{"id":804,"date":"2008-12-02T11:36:50","date_gmt":"2008-12-02T00:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/?p=804"},"modified":"2008-12-03T00:52:35","modified_gmt":"2008-12-02T13:52:35","slug":"online-photo-db-stage-4p-evaluation-of-phpwebgallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2008\/12\/02\/online-photo-db-stage-4p-evaluation-of-phpwebgallery\/","title":{"rendered":"Online Photo DB: Stage 4p – Evaluation of PhpWebGallery"},"content":{"rendered":"
This post is part of the Online Photo Database project documentation<\/a>. Learn more about the project’s current status<\/a>.<\/div>\n

Which requirements<\/a> does PHPWebGallery<\/a> meet?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Id<\/th>\nPri<\/th>\nRequirement<\/th>\nPass?<\/th>\nNotes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
GEN1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nAccessible by a typical web-browser<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
GEN2<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nActive development of new features<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
OWN1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nOwnership of photos is retained by me.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
OWN2<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nFuture-proofed against money running out: mine or yours<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
OWN3<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nOwnership of meta-data is retained by me.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nPhotographs grouped into albums by event<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT2<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nPhotographs tagged with people<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT3<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nPhotographs tagged with locations, objects, activities<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT4<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nPerformers tagged with real and stage names.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT5<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nAttribution of photographer details<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n“Author” field<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT6<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nAttribution of copyright owner’s details<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT7<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nRating of photographs<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT8<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nSorting\/Filtering by rating<\/td>\nY<\/td>\nBut globally across site, not by album<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT9<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nAlbums grouped by type<\/td>\nY<\/td>\nOnly way to access is via tree? Discourages use.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT10<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nAlbums grouped by date<\/td>\nY<\/td>\nManually, clumsy interface<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT11<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nAreas or points of photograph tagged<\/td>\nN<\/td>\nTags need to be declared.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT12<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nSimple contact management of subjects<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT13<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nHidden fields on contacts to distinguish like-named people<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT14<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nTagging of anonymous people to enable searching<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT15<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nCorrections to names update everywhere<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT16<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nAttribution of copyright details<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT17<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nControl over (default) ordering<\/td>\nN<\/td>\nVarious sorts available, but not arbitrary one?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nLink to other photos with same tag within an album<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L2<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nAssociate URLs with subjects, that are displayed.<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L3<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nLink to other photos with same tag across my albums<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L4<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nSearch of tags by keyword<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L5<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nCross-promotion of other albums and sites.<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L6<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nLink to other photos with same tag across other photo sites<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L7<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nSearch of album names by keyword<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L8<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nUser-generatable URLs to search tags by keyword<\/td>\nN<\/td>\nAlthough custom permalinks for albums available.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM1<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nMulti-user Tagging<\/td>\nN<\/td>\nHaving multiple admins doesn’t count.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM2<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nNotifications of appearance in photos<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM3<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nComments permitted<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM4<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nNotification of comments<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM5<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nRSS or Atom Feeds for comments<\/td>\nY<\/td>\nComments + Images in one feed<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM6<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nRSS or Atom Feeds for subjects<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM7<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nRSS or Atom Feeds for new photos<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PQ1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nWeb-quality images shall be displayed by default.<\/td>\nN<\/td>\nDisplays full quality of whatever is uploaded!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PQ2<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nPrint-quality images shall be available.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PQ3<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nAutomatically generated thumbnail and web-quality versions.<\/td>\nN<\/td>\nThumbnails only<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PQ4<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nArchive-quality images shall be stored.<\/td>\n?<\/td>\nUntested. Not plausible if web-quality not generated.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PQ5<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nCustom thumbnails (e.g. choosing to crop over shrinking.)<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PQ6<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nSupport for short video<\/td>\nY?<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PQ7<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nSupport for long video<\/td>\nY?<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PERF1<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nQuota > 0.5 TB, if any<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PERF2<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nLow-cost<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PERF3<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nFast response time<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PERF4<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nScale to thousands of tags<\/td>\nN<\/td>\nTags need to be declared. Checkbox of all tags<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PERF5<\/th>\nI<\/td>\n< 1 minute face-time per photograph<\/td>\n<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PERF6<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nFree<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
UI1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nForward\/Backward navigation between photos in album.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
UI2<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nSlideshows<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
UI3<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nDisplay of many thumbnails at once<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PRIV1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nTheir email address should never be published on the web.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PRIV2<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nRegistration and logging in not required for general use.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PRIV3<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nRobust privacy features for photographs<\/td>\nY<\/td>\nAlbums can be declared private, and shown only to customised groups or people.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
WF1<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nHint to original location on my harddrive<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
WF2<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nAuto-complete or partial search on tags during input<\/td>\nY?<\/td>\nCheckbox<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
WF3<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nRead EXIF data from image<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
WF4<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nSupport unpublished draft state <\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MIGR1<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nAPI to add photos<\/td>\nY<\/td>\nSchema available<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MIGR2<\/th>\nC<\/td>\nAPI to add tags<\/td>\nY<\/td>\nSchema available<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MIGR3<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nTags can be non-specific to areas of photo<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
METR1<\/th>\nD<\/td>\n“How many visitors?” metric<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
METR2<\/th>\nD<\/td>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153How long does a visitor stay?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d metric<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Summary<\/h3>\n

PHPWebGallery was a surprise entrant that I stumbled across while evaluating WordPress plugins<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is another open-source, PHP-based, self-hosted photo album.<\/p>\n

It was actually pretty bloody good, with these tiny failings that render it completely unsuitable.<\/p>\n

The first is that it only supports two sizes – thumbnail and original. I need at least three, preferably four sizes: thumbnail, web, print and (optionally) archive versions. Missing the web-sized version is a critical problem.<\/p>\n

The other is that it treats tags like categories; it assumes that you are only going to have a couple of dozen at most. It displays them all on the screen with checkboxes to select which ones you want. I used to do something similar (but smarter; a multi-select box, so it didn’t take as much screen real-estate) but I had to stop because it was taken too long to download over 1200 names on every page. This software simply doesn’t scale for large numbers of tags.<\/p>\n

It’s other problems could conceivably be fixed with a plug-in or two (E.g. spaces are allowed in tags, but not in the photo filenames!) but these two issues seem pretty fundamental.<\/p>\n

It’s a shame. I liked this one. It has real privacy control, the ability to specify the photographer, batch uploads and it bases its world view on a directory structure that you can understand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Which requirements<\/a> does PHP Web Gallery<\/a> meet?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[285,47],"tags":[284,48,376],"class_list":["post-804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography-geek","category-review","tag-online-photo-database","tag-photography","tag-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":842,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions\/842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}