New zenphoto in the wild!
By Rob Worley on Nov 3, 2007 | In Tech Talk | 2 feedbacks »
zenphoto just released the long-awaited upgrade to their promising photo hosting software.
When I started this site I used Menalto's Gallery software and eventually graduated to their Gallery 2 system. That package is the be-all, end-all of photo management software with every conceivable feature you could want...which was kind of why I stopped loving it. It was slow and bloated, and a resource pig that was causing my host to have headaches. And I didn't want 90% of the features provided.
zenphoto inhabits the opposite end of design ideology: lean, fast and quiet. Seemed like the perfect remedy to the G2-blues.
Shortly after I switched, I was disappointed to learn that the zenphoto project had gone dormant. It was developed by a single individual (a hard-working guy named Tristan). When big career opportunities came up he had to stop working on zen. I wasn't sure we'd ever see an update.
However, the software is so well-loved that a community had formed and would not let it die out. Tristan recruited a willing development team and voila...today we have a hot new version!
Check out my zenphoto gallery.
It's cool software, with web 2.0 niceties like inline editing of image titles and descriptions, drag-and-drop album sorting and so on. The new version has sub-albums, RSS feeds, anti-spam commenting, tagging and more. The theming process is pretty easy to master if you're a CSS-oriented designer.
To be fair, there are a few less-awesome aspects: the install process isn't exactly the guided, friendly type install that Word Press users (for example) are used to. I'm also not a fan of the completely automated thumbnailing (would be cool if a future version lets you manually select the area of a photo that's to appear in the thumbnail). Sub-album management seems to work best through FTP. None of these quibbles are really major detractors for me, and since the software's actively being developed again, I'm hopeful that some of these rough edges may be smoothed in future releases.
Overall it's a hot, standards-compliant bit of open source that's worth a download.
2 comments
Thanks for the nice writeup on zenphoto. Just wanted to be sure you understood a couple of things.
first, zenphoto will allow you to specify an individual image for your album thumb. The random selection is only invoked if you have not designated one. Go to the admin edit page for your album and you will find a dropdown selector.
Second, with the zenphoto 1.1 release most of the zp-config.php file is redundant. Options are now stored in the database and can be entered and changed on the admin options page. (There are some options that don't quite work yet--fix in the 1.1.1 release.) The only thing that must be done in the zp-config.php file is the database stuff.
Finally, not related to zenphoto, I had a couple of problems posting this note. First, the page would not accept my site url-stephen(dot)sbillard(dot)org. I guess it did not understand subdomains. Then it kept giving me invalid comment errors until I figured out what it did not like--hence the (dot)s. It would have been helpful to know what it was complaining about.
What I meant by the "random thumbnails" is the fact that the thumbnail generator chooses an area of the image that is outside my control. I guess I shouldn't call it "random". It's actually the center-point of the image. On a full-figure photo, this usually ends up being a crotch-shot :)
I would prefer to be able to select a square part of the image and have that be the thumbnail. I suppose I shouldn't complain since I'm not contributing to the development.
Perhaps I shouldn't comment on the install process as I was performing an upgrade from a previous version. The step-by-step for the upgrade and the install both talk about editing the config file manually, so I assumed it had to be done either way. I did notice that the config file can be maintained via the back-office AFTER installation, but it appears to need manual editing for the installation process itself.
This, to me, is a minor thing. But I know that some of my friends who have no problem installing something like Word Press, which has a nice automated install, with barf on themselves if you ask them to edit a file.
Anyway...I didn't mean to bag on the software. I just wanted to make friends aware that there are a few shortcomings, because I know I'll hear about them.
I'll amend the post with the info you've provided.
Sorry about the problems posting comments. I think that's b2evo trying to combat link spam.
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