Gallery2 installed

Today I installed G2 and I must say I’m amazed of how much Gallery has evolved recently. By the time it will be completely finished and a stable version will be released G2 will march it’s way through any kind of opposition. It’s one of the most complete open source, php-based software I have seen in a long while.

G2 must be one of the most professionally written php-based o/s applications, and as a proof for this stand the multitude of plugins available for it. The only problems I notice atm are ones related to speed and efficiency. On my local Win webserver G2 stresses the hell out of Apache and this must be because of the huge classes the application is based on.

So, as I was saying, I installed G2 today and I tried to integrate it with Wordpress. What I wanted was something like the (mostly) daily picture from dooce.com, a picture that would change automatically as I upload new stuff to a specific category in the gallery. With the external image block module from G2 this worked like a charm. All I had to do was to edit the template file from Wordpress and add a line. Adding a single line was all I had to do, G2 taking care of the rest, choosing the right image to show, making sure its size does not ruin the design of Wordpress, creating a link to the gallery where the image is located and so on. That’s how I like to do business.

Other great features of G2: image upload is eased to the max. Remember that when you browse your folders in Windows XP you get an option on the left of your screen that says “Publish this file to the web”? Ever thought that it’s kind of useless there? I did. But not any more — G2 has an option to upload files to your online gallery through that Windows XP option. And it works seamlessly. All you need to do is select what you want to upload, click that option, log in to G2 and click “Next Next Next”. Good stuff.

But G2 is not only a PHP application. It’s a complete solution for image publishing on the web. In this aspect it also contains a set of Java applets which add some really cool features. One of them is the panorama applet. This applet allows you to watch specially processed, wide angle, glued together photos which try to give you the impression you can have 360 degree overview of the environment. Here’s a couple of images which just do that. Just select “View panorama” from the dropdown menu.

G2 also has the ability to perform slideshows based on Javascript. Of course, the slideshows are also customizable. That’s what I like about good software — it gives you the ability to configure it the way you like, the way you feel it’s optimal, and not just enforce their developers fixed ideas.

SO, this post has gotten pretty long so it’s wise to say I should just cut the crap and exploit the most out of G2. Pax.

Gallery2 homepage: http://gallery.sourceforge.net/