Online Photo Albums

May 3, 2004 6:38 PM

What software do you guys use for online photo albums? I've just gotten a new digital camera and I'd like something that, ideally, can take all the photos I have in a given directory and throw them up on the web in an album. It would be even better if I can add captions and allow comments. We are running Linux at home, and I'm looking for something easy -- I'm no programming goddess. Thanks!
posted by sugarfish to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/5777
http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/4879
http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/4009

I personally like Photostack but haven't done much with it yet.
posted by cbrody at 7:11 PM on May 3, 2004

You have two basic choices. You can do server-side software, where you put the images on the server and the pages get generated automatically each time based on what images are present, or use software on your PC to generate the static web pages and upload those to your server.

In the second category I really like JAlbum. It is free, Java based (so it works on any platform, easy to use, and has lots of templates. I use it to generate picture galaries of my daughter to share with family.

In the first category I have heard good things about Gallery although I have not used it myself. I am pretty sure it is PHP based. It is definitely free.
posted by Tallguy at 7:11 PM on May 3, 2004

Response by poster: oops, i must have used the wrong words in my google search -- thanks cbrody! and thanks to both of you for your suggestions.
posted by sugarfish at 7:27 PM on May 3, 2004

I ended up using JAlbum and I'm happy with it. Be sure to play with the settings and then save (back up) them.
posted by MzB at 7:28 PM on May 3, 2004

Gallery runs on Apache & PHP 4 and works nicely.
Web Album Generator is a great Windows freeware program that may run under WINE.
posted by sardonista at 7:29 PM on May 3, 2004

If you want simplicity (without the overhead required by Gallery), try Dave Madison's album.

Simple Perl script, requires ImageMagick to be installed. Drop your images into the directory structure of your choice, run "album" at the top,and it generates the thumbnails and HTML for you.

Here's an example album of my musical instruments.
posted by mrbill at 7:39 PM on May 3, 2004

I love iView Media Pro. Great for cataloging, easy to create the gallery with all the files & you can edit the templates to suit.

Examples from my chronically irregular site [here] & [here].
posted by i_cola at 7:43 PM on May 3, 2004

I second Gallery for dead easy to set up, not to ugly, and lots of features. Added bonus, you can allow your users to print your pictures with one of four different online digital printers (Shutterfly, ezprint?, etc.). The code it produces uses tables, which I personally hate, but other than that its perfect.
posted by Grod at 8:20 PM on May 3, 2004

I love Gallery. Feel free to poke around mine. BTW - I cannot program PHP (or anything else) to save my life.
posted by scarabic at 10:41 PM on May 3, 2004

I like snapGallery -- easy script that generates good-looking HTML pages with captions. Also has Creative Commons support with embedded metadata. And it's quick and easy to use.
posted by Vidiot at 11:32 PM on May 3, 2004

If you use XP then there's a nifty XP tool from microsoft that does just that. do a google search for XP Powertoys.
posted by seanyboy at 11:57 PM on May 3, 2004

sugarfish, the problem may have been with the search itself - it looks like the google search only searches metatalk, not askmetafilter as well. Or at least that was my experience a few days ago when I was frantically searching for that sweet potato and black bean burrito recipe (which was fantastic, btw!). I had to resort to the mefi search to find it.
posted by widdershins at 9:11 AM on May 4, 2004

I use Gallery too. Simple to use, relatively easy to set up...
here's mine
posted by skwm at 3:47 PM on May 4, 2004

Going for the absolute simplest, I'd be happy to provide you with the PHP source code for this simple album.

You have two directories: thumbnails and photos (filled with images with corresponding filenames). To update, drag and drop your new files into the appropriate directory.

I've long been planning to add support for multiple albums (completely based off directory tree structure), as well as captioning and commenting (added via HTML form and saved as TXT files in the appropriate directory.) I also have a version floating on my HD somewhere that displays the thumbnails directly under the image (photoblog style).

If anyone's at all interested, I can make it a point to finally get down and do it, and have the package done by Tuesday.
posted by rafter at 11:07 PM on May 4, 2004