My custom photo gallery

[N!ck]

Hey guys, check this out:
http://www.v-driveboat.com/gallery.php

It's the beginning stages of my photo gallery addon for vBulletin. Overgrow generously made an exception to his policy and shared his photo gallery with me, but it wasn't working with my server, so I had to start from scratch. I did, however, use Overgrow's gallery as a guide for creating the layout of my own.

Anyway, just thought I'd show off my hard work. :D

[Dean C]

Wow that's excellent work nick :)!

Only thing i don't like so far is that there is not an a-z listing up the top. Other than that its awesome.

Do your users have their own gallery section in their profile?

Regards

- miSt

[Overgrow]

Yes, nice work N!ck :D A to Z is passe though, get a user search box. I like your captions.. I used to have something like that as well, that would be nice to search on since people could describe the photo content.

http://pictures.overgrow.com
Gallery V2.1 (maybe 1 vB3.x release! hehe)


ok, where is the hack that produces those cool signatures?

[N!ck]

Thanks guys, I will start working on the alphabetical listings. I thought about integrating a user finder / caption search, but I'm wondering whether that might add too much server load, since each row would need to be checked for whether it contains a given string.

Mist, the latest photo that a user uploaded is shown in their profile. Example: http://www.v-driveboat.com/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&userid=42

Overgrow, the sig image is my own creation (idea is filburt1's, though), but if you want some explanation regarding how to create it, just PM me.

[colicab-d]

hey kool this work with gd library 1 or 2 if even gd?

if there was few more fetures like categories etc i would deff love to see this never mind deff use it

[N!ck]

This works with GD only, but I'm not sure which version. I don't have any plans to add categories though, because I like to have lots of pictures showing as soon as the gallery is loaded. This is one reason why I hate PhotoPost (other reasons include the price tag and the useless file information shown below each picture).

[colicab-d]

yeah i was told u had to be running safe mode for photopost but i think thats bs.. ah well im just gonna pay a overgrow and hell help me lol

[N!ck]

Today at 09:18 AM Mist said this in Post #2 (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?postid=369964#post369964)
Only thing i don't like so far is that there is not an a-z listing up the top.

Not anymore. :) http://www.v-driveboat.com/gallery.php

[colicab-d]

lol nice one :D if youre releasing it i,ll beta test it on my graphics/design site

does it use the thumbnailing in threads like overgrows?

also how hard would it be to show or add commenting?

[N!ck]

Actually, I just disabled attachments for most forums so I wouldn't have to mess with integrating it. My members just link to the photos in their photo gallery when they need to. Mine is not nearly as sophisticated as Overgrow's, but for me I believe that it's simply less potential problems.

I don't have any plans to publicly release it because on the frontend it's very similar to Overgrow's gallery, and he asked me specifically not to share his. Furthermore, image-related vBulletin addons and hacks tend not to work on every server, so one gets a flood of questions.

Commenting is another thing that I will not add, but I do have a reason (and it's not just because I'm lazy). If I add commenting, my members will start using it like a forum (asking questions about each other's boats and such), and rude people could leave unkind and unwelcome comments. If someone really wants comments on their photos, they can link to them on the forums as far as I'm concerned.

[Brad]

Nice work N!ck, looking good.

Im also in the middle of writing a photogallery for my site, altho its more like photopost then yours, I think it would be kick ass to combine something like yours with mine (main photogallery for submissions and browsing, then each user has his own private gallery for viewing). I wish you luck! GD is a tricky little bastard ;).

[N!ck]

It actually isn't so bad, it just takes getting used to. I'd much rather use ImageMagick myself, but my hosting company won't install it because it creates too much server load. :p

Anyway, I can't wait to see what you come up with. :)

[Overgrow]

I don't care for GD-- no GIF support? Yea yea no PNG lectures till it is well supported.

Nice work Nick, I really like the different viewing options on the main page of your gallery. Mine just recently got some work done to it (the user search, faster displays, cleaner code now).. I think I might add something like that.

Are you tracking the views of each gallery? That is a good way to sort it on the front page as well-- it's become a bit of a competition with my users to see where their gallery ranks in popularity.. so I reset the view stats every month.

[Brad]

The only problem with tracking views at overgrow is that BOG is always on top ;).

[N!ck]

Today at 12:10 AM Overgrow said this in Post #13 (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?postid=370408#post370408)
I don't care for GD-- no GIF support? Yea yea no PNG lectures till it is well supported.

Nice work Nick, I really like the different viewing options on the main page of your gallery. Mine just recently got some work done to it (the user search, faster displays, cleaner code now).. I think I might add something like that.

Are you tracking the views of each gallery? That is a good way to sort it on the front page as well-- it's become a bit of a competition with my users to see where their gallery ranks in popularity.. so I reset the view stats every month.

Thanks again. :)

I am tracking views, but they're only shown when you click to see a user's gallery. I just might put them on the front page as you suggest, though I'm not sure I have enough traffic going through to reset the views every month. The only challenge is that views are stored in a separate table. Shouldn't be too difficult, but it might not be easy either. :) That is actually a very good strategy for attracting new people to your site.

As for the user search box, I think I'm going to hold off on that unless it is requested (because I really have no place to put it :p).

Also, I'm not allowing anything but JPEG's in the gallery anyway because (1) GIFs are proprietary :p and (2) PNGs have poor compression. So GD suits my purposes just fine.

So, just out of curiosity (and if you don't mind answering), how much Space/Bandwidth are you using for so many members? I think Overgrow.com is about the largest vB community I've seen.

[Overgrow]

Ah there are larger I'm sure. Some gaming sites are huge..

Hmm my quickstats tell me: 1600 mb database, 860 mb database index. 10+ gigs of photos, haven't checked recently.

[corsacrazy]

nice hacking ! that gallery would be a great addition to many sites ! how far into compleation is it ?

[Kars10]

@ Nick, there are very cool Boats!! :)

The Gallery is great also!! ;)

Kars

[N!ck]

corsacrazy: I'm not really sure. It's kind of an ongoing project, so I'm not sure when I'll be completely satisfied.
Kars10: Thanks! Race boats are primarily v-drive...it's basically kind of a "hot rod" setup, so that's why people like to show off their polished blown engines and such. :D

[PennylessZ28]

N!ck, awesome work man. I love it, when do you think there might be a release?

[colicab-d]

i dont think he plans on releasing it :P

[N!ck]

Today at 10:24 AM HR3rdGen said this in Post #20 (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?postid=370769#post370769)
N!ck, awesome work man. I love it, when do you think there might be a release?

I don't really want to release it because it's too similar to Overgrow's.

[Overgrow]

Thanks for the instructions on the sig ! :D