Photo album

If someone were to ask me what I can suggest for putting up photos online, I would suggest them to use Flikr, Imagestation, or Picasa. I use Flickr myself from time to time, to post a few photos here and there, and these photos are really for public viewing. For everything else, I use a photo album software on my web server at home. I manage about 20,000 pictures. My home album is password protected so only family and friends may view them.

I started out with a software called Yappa-NG (Yappa, next generation). It is a great piece of software written in php. Its design is simple but effective. No database required. Everything is stored on the filesystem. When you create a new album, Yappa-NG creates a directory. You can then dump all your pictures in that directory and the first time you browse through it with your web browser, Yappa-NG builds the thumbnails and a smaller version of the original image. You can add captions to the images and create sub-folders.

Earlier in the fall, I was introduced to JAlbum. It is a Java software that runs on your desktop. With it, you can build an album in a matter of minutes. It will create an album on your desktop computer and can publish the album to a website. I used it a few times and like the web interface for viewing the albums. Very nice interface I need to say and the skin can change. There is only one thing I did not like about JAlbum and that is it is a desktop software. You create an album then upload it to a website. It is not a server-side software like Yappa-NG.

A couple of months thereafter, I was introduced to Gallery2, a php-based photo album. It functions like Yappa-NG, being a server-side software, but is much more flexible. It does sport more features than Yappa-NG but in the end, I only use a small number of its entire set of features. Overall, I do like it. However, I found a glitch -- it was not able to process the 3000 pictures I uploaded in a folder and a few subfolders (I had to process about 1000 pictures at a time) and it feels a bit slugglish too, slower than Yappa-NG. Nice interface though.

What am I looking for in a photo album?

1. Be able to create folders and subfolders.
2. Be able to upload images into a folder and subfolders using scp/sftp or Windows file sharing.
   
3. Be able to rotate pictures without modifying the original (Yappa-NG can rotate your picture but it will also modify the original).
4. Be able to add captions to the album and to each picture.
5. Be able to change skins / themes. The skin should allow for creating different borders around albums and photos. I like the single borders around the images in this blog. I also like the shadow effect that Gallery2 creates.
6. Password protection.
7. Fast.

So, I am now using two software on my home web server: Yappa-NG for my friends photos, and Gallery2 for family photos. Yappa-NG is the quicker of the two.

Maybe I will write my own photo album software. Maybe.