Photo album

[filburt1]

Originally Posted by SVTBlackLight01

filburt1,

Is this going to be a vB integrated only gallery? The biggest problem with the PP integration is that it integrates with 5 or more different forum's software and to have complete forums integration with all of these is just not practical from their standpoint.

That being said, a few suggestions I have just off the top of my head:

- Complete style integration with vBulletin
- Mass resizing of images for admins, not just thumbnails
- A 'View New Posts" feature similar to vBulletin
- vBulletin style postbit/reply comment system

- Most importantly, an importer for other gallery systems.

It will be run with vB's files, so integration is just unavoidable.

An import script is very unlikely.

[gmarik]

filburt1, not to annoy you, importing from PhotoPost would really make your script a "best-seller", because it was rather popular lately. Was.

[phenomenon]

After integrating 4images into my vb3 rc4, I have some suggestions and requests (my site is down currently while I'm waiting for vb3 gold, and after converting an old phpBB to vb 2.3.4, so sorry I can't show off the 4images):

1. Ability to integrate gallery into Forum wrapper: basically be able to use vb3 header, navbar, who's online, footer, copyright, etc.)
2. Integration with netPBM AND imagemagik -- both are free solutions.
3. administer gallery from ACP in vb3. I'm getting tired of logging into a billion diff control panels
4. Ability to place components on screen in manner in which we wish -- myVbIndex had this in vb 2.x version, where you could just place $header, $search, $navbits, etc. where you wanted them and create your own layout. I don't like Coppermine's huge random pics, latest pics, and tiny album bar if you've only got one album. I want control of how the elements are laid out between header/navbar/footer.
5. It would be nice to be able to place the gallery folder outside of the forum folder -- I have mine installed into htdocs/gallery and my forum in htdocs/forum
6. mass add to gallery/mass thumbnailing. 4images allows me to upload a large amount of files to a category folder, then has a built in import tool as well as a built in mass import -- the mass import just checks in that folder and adds contents. The thumbnail tool checks database to see if any images don't have thumbnails, and autocreates using netpbm
7. Ability to turn off gallery similar to turning off forum
8. right click-disable
9. lightbox
10. user comments to pics

Ok, that's my brain storm for the day. I'm subscribing to this so if you'd like clarification I should get a notify and check back.

[filburt1]

I do not see how mass import is possible because each image must include a title and optional description. How would I go about doing that for adding multiple pictures at once, except for the filename which was likely generated by a digital camera and therefore fairly useless?

I know there is Exif data but I don't think that includes any titles.

It would require GD2, not imagemagick or other libraries, as GD2 is the most popular and often used by vB3 itself.

[AN-net]

i am currently half way finished with my vb intergrated gallery. it doesnt have personal member galleries. i do have a comment system on there and i plan to be adding actual forum intergration where entries and comments are threaded to a specified forum etc. Anyways thats wut i got so far. If anyone wants to help just pm me

[phenomenon]

Originally Posted by filburt1

I do not see how mass import is possible because each image must include a title and optional description. How would I go about doing that for adding multiple pictures at once, except for the filename which was likely generated by a digital camera and therefore fairly useless?

I know there is Exif data but I don't think that includes any titles.

It would require GD2, not imagemagick or other libraries, as GD2 is the most popular and often used by vB3 itself.

In the mass import in 4images, I basically had to go through afterwards and add comments, etc. Didn't matter to me, as sitting there filling out each one and importing was a real pain.

[roxics]

Originally Posted by filburt1

I do not see how mass import is possible because each image must include a title and optional description. How would I go about doing that for adding multiple pictures at once, except for the filename which was likely generated by a digital camera and therefore fairly useless?

I know there is Exif data but I don't think that includes any titles.

It would require GD2, not imagemagick or other libraries, as GD2 is the most popular and often used by vB3 itself.

Is there a way you can just make the script rename the pictures file to a number? Then later people can just go back and retitle the images and add descriptions. A lot of people probably wouldn't care to add descriptions and titles anyway. Images should speak for themselves.

It doesn't matter what you do with the back end to me. Personally the problem in my mind with scripts like PP and Coppermine Gallery is that they are way to bloated on the user interface. They've got ratings and comments and smiles and everything but the kitchen sink. The user interface should be sleek and focus attention on the image and not the options.

If you can make the end interface look and feel like this: http://www.pbase.com/roxics
then you have a winner on your hands IMO.

[Sasha_Goodman]

Poor man's gallery wanted:

The hack could be simplified by piggy-backing on the attatchment system in Vb3.

Start with a resizing function for the attachments. It is on the list of "suggested features for vb 3.x" but it doesn't seem to be coming any time soon. Make a hack to add this feature now, so when they update the main body of code you no longer need to do your own updates.

There are already global settings for the maximum K of attatchements per user. It would be nice to have this tied in w/ usergroups, but for the po' man, it's a luxery.

The rest could be done with the addition of one query each to the showthread.php and forumdisplay.php files (to find the attachment ids), and the addition of a new display style that calls the attachements.

Advantage of doing it this way (integrating tightly with vB):
Ad hoc topic centered galleries, with original poster given the rights to close gallery.
Polls
Gallery rating (through thread rating)
User permissions allow user some control over their "gallery"
Good integration of "look and feel"
Email page

[MPDev]

Okay, for discussions sake, let's start at the top.

While I can't say this early whether it will be free or sold, it will sure be a hell of a lot cheaper than Photopost's ludicrous price ... I will not be hiring developers or other personnel

Well, the second would explain the first and once you had a user base your users would notice it. Supporting 10 users is alot easier than supporting thousands and if you aren't getting paid, you'll find that the time it consumes interfers with your ability to focus on those things which do make money (like a job).

a batch upload function

Of course PhotoPost has this feature and it can be used to batch upload thousands of images without intervention (I've uploaded 4,000 images at a time).

the worst feature in PP is the member galleries

Members Galleries can easily be disables and has been an option for some time (turn off display on main index and then disable upload permissions for category).

The biggest problem with the PP integration is that it integrates with 5 or more different forum's software and to have complete forums integration with all of these is just not practical from their standpoint.

From our standpoint it's quite practical (and from our users). It just might not be your preference. User authenication, usergroups, avatars, signatures, styles - not all forums get these features immediately, but we are focused on vB and Threads.

It took 9 tries to work out most of the bugs of version 4.7.

And the 30+ or so dot releases for vB2 were what? The reality of this remark is that the majority of our users were not effected by these minor updates - they were done as a courtesy for some of our less technical users. The truth is you only had to upload a handful of files at any time and most likely the issues didn't effect you.

It may be the best software out there but it is only due to a lack of alternatives.

There are plenty of alternatives - its just that PhotoPost was the first photo gallery to integrate with forums. Fact is, PhotoPost has innovated lots of ideas that are being copied (poorly in most cases) by others. We continue to set the bar higher for everyone else and will continue to do so.

4.8 with integration with vB styles is a good example - integration with signatures and avatars in 4.7 as another. Photos from Cell Phone Cameras is also an available integration - another first for photo galleries.

Providing additional scripts like Reviews and Classifieds/Personals with the same interface and integrations helps our users expand their offers which maintaingin a similiar interface.

There are bugs in Photopost that have been there since the 3.X versions (e-mail notification problems, links to members photos when there are none, which has already been mentioned here once, and some others)

This is simply not true.

----

I hope that addresses all of the PhotoPost-specific questions and issues that have been raised. At some point you might decide that your time is worth being compensated for, and charging a fee will be realtive to your costs and time assocaited with supporting the product.

[sabret00the]

Originally Posted by MPDev - regarding Members Galleries

Members Galleries can easily be disables and has been an option for some time (turn off display on main index and then disable upload permissions for category).

how? and from what version?