I came across this really easy to use photo gallery,written in PHP and XML.It uses XML files instead of a database. Give me a break – I just started playing with it at 2:45 am! It’s called
Phormer and you can download it from Sourceforge. Or to make it even easier on you I’ll pass you the Webpage & download LINK .
I’m always on the lookout for small,lightweight gallery software. I’ve collected mostly non-database flat file stuff so far. Everyone knows the big mysql+php apps,anyway:
- Coppermine
- Gallery,Gallery2
- Serendipity( or is that a blog thing,I forget)
So, you don’t need me to tell you that those packaged gallery applications do all the mysql table populating for you and that all you really need is a mysql connection and database name and password to use them. This was a stumbling block for me. I used to only have access to the world’s most hostile php environment, and in order to test projects on this host I had to struggle immensely against this environment to get anything to work.I was lucky to get another project test site running Apache with a Fedora core set up by Troy Wolf who knows PHP & programs with it or whatever. Things I upload to that host run so fast and sharp I couldn’t believe it.But working the hard way did force me to open up the files of an application and visit a lot of help forums and I think I learned a little whereas if it had all worked from the start and out of the box I’d be really clueless instead of mildly clueless.
Like I said,Phormer is e a s y. I unzipped the files,ftp’d them and I didn’t have to edit one file.All of the configuring is done in the administration panel.You can upload pics and it makes thumbnails.You can write descriptions.You can delete it all and start over. There’s 9 or 10 skins, although there isn’t much of a difference in the skins… some of the colour names display very similar looks.But they are very nice looking skins indeed.You really wouldn’t be ashamed to use it for your photos at all even if you didn’t modify one line of CSS.
It shows exif info(I think exif info is kind of ugly)but you can opt out of that. You might have a bit of an organising hassle when sorting your pictures since the package has some default cats set up. I only spent 10 minutes looking at it and I think I get what it’s up to…
Much like Quick.Cart(a free flatfile shopping cart) the admin panel takes a bit of figuring out but is pretty instinctive.It might a little difficult for a complete noob.