Webmaster-Source » gallery

Showcase Your Images with WebAssist’s PowerGallery

Matt — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:25:02 +0000

Looking for a PHP photo gallery package that’s super easy to use? Look no further than WebAssist’s PowerGallery. It has a slick interface that far surpasses any I’ve seen in similar scripts. It looks good, it’s clean and simple, and it feels polished, which is more than I can say for the ever-popular Coppermine Photo Gallery.

Installation is quick and painless, a simple matter of uploading the files and running the 5-step installation wizard. It checks to make sure the prerequisites (PHP 5.2, GD, SimpleXML) are met and then prompts for your MySQL credentials. Once that’s taken care of, it asks you for a username and password for the admin account, then lets you optionally set up a watermark that will be added to your images. The final step lets you batch-add a folder full of images, though you can put that off until later.

Managing your images with PowerGallery is a breeze. You can simply drag and drop the thumbnails to reorder them, and it only takes a couple of clicks to rotate them if need be. Editing metadata is intuitive: a simple matter of selecting a thumbnail and tweaking the text fields to the right.

You have two options when it comes to uploading images: either do one at a time, or FTP several to a server directory and import them all at once.

There are several layout options for your galleries. You can have a grid of thumbnails that open the full-size image in a Lightbox overlay when clicked, a thumbnail grid with the full-size image displayed above, or you can have either configuration, but with a “ribbon” of thumbnails instead of a grid. The options are available in both light and dark color schemes.

Galleries can be linked to directly, or you can get snippets of PHP code to embed them directly into an existing page.

The finished product looks good, and functions like you would expect any image gallery to. It would work well for a portfolio, product photos, or whatever your needs are.

PowerGallery is a great software package, and its only real drawback is the price. It costs $99.99 for an unlimited-site license, though it’s discounted to $69.99 until the end of December. I think the normal asking price is a little steep for many individuals, though businesses should have no issue, but PowerGallery is a great option for those who can afford it.

WordPress Theme of the Month: Gallery

Matt — Sun, 10 May 2009 11:17:43 +0000

The WordPress Theme of the Month for May 2009 is Gallery, released by Smashing Magazine and designed by Christopher Wallace.

Gallery is a very advanced WordPress theme for, well, creating image galleries. Based on the Thematic framework, it has integrated the BuySellAds Plugin, Contact Form 7, and WP-PostRatings. There are some nice jQuery effects throughout. The theme is, at the time of this writing, being used on MixCSS, another project of the designer.

The design is predominantly dark, which works well for a gallery. The background texture and navigation bar look nice, especially.

Free Image Galleries: A Gallery of Galleries

Matt — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:38:30 +0000

Free-Image-Galleries.com is sort of a “gallery of galleries.” It’s a WordPress site, in the style of a photo gallery, that rounds-up scripts for displaying photos.

The site is fairly new, but there are already three pages of entries.

At a glance there appear to be some good gallery solutions in the archives, and the tag cloud is a nice touch too—it seems like a good way to find a gallery solution that fits your needs. If you needed a MooTools-based gallery, for example, all you’d have to do is click said tag in the cloud, and voila, relevant entries. A very nice use of a tagcloud.

The biggest shortcoming of the site is the lack of an About page (as of this writing). There’s a link to such page, but all it displays is the default “This is an example of a WordPress page…” text. Oops. I’d either remove the page, or put a short intro to the site on it.

Some work needs to be done, but so far it’s a good effort, and an interesting concept.

32 Lightweight Designs

Matt — Mon, 19 May 2008 10:27:16 +0000

Once again, I’ve been skimming through the design galleries and looking through notes and bookmarks in search of noteworthy designs. This time around, I’ve put together a collection of light designs. While more graphic-heavy designs may look great, simplicity and whitespace can go a long way as well.

Without further ado, 32 Lightweight Designs:

River Rock Communications

Elements of Design

Matt — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:00:55 +0000

Most design galleries showcase interesting/well-designed/etc web designs. Elements of Design is not like them. Brought to you by the Smiley Cat Web Design Blog, Elements of Design focuses on individual elements of designs.

Some examples include:

Search boxes
Comments and Comment Forms
Pull Quotes
Pricing Tables
Headline Typography

It’s an interesting idea, and a welcome source for inspiration. I’ve often wished there was a place to find inspiration when working on a small part of a larger design. I think I will find this useful in the future, provided I can remember the site’s name, as I tend to forget when I most need a site…

If you do much design, or if you just appreciate good design, the site is worth a look.

Zenphoto – Lightweight Web Gallery Script

Matt — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 12:47:31 +0000

Tired of the bloated Coppermine Photo Gallery? The much lighter Zenphoto gallery script may be a good alternative.

The compressed download is under one megabyte, and the installation looks fairly simple. Just upload via FTP, and run the installation script.

The installed gallery is responsive and clean. Don’t take my word for it, though. Look at the demo gallery.

The script is fairly new, and is still evolving. Some features, like RSS support, have just been added.

If you need a gallery (for a design portfolio, to show off your photos, etc), then be sure to check-out Zenphoto.