Web gallery software recommendation

[paulr]

I'm mostly satisfied with my site (at least for the next year or so) but have discovered that the gallery pages don't display quite right on iOs devices. This is how a lot of people surf the web, so I'd like to fix it.

It's not as dire as Flash; my galleries are regular HTML. But I am an HTML illiterate, so I used (once) free software called JAlbum to create the galleries. There have been a few iterations of supposed improvements to JAlbum, and I now find it mostly unusable. I also don't know how to figure out in advance which skins are iOS friendly.

Can anyone recommend a means of creating simple web galleries, more or less like what's on my site (link below)? Ideally the solution would require minimal web proficiency from me, and would be easily customizable both in terms of design and the photo content.

Thoughts?

[Thad Gerheim]

Paul, I use iWeb that came with my Mac. It's simple to use and has a variety of templates that can be somewhat customized. I don't know how it looks on the iOs devises. Let me know.

[biedron]

Paul,

If you are a Lightroom user (ignore this post if not!), I just started using a web package put out by The Turning Gate (TTG) http://shop.theturninggate.net/collections/all, and I have been pleased with it.

It is customizable (though in fact I have done little customization at this point) and it does not require knowledge of HTML. For text formatting it uses the "Markdown", markup language, which is very simple to use (though it does have its own, few, rules). The TTG software is only for users of Adobe's Lightroom, as they are all Lightroom plugins that you access from inside Ligthroom's Web module. But if you do use Lightroom this is very, very convenient.

The TTG software is sold a la carte. The basic item you need is "CE2 Pages" ($25), and although (I think) TTG offers a few free Gallery packages, the nicer ones are $25 (you'd need only one). If you have a blog and want the style of the blog to match your other pages, that's another plugin (though you if you had a standard Wordpress template, that works, it's just a different style). TTG offers a "shopping cart" plugin too, though that is probably the priciest at $55.

You asked about mobile devices. Looking around the TTG web site, it seems like they give a a fair amount of thought to how this stuff works on mobile devices. I have only checked my site on my wife's Kindle Fire, and it looked just the same as on my desktop (I don't use any flash on my site).

The usual disclaimer: I have no connection to this company, just a satisfied user.

Bob

[Jeff Dexheimer]

I use Adobe Lightroom and the Turning Gate (TTG) to produce mine, but I honestly can't stand it. I find it cumbersome to change anything and far too often I find myself recreating my website from scratch because its not easy to simply add an image or two to your gallery. Also, knowing HTML, though not required, has been almost necessary for me to get my site looking the way I want.

An easier solution is to get a host that supports wordpress. There are tons of free wordpress themes and some amazing paid themes. Photocrati is one I have seen used quite often and the sites are clean and easy to use.

My advice, stay away from TTG

[biedron]

Ah, the great thing about the web is the wide variety of views on the same subject. Jeff and I pretty much span the space of possibilities regarding TTG :)

Jeff, I'm not sure about your comment regarding the difficulty of adding a new image to a gallery: seems like it is as simple as dragging the image from your Library into the Collection that you set up for the particular gallery, no? You do have to re-export the whole gallery after that though - there seems to be no way to just export the new image. Maybe that is what you mean?

Bob

[SamReeves]

Still with SimpleViewer, but who knows what'll happen to it now that Flash shall be dead.

[Jeff Dexheimer]

Ah, the great thing about the web is the wide variety of views on the same subject. Jeff and I pretty much span the space of possibilities regarding TTG :)

Jeff, I'm not sure about your comment regarding the difficulty of adding a new image to a gallery: seems like it is as simple as dragging the image from your Library into the Collection that you set up for the particular gallery, no? You do have to re-export the whole gallery after that though - there seems to be no way to just export the new image. Maybe that is what you mean?

Bob
Right, adding an image is easy in lightroom, but to get it into your webpage you have to export the entire gallery and re-upload the entire gallery. I find this process cumbersome when compared to other options. Many wordpress galleries you simply upload the image and there it is in your online gallery.

[Winger]

I'm interested as well. I used iWeb for mine and they aren't updating or supporting it in the future. Apple hosting will also disappear in June 2012. I've been using that, so need a new option there, too.
Someone elsewhere suggested Zenfolio. Anyone here use them for this? I do have a pro account, but haven't done a lot with it.

[chacabuco]

I've mentioned LFF member Dalton Rooney's wordpress theme (http://madebyraygun.com/wordpress/themes/portfolio-theme/) on here a few times since it makes clean simple galleries.

Also, the other day I put together a portfolio site for a photographer in a couple of hours using Cargo (http://cargocollective.com/), which is extremely simple to use and clean as well.

[paulr]

I'm definitely sticking with my current site and ISP for now; just looking for a tool for creating simple galleries. like the ones linked here (http://www.paulraphaelson.com/portfolios.htm).

As a temporary measure, if anyone can tell me how to tweak the code to make these compatible with IOS, that would be great. The issue is that the thumbnails on the left do not scroll separately from the main image in iOS. So as you scroll down, the image goes away. It's clunky.

[paulr]

Ahhh, ok. I just figured out the problem (but not the solution).

According to Apple:

Avoid Framesets

In general, avoid using complicated framesets that rely on the ability to scroll individual frames because there are no scroll bars on iOS.

On the desktop, frames in a frameset can be independently scrolled as shown on the left in Figure 1-1. On iOS, scrollable frames in a frameset are expanded to fit their content and then a frame is scaled down to fit its region as shown on the right in Figure 1-1. Scrollable full-width inline frames are expanded to fit their content, too. All other scrollable inline frames can be panned using the two-finger gesture. See “Two-Finger Events” for the events generated from the two-finger gesture.

Because there are no scroll bars on the inline frames, this is not an optimal user experience for viewing web content on iOS, so avoid using framesets. Instead use columns as described in “Use Columns and Blocks.”

This creates an interesting puzzle for any web gallery that's to work both in iOS and on the desktop. I suppose an ok fix would be to just have forward and back arrows for navigation, like most people have. If those existed, then it wouldn't matter so much that the thumbs were hard to use.

I still don't know how to implement those.

[bbuszard]

I've been using a free package called (very cleverly) Gallery. It's in its third major iteration now, and covers the basics quite well. I use the greydragon theme and run it on a linux box at home, with dyndns providing the link to the URL (which is in my sig). I only use it casually, so you may find it lacking for something more professional.

If you think you're interested, the home page for the software is the first Google hit under "gallery".

[Mike Anderson]

Ahhh, ok. I just figured out the problem (but not the solution).

According to Apple:

Avoid Framesets

In general, avoid using complicated framesets that rely on the ability to scroll individual frames because there are no scroll bars on iOS.

On the desktop, frames in a frameset can be independently scrolled as shown on the left in Figure 1-1. On iOS, scrollable frames in a frameset are expanded to fit their content and then a frame is scaled down to fit its region as shown on the right in Figure 1-1. Scrollable full-width inline frames are expanded to fit their content, too. All other scrollable inline frames can be panned using the two-finger gesture. See “Two-Finger Events” for the events generated from the two-finger gesture.

Because there are no scroll bars on the inline frames, this is not an optimal user experience for viewing web content on iOS, so avoid using framesets. Instead use columns as described in “Use Columns and Blocks.”

This creates an interesting puzzle for any web gallery that's to work both in iOS and on the desktop. I suppose an ok fix would be to just have forward and back arrows for navigation, like most people have. If those existed, then it wouldn't matter so much that the thumbs were hard to use.

I still don't know how to implement those.

Framesets are very passé. Use Javascript and divs and for the scrolling div use the css overflow:scroll (http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/pr_pos_overflow.asp) style. This is the current tech to replace framesets and will work on iOS. So you can retain the current look and feel of you site on iOS but it will take some work.

[David R Munson]

I'm still working on making new web galleries for my site, but I've been using the "Impact" plugin for Lightroom by Photographer's Toolbox. Their web site is here: http://www.photographers-toolbox.com/index.php and they have several gallery plugins available. I've been really happy with what I've been able to do with it.

Note that I use the standard Impact plugin, as opposed to their Impact WSPP plugin, which is slightly different.

You can check out some of my galleries here: http://www.davidrmunson.com/images/index.html

[Frank Petronio]

I've been looking for good web gallery software since 1995. I don't think any such thing exists, they all have compromises. It's like picking political candidates... lessor of the evils.

So just jump in and do something, you'll be wrong and dissatisfied but at least your images will be up!