Monday, May 27th, 2013, 10:17 am
Gallery3 is Great
ALLERY (see Wikipedia for background) was first installed in this Web site about 8 years ago. That was version 1. I installed version 2 a few years later (for security reasons and general exploration), but did not delve deep into it. It is still installed, but I chmod
ed it to 700
. Recently, shortly after our wedding, I started experimenting with version 3, which is also known as Gallery3 (because the name “Gallery” is very generic, non-unique). Despite is being barebones by default, with additional modules it is highly extensible/configurable and I have added many modules that can be seen in the live site. For me, Gallery3 seems to be the best FOSS Web-based photo album software bar none. It is far better than Facebook’s proprietary ‘cloud’-based option, which I installed Gallery3 to replace (the wife was quitting Facebook for image hosting). I did experiment with some other options, but these were less well-suited. For those who may be curious (or those wanting to replicate some functionality), the latest Gallery3 album uses a slightly modified (by me) Clean Canvas Theme. along with the following modules (configured appropriately):
- AddThis
- Akismet
- Album Carousel
- Album Tree
- Carousel
- DownloadAlbum
- Exif Data
- Gallery Stats
- Image Block
- Local print
- Notification
- Search
- Slideshow
- Social Share
- Tags
A few more modules are installed by default and additional languages got installed manually.
People should increasingly self-host their photos. The opposite trend is worrisome as there is no guarantee of albums preservation; it’s hinged on somebody else’s business model. Go to the Gallery Web site and learn how to reclaim your photos. It is a long-term investment of time and effort.