{"id":845,"date":"2008-12-04T10:59:13","date_gmt":"2008-12-03T23:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/?p=845"},"modified":"2009-03-13T17:04:40","modified_gmt":"2009-03-13T06:04:40","slug":"online-photo-db-stage-4r-evaluation-of-gallery2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2008\/12\/04\/online-photo-db-stage-4r-evaluation-of-gallery2\/","title":{"rendered":"Online Photo DB: Stage 4r – Evaluation of Gallery2"},"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 Gallery2<\/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>\nCurrently working on a total rebuild<\/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>\nSpaces as delimiter is optional! Defaults to No.<\/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>\nN<\/td>\n<\/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>\nAlbum order can be set to by-rating, or overridden, on per album basis<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT9<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nAlbums grouped by type<\/td>\nY<\/td>\nSubalbums<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT10<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nAlbums grouped by date<\/td>\nN<\/td>\nSubalbums take priority, so you can’t do Cat9 and this. <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CAT11<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nAreas or points of photograph tagged<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/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>\nY<\/td>\n<\/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>\nHas separate concept of keyword and tag. Confusing.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L5<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nCross-promotion of other albums and sites.<\/td>\nY<\/td>\nIn description<\/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>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S+L8<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nUser-generatable URLs to search tags by keyword<\/td>\nN<\/td>\nAlmost – could probably fake it with mod_rewrite.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM1<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nMulti-user Tagging<\/td>\nN?<\/td>\nCan’t see way of permitting add, with moderation and without edit. Also, UI is too intrusive.<\/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>\nSelf-registration is a plugin – untested.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
COMM5<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nRSS or Atom Feeds for comments<\/td>\nY<\/td>\n<\/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>\nY<\/td>\n<\/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>\nY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PQ4<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nArchive-quality images shall be stored.<\/td>\nY?<\/td>\nUpload limited to 2MB by my hosting provider. Modifiable? Workarounds exist. <\/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>\nY<\/td>\n<\/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>\nAdvertising!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
UI3<\/th>\nD<\/td>\nDisplay of many thumbnails at once<\/td>\nY<\/td>\nConfigurable<\/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>\nGroups, ACLs<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
WF1<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nHint to original location on my harddrive<\/td>\nN<\/td>\nCould make a custom field for automated process, I guess.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
WF2<\/th>\nI<\/td>\nAuto-complete or partial search on tags during input<\/td>\nN<\/td>\n<\/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>\nN?<\/td>\nPermissions, I guess.<\/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

Gallery2 surprised me by being much better than I expected. <\/p>\n

You see, last year, I did a quick and dirty evaluation of the self-hosted open-source solutions. Eventually, I decided I hadn’t given the decision enough thought, and returned to do this more formal evaluation (including third-party hosted solutions) <\/p>\n

During that early evaluation, I looked at Gallery2, spurned it, and chose Coppermine<\/a> instead. I can’t remember the reasons, but when I went to evaluate it again, I was expecting to stumble across some fatal flaw that I saw last time.<\/p>\n

However, I didn’t. Gallery2 seems quite robust and feature-rich. It doesn’t fail any of the critical requirements and is in with a decent chance.<\/p>\n

Like all of the self-hosted solutions, it gains big points by letting me own everything.<\/p>\n

It offers a large range of plugins, so some of the Ns may turn out to be Ys. (Bonus points for the plugin installation process: painless!)<\/p>\n

I find the default theme to be a little cluttered; lots of irrelevant text drawing focus from the photos. It has a lot of customisation options that somewhat helped. Some of the options sounded good, but didn’t appear to have any effect; I need to do more research there. <\/p>\n

I can see that some theme tweaking is going to be required.<\/p>\n

Tagging is done with a separate plugin. The question of “Are tags space-delimited?” was neatly side-stepped. They aren’t by default, but this can be easily changed. I had two issues with the tagging. Firstly, the “add tag” feature it is made too prominent; it is more clutter per photo. The other is there isn’t a way to let anonymous (or registered) users be allowed to nominate tag additions or deletions. you can only give them full control or none.<\/p>\n

Aside from that plugin issue, the permissions model is very robust. Registered users can be granted access to albums. Groups are also available, to simplify such administration. <\/p>\n

I didn’t see any way for users to register themselves; it has to be done by an admin. I reckon there’s a good chance that a plugin exists for that.<\/strike> Self-registration is handled by a standard plugin, but I did not try it.<\/p>\n

The slideshow feature worked fine but included a surprise advert for some sort of advertising-funded slideshow plugin. Ugh, that has to go!<\/p>\n

I cannot see why I eschewed this for Coppermine.<\/p>\n

EDIT<\/strong>: Corrected question about self-registration. It is handled by a standard plug-in, which I did not test.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Which requirements<\/a> does Gallery2<\/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-845","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\/845","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=845"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1009,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845\/revisions\/1009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}