uploading one image at a time can be quite tiresome if you have 400 images to upload. The “upload” folder works perfectly, and I highly recommend it, but most of my clients don’t understand how FTP works (and don’t want to). It would be nice if you could browse your computer for multiple images at a time.
Plogger Interaction:
There are a good number of settings that help you to customize your gallery to do exactly what you want. Some settings include “Send E-mail Notification for Comments” and ability to choose thumbnail and display sizes.
Plogger Problems:
The biggest problem I’ve had with Plogger is that there is no functionality for multiple users. Someone on their forum says that he is almost done programming the install package for an add-on that will allow multiple users. I will keep you posted on how this goes.
I’m also not extremely happy that the entire Gallery (Collections, Albums, Images, Comments, etc) is displayed on the same page; using the Query string to change pages. From my experience this takes a little while longer for Search Engines to Index.
Enjoy,
-Ashton Sanders
2 Comments
Good Article.
thanks