Benefits of Gallery Server Pro

Version 2.3.3750, released April 8, 2010

View screen shots of Gallery Server Pro in action.

User Interface

Your next image is pre-loaded using AJAX so you never have to wait

  • It's a photo gallery. A video gallery. An audio gallery. And a document server - all in one!
  • Intuitive and simple user interface.
  • Thumbnails of all objects are created when they are added. Click the thumbnail to see the full size image.
  • Slide show feature.
  • Intelligent pre-fetch predicts the photos you are about to view and downloads them ahead of time; no more waiting for the image to load.
  • View metadata about your images—handy popup window shows the date picture was taken, shutter speed, keywords, title, and more.
  • Users can browse gallery in view-only mode without logging on. Password protect any or all albums to restrict them to authorized users.
  • Search by title, caption, file name or EXIF metadata.
  • View EXIF data from your photographs Smart menus and toolbars only allow actions based on the user's authorization for the current album.
  • Add descriptions and dates to your albums. Edit captions for each media object.
  • AJAX-enabled for more responsive UI
  • Easy access to your hi-res originals! Highly compressed, optimized copies of your original photos are sent by default to web users, but your originals are always just one click away. Or save hard drive space by deleting the originals while keeping the thumbnail and compressed versions.
  • All hard coded text is stored in resource files, allowing Gallery Server Pro to be localized into multiple languages. Contact me to volunteer to translate into your language.
  • Cultural awareness of user's locale—if you enter the date 02-04-09 as the starting or ending date for an album, and your computer is set to English/Great Britain (en-gb), Gallery Server Pro will interpret it as April 2, 2009. A user with the American setting (en-us) will cause Gallery Server Pro to interpret it as February 4, 2009.

Database

  • Zero-configuration, mostly ACID-compliant SQLite database. SQLite is open source and is the most widely deployed database in the world. No separate database installation is necessary - all data is stored in a single file within the web app.
  • For mission critical apps, you can optionally store data in SQL Server 2000, 2005, or 2008, including the free Express versions. SQL Server is robust, fast and highly scalable.
  • The database contains the album relationships, media object captions and other metadata. Media object files are stored on the hard drive, maximizing web performance.
  • Handles hundreds of thousands of media objects. Limited only by hard drive space and internet bandwidth. (Although the Express versions of SQL Server have maximum limits on database size, media object files are not stored in the database, therefore, these limits are not a factor in typical installations.)

 

Installation and Upgrades

  • Powerful web based installer gets you started with just a few clicks.
  • Easy upgrade from version 1.0 and 2.X.
  • Works in Medium Trust hosting environments.
  • Full support for Windows Server 2008 and IIS 7, including earlier versions.
  • Web pages target XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS 2.1 to ensure maximum forward compatibility. Works in all modern browsers (IE 5+, Netscape 6+, Mozilla, Opera, Safari). Note that dynamic media objects such as video and audio require that a compatible browser plugin is installed.
  • Use as a stand-alone gallery or easily integrate into your existing ASP.NET application.
  • 100% managed code written in C# and ASP.NET 2.0.
  • Free, open source software released under the GNU General Public License

Album and Media Object Management

During synchronization, a popup window keeps you informed of the progress

  • Automatic thumbnail and compressed image creation when you add your original hi-res images. No need to reduce or compress your photos first!
  • Media library can be on the local hard drive or any UNC share, including NAS devices.
  • Media objects remain on the file system, reducing the database footprint while providing maximum flexibility and performance.
  • Sophisticated synchronization function allows Gallery Server Pro to recursively search a designated directory on your hard drive for media objects, creating thumbnails and compressed images along the way—very useful when getting started or adding a lot of photos!
  • Powerful web-based management of albums and media objects, allowing you to add, edit, and delete them from any web browser.
  • Flexible watermarking options—specify text and/or an image file, including its relative size, location and opacity. Watermarks are rendered on the fly as images are sent to the user and do not affect the original files.
  • Image metadata extraction. Formats supported include: EXIF, XMP, tEXt, IFD,  and IPTC.
  • Helpful tooltips are scattered throughout Vista support: Import titles, keywords (tags), ratings and other information added with Vista's Windows Photo Gallery.
  • Zip file support! Upload a single zip file, and Gallery Server Pro will automatically extract the media objects. If your zip file contains nested directories, albums are created to represent each directory.
  • Rotate images.
  • Create a caption for each media object.
  • Rearrange the objects in each album using simple drag and drop.
  • Move or copy objects and albums to other albums.
  • Delete one or more objects from an album.
  • Delete the original high resolution images to save disk space, keeping only the compressed thumbnail and optimized image.
  • Assign any image in an album to be the thumbnail representation for that album.
  • Real-time feedback of file transfer progress as you upload large files in your web browser.
  • Customizable compression quality and dimensions for thumbnails and compressed images.

Web Site Management and Security

Each role has a set of assigned permissions applied to one or more albums

  • Support for zero-maintenance community galleries.
  • Powerful security model controls access by allowing users to be assigned to one or more roles. Each role has set permissions that are applied to one or more albums. There are twelve permissions, such as Administer Site, Add Albums, Delete Media Object, Synchronize, etc.
  • User management uses ASP.NET Membership provider, allowing you to take advantage of your existing user accounts. Plug into Active Directory or your DotNetNuke membership.
  • Allows multiple galleries to share the same database. Each gallery has its own distinct URL and set of media objects and albums.
  • Global error handling emails any application errors to the designated administrator.
  • Regenerate thumbnails and compressed images with a single click.