[PHP Image Gallery] Features

05 Feb 2011 8 Comments

by Nikkiin programming Tags: , , ,

I’ve been ‘working’ on this for awhile now and I think I’ve exhausted all possible ideas I can come up with for features for a self hosted image gallery.  There are a lot out there already, I know, but none of them seem to have all of the features that I would want in an image gallery.  So I was wondering – does anyone have anything to add to my list of features?  All features would be entirely optional – for one, I absolutely abhor rating systems and would never apply it to my own site, but I know that some people absolutely love them.

Features

  • multiple users
    • hierarchy - user, mod, admin
  • albums
    • private
    • passworded
    • open submission albums – all users may post
    • limited submission albums – only allowed users may post
    • exclusive albums – only one user can post
  • subalbums
  • tags
  • SEO friendly URL structure
  • metadata – both extracted from the image itself (y’know, camera model, ISO settings, etc), and user specified, such as media, time taken, dimensions, etc.
  • artist’s comments
  • comment system – third party like disqus, though, cuz I can’t be arsed to program an inferior comment system and ensure that it won’t be used to break the site
  • keyboard navigation – arrows, primarily
  • rating system – stars, thumbs up/down
  • FTP bulk upload – including a text file in which all the metadata can be written in and automatically added to the database
  • image resizing
  • static pages
  • lightbox integration
  • WordPress/CMS integration
  • quick share/copy boxes
  • plugin api – clearly defined
  • semantic markup (duh)
  • easy to theme
  • theme/plugin distribution gallery – a good one, dammit
  • well organised admin interface
  • comic browsing
  • image order in albums
  • import from other album software – dA even?
  • related tags suggestions

So, yeah, what else should I include?

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  • http://www.monoclelad.com monoclelad

    I hope you actually make this because all the image gallery things I’ve seen/demo’d were awful. I’m not sure who they were designed for, they are complicated and worse yet look like ass. An artist who wanted to use them would have to pay someone to set it up for them even if they had a basic handle on web tech. So basically I want this software and if you start building it I will help in my limited capacity.

    So features…

    1. if your going mainstream, you gotta have a plug-in/slash toggle for lightbox. I don’t really like it but people are going to expect to see it.

    2. This is probably a v2 refactoring project/I don’t know how hard it is to do. but it should have/use a plugin api. The advantages to this system are pretty obvious.

    3. I’m sure your going to do this anyways, but its worth making an explicit bullet point: Semantic use of markup in the html. believe it or not, not a feature of most of the gallery engines I used. Tables are for tabular data people not for layout! Using tables just makes it harder to theme not easier. I guess sort of related but consistent class naming scheme for css use.

    4. A lot of the gallery engines I used had lots of problems using php’s ftp code, specifically hosted servers have really limited amounts of memory they are allowed to use and so I regularly broke them. The best solution I saw to this is to allow there to be a special folder that the admin can manually ftp files into with decent ftp software and then use the webs oftware to move it into place.

    I think thats the big ones in my mind that are missing, and 4 is sort of already on the list, and 2 and 3 were arguably implied because you aren’t an idiot.

  • http://anovelconcept.net Nikki

    1. Crap, didn’t think of that. Yeah, that’ll have to go on the list.
    2. Yup, almost all of the features listed would be implemented in a plugin basis, so that’s on the list. On the to research list, actually, cuz I have no experience with plugins beyond installing them onto wordpress/phpBB installs.
    3. Oh god, yeah, that. I always forget that people are still fuckwits using tables.
    4. Having a specific folder intermediary folder is a brilliant idea – I was thinking more along the lines of an automatically add to iTunes folder, but that’s cuz I’m perfectly content with filling out a text file to give the necessary data for the database (and then fixing the database when I fuck it up), but most people prooobably aren’t.

    I wonder where I could ask for feature advice and get a response from people who don’t skew to the programmer side of things. If I’ve learned anything about the programmer/end user (especially artsy end user) divide, it’s that it’s massive and I skew more towards programmer, especially with web stuff.

  • http://www.monoclelad.com monoclelad

    re: table fuckwits, fingers crossed that css tables helps fix them? because its tables in css that aren’t tabular data, though they probably won’t bother to learn.

    I still see myself as firmly in the middle of that chasm. There are still more fiddly features popping up in my head as I think about it more. I didn’t include them before because I’m not sure how you are using this feature list, Obviously that whole list can’t be done in the 1.0 or it will never release, but if you just want a master list to pin on a project board to guide development, I’ll keep posting them as I think of them.

    Here’s two more:
    -Integration with WordPress (with the idea that this code should be modifiable for other CMS solutions like drupal and Joomla) ideally with single sign-on like Vanilla now has.
    -The quick copy boxes for grabbing the image url quickly (set with permissions)

    A lot of what it will take to appeal to artist types is hard to put on a feature list. Usability is a nebulous term, its about the look and feel of the admin ui. (I refused to use wordpress’s earlier versions because its admin interface was garbage, the newer version is better but still breaks down because there isn’t guidelines for plugin makers as to where there fucking settings should go in the menu.) The best thing you can do is make themeing dead easy, and make the distributing sites theme gallery usable. Most users won’t build their own theme but those that do will probably share back if you encourage it.

  • http://www.monoclelad.com monoclelad

    As for where to go to find more features, Release the 1.0 and as people use the software people will tell you where the pain points are. You can also stalk the gallery 2 forums and see what those people are bitching about.

  • http://anovelconcept.net Nikki

    Quick copy boxes, yes! That’s definitely on the 1.0 list – social integration is very ‘now’ after all. Or, rather, it just hit mainstream art focus what with dA starting to use it.

    And, yeah, the list is an overall master plan. Technically only the easy stuff (aka, the stuff I want) is slated to be 1.0 for sures. Most of the problems I’m going to have is making the plugin aspect work and having an appropriately secure login system. Security/hacking has actually never been an interest of mine.

    Though I suppose the giant list of features thing is why so many projects never get to 1.0….

    For WordPress’ admin interface, I’m still kinda annoyed by it. Mostly in that I am constantly clicking ‘Posts’ instead of ‘Add New’ since I would associate the top link to be the create one – I certainly create more posts than I look over a list of my old ones. And the settings thing – definitely hate the settings thing.

  • http://anovelconcept.net Nikki

    Ha, the first point is the obvious one. The second one sounds tedious, XD

  • http://www.monoclelad.com monoclelad

    dA, masters of being 5 years behind and still convincing millions that they are cutting edge.

    Oh don’t even get me started about creating posts/pages, Thats just a horrid mess on wordpress, but its betterish then before. I’m actually looking at converting over to using an app to update. I have one for the iPad but not the desktop.

    Giant list of features tends to be why projects die awaiting the next point release, it doesn’t have to be 1.0 but often times it is. especially with developers who use the 0.0 series of updates where it always gets closer to 1.0 without ever getting there.

    feature request:
    -navigation that could be used for a simple comic browser.

  • http://anovelconcept.net Nikki

    In a sick, sad way, I’m kinda impressed with dA for it’s PR skills. Either that, or incredibly depressed with its users. (Here’s a hint – it’s the latter.)

    I think I’ve actually written a few of my posts in the iPhone app. It wasn’t half bad, tbh.

    My favourite post creation fail for WordPress is when you hit preview and everything just… dies. Fortunately, that seems to have cleared up lately, though now it does like to crash in Chrome when you type too fast….

    Man, I love the 0.x.y series of updates. I’m actually kinda tempted to use that series ironically.

    Comic navigation is actually what I’m basing the single image display pages off of – there still isn’t a better way of viewing images, especially sequential ones, than the tried and true forward/back navs.

    Though that does bring up a good point – options for ordering albums. Date, name, random, user specified….