How do I use Gallery or something like it as a CMS for presenting designs to clients?

September 28, 2006 8:37 AM

I work for a small print and web design firm. We have clients all over the world and, while someone generally meets a client in person, it isn't always possible to present designs in person every time. I suggested creating a web site to handle this. When I made the suggestion I was thinking of Gallery, a program I haven't used in three years. Before I go further with development of this project, I thought I'd ask if anyone here had found an off the shelf solution to meet most or all of our needs. You'll find these points and

Here's what I want:
All the client should see when they come to the site (****clients.com) is a welcome and a login. Once they've logged in they should go directly to a page of thumbnails. These images are for their eyes only. Each client will be taken to their own area and be unable to see or even be aware of the other client areas. If there is an easy way to do this with Gallery, than I'll use that. I'd rather not be creating new Gallery installations for each client. The appearance needs to be clean and customizable. Preferably through stylesheets. The people in our office should be able to login and add/delete photos from any client section through a simple web interface.

Gallery really does sound like the ideal solution, except for the strict segregation of client sections, and the fact that most of Gallery's nifty features are totally unnecessary. The slideshow function in the most recent version of Gallery is a plus.

posted by Grod to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

You might look into using WebEx. It allows you to share your screen with others so you can do a PPT presentation (or website presentation) live across the world. You can use it in conjunction with conference calling, too. I don't know what the costs are, but it would allow you to be more personal with the client rather than directing them to a website.
posted by one_bean at 8:49 AM on September 28, 2006

Response by poster: We're actually looking for something asynchronous. With Gallery or something like it, we can talk to the client while they view the site but they also can view the designs without us if they need to.
posted by Grod at 8:52 AM on September 28, 2006

My company, like a lot of small firms, uses BaseCamp. It meets your needs in that it keeps all the clients separate and is totally content-managed by the user(s). It's also always-there, so the client can review at any time. You can also use it for posting messages, milestones, and to-dos (which the client can see or not-see, as you choose), and for time-tracking (not seen by the client).

It doesn't meet your needs in that the client sees file names rather than thumbnails, and the appearance is not customizable other than colors and logos.
posted by hsoltz at 9:09 AM on September 28, 2006

Have you considered Joomla with Zoom media Gallery?

Allows for multiple levels of access. I haven't done exactly what you are wanting to offer but it should be easy enough with Joomla to have a single entry point with just login. Then the user menu would appear with ability to edit their login details and whatever galleries you have set them up with.
posted by twistedonion at 9:10 AM on September 28, 2006

I use PhotoShelter.
posted by LuckySeven~ at 9:59 AM on September 28, 2006

Response by poster: PhotoShelter looks interesting, an open source equivelent that we can host ourselves?
posted by Grod at 10:51 AM on September 28, 2006

Sorry, I don't know of an open source equivalent, and believe me, I looked high and low for months. Post back if you find any; I'd love to see some.
posted by LuckySeven~ at 1:41 PM on September 28, 2006

Extensis Portfolio has a tool called NetPublish meant for this specific use.

Well... it is aimed more at Design/Advertising teams, but it has great asset management, and you get full control over everything, since it exports to your own webserver.
posted by hatsix at 7:35 PM on September 28, 2006

Man, this seems like a really clever idea. I've been using Gallery for years, and I never thought of it!

If you're geeky, you could use .htaccess files to restrict certain urls via a password.

I'm assuming that each collection of photos has its own gallery.

Then just lock down the main page which lists all of the collections behind a different, known-only-by-you password, and you're done!
posted by Wild_Eep at 7:29 AM on September 29, 2006

Just to clarify, screenshots of your work should be what you post to the Gallery pages.
posted by Wild_Eep at 8:11 AM on September 29, 2006

Response by poster: Wild_Eep, exactly, and exactly how I've decided to go about it. Thanks to everyone for helping me track down the few off-the-shelf solutions, due dilligence is good, etc. but I'm definately going to use Gallery for this.
posted by Grod at 2:57 PM on September 30, 2006

Something which hacked together the Gallery back-end / privileges / thumbnail capability with lightbox's full-size display feature would be awesome.
posted by blag at 5:26 PM on September 30, 2006