Evaluating photo gallery apps, Part 1: Plogger
I have a couple of installations of Gallery running and while there is lots to appreciate about this app, I find that it's often buggy (especially G1) and overblown for my needs, and has way too much table code. I need to upgrade Gallery on a couple of sites and it got me thinking about trying out some alternatives.
After reviewing numerous blogs and consulting this list of potential candidates, I decided to take Plogger for a spin. The installation was easy. At first, I received some file/folder permission errors. The documentation suggested that I needed to manually set the permissions, though they left out exactly what permissions they recommend. As it turns out, you have to set several folders to 777–permanently! I understand that this is not really a security risk in a vhost environment, but this still rubs me the wrong way. I'd also like to see photos stored above the web directory, so that they aren't directly accessible to a curious user. A close look also reveals that dreaded table code I'd like to avoid. I do like the super clean interface, easy importing and RSS functionality, but I'm not certain that Plogger will be the right solution for me.
UPDATE: Also discovered that Plogger doesn't support sub-albums. All you can have is Categories > Album > Photos, not Category > Album > Sub-Album > Photos. There are NO plans to accommodate further levels. After using Gallery and having total control over how my gallery is organized, this seems like an unacceptable limitation, but Plogger users simply suggest a more shallow structure, claiming that it's more user friendly anyway. I need some time before I will come around on this one…
March 12th, 2006 at 4:58 am
Check out Gallery 2. It's got far less tables than G1 and it allows you to store the image directory *outside* your webserver for security. It has an upgrade path from G1 so you can take it out for a spin. Its module architecture lets you get rid of the stuff you don't want and keep the things that you need. And G2.1 has significant performance increases over G2.0..
March 13th, 2006 at 1:55 pm
Thank you for your comment, Bharat! I'm honoured to have Gallery's lead developer offering me feedback.
I have G2 installed on one site and I quite like it. Like you say, it handles photo storage above the web root, and it's certainly a general improvement over G1. The new module architecture is excellent. If I recall correctly, upgrading from G1 was pretty smooth.
With G1, that I had to edit core files to remove some tables that interfered with my layout. I don't think I had this issue with G2, but I'd still love to see a table-free design.
It would also be nice if G2 would function with the Master Value for Safe Mode set to On. My server defaults to Local=Off, Master=On. To get Gallery to work, I have to edit the httpd.conf file for the site. That's not a big problem until I edit that site's configuration, at which point the server overwrites my httpd.conf file and Gallery stops working.
I've now tried out Plogger and zenphoto but neither of them left me feeling free enough to depart the deep waters of Gallery. G2 has set a standard in my mind for gallery application functionality, and any hopeful usurpers will have to earn their victory!
March 15th, 2006 at 4:01 am
Sam, great to hear that you're using G2
Would you please file a bug against the "safe mode master value" issue? I'll see what I can do about that in the 2.2 release (it's already too late for 2.1).
Regarding tables, we went back and forth endlessly trying to figure out how to solve this problem. Unfortunately, we could not satisfy our target browser market and get the look that we wanted without *some* tables in the Matrix theme. However, I am happy to say that the Floatrix theme that comes with G2.1 is table free (except for the progress bar template which uses one .. oops — but few non-admins will see that). The Site and Item admin pages still use tables, but we are working on a UI redesign for those pages and with any luck we can get rid of tables there also. The short answer is — better table-free HTML+CSS is coming!