Creating a personal website / galery

[adamj123]

Hey Everyone,

I am interested in creating a personal website to display my photos for family , friends and people here and was wondering if anyone has had any experience doing this?

I currently have a hosting account with a mySQL database and quite a bit of storage but I am no web designer

Are there any packages or scripts out there that will allow me to just upload it to the site and start from there? without having to have create the code from scratch.... maybe with option for some customization.

Thanks!

[jamesw]

sorry if i skimmed through that too quickly...

but...

do you want one of those fancy flash kiosk style thingos that look all pretty, or do you want it all html like a gallery style, or something else?

i do websites on the side a little bit, whenever i'm in doubt about something i just google it. always got answers to web development questions or issues

[garyr]

I'd be interested to hear/see the replies to this thread. I have just gone through the same exercise, my hosting account does not have mySQL so I had limited options.

I created a simple landing page from html with an enter button. I did this so that I could password protect the rest of my site using .hta - I am inherently paranoid about putting photos of my kids/life for all to see - I have created accounts for my family and friends, they are after all my target audience. The next level of my site has a simple table index that I add hyperlinks to for each "chapter" of my photos. To create the chapters I use LightRoom, create a quick collection, and upload to subfolders. There are a number of free script-based galleries that you can copy and paste into your pages to give you a layout, etc. But because I use lightroom on my PC it is an easier option for me - that really has got to be one of the best/most useful products on the market.

The downside to my approach is that everytime I create a new chapter I have to add an hyperlink to the index page, a bit of a bore, but for my needs it is okay. (I have not found a way to do this via Lightroom).

Cheers
Gary

[byrt_001]

Hi Adam

There are a few such gallery //gallery.menalto.com/ there are a few people in here that have set that king of galleries, including myself. Requires little knowledge of html. But you will need ftp There are a few option on how to upload your photos including ftp

There is also pixelpost http://www.pixelpost.org/ with their excellent forum, very very helpful people> http://www.pixelpost.org/forum/ There are a lot of templates to choose from and is it free. You can check my blog > http://www.6701.sunpixs.com. The only problem is that it requieres a bit of html coding.

both requieres databases. Sometimes your host can password protect some of the links or folders with photographs. If you have access to cpanel there is section where you can enable it the password protection.

Hope it helps

Christian

[johnd]

Would smugmug meet your needs? Have a look at my smugmug site. I have done virtually no tailoring and am pretty happy with the way it works.
Click on the link in my sig to have a look.

Cheers
John

[rookie2]

nice stuff on your site John - easy to navigate and view your impressive collection?

I'd like to get my 1000s of pics organised along similar lines and was wondering what the cost of hosting/setting up such a site would be.

I am not web savvy!

cheers

R2

[big pix]

I have just today, re-done my smugmug galleries and added about 200 additional photos and extra galleries........ if I can use smugmug anyone can........ have a look at my new site

[Wocka]

As mentioned before Gallery2 is quite nice and customisable, but maybe a little on the advanced side if you really want to make it look the way you want.

Also there is SimpleViewer http://www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/ that is non database dependent on the backend. Also with Simpleviewer there is a nifty little tool called Porta http://www.stegmann.dk/mikkel/porta/. Porta creates galleries for you in a nice GUI interface.

I have edited the Porta template file to look and feel the way I want, so all I do now is right click on the folder where my JPG files are and choose "Make/Edite Porta Album". Porta will resize and place the thumbnails where you like. Very simple and now a new Album is a 30 second job to create and 2 minutes to upload to my site.

As for the secure section, Yes .hta file can do as you require, but DreamHost ( where my site is ) allows you on the back end to make "private" folders that are password protected. I think basically they are doing the .hta file for you. Not exactly sure as I haven't seen a .hta file on the FTP side of things.

Check out my site here: http://www.wfphotography.net , as you can see the Jessica folder is password protected for only my Family / Friends.

Another new trick I have just tested ( last week ) is Server Side Includes. Again Dreamhost support this, and probably most hosting companies. What this allows you to do is have a single text file for the menu's and only edit it once, even though it is on multiple pages. Makes adding a new Gallery or Chaper very easy. Edit once, not multiple times. Checkout an easy to read tutorial here: http://www.hypergurl.com/ssi.html I tested mine with the .shtml extension and will place on my live site in the next week or two.

Cheers.

[bwhinnen]

If you have a host with MySQL and PHP then go with the gallery setup. It is so easy to use once it is set up and you can be up and running with a multitude of various looks in no time. There are very easy ways to get your photos uploaded from Windows machines (including Vista).

If you feel you cannot install gallery yourself ask about, someone should be able to set it up for you and you can run with it from there.

Our site (url in my signature) is based entirely on Gallery2 and has been customised significantly, but via coding a new theme only (and adding some flash), the base gallery software remains the same. This shows the power of the underlying product.

Support online is great, you can search on almost anything and get results.

Cheers
Brett

[johnd]

nice stuff on your site John - easy to navigate and view your impressive collection?

I'd like to get my 1000s of pics organised along similar lines and was wondering what the cost of hosting/setting up such a site would be.

I am not web savvy!

cheers

R2

Hi R2,

It's about $30US per year to set up and host a basic site. It's about $100US per year for the professional package. My site is about 95% basic. I paid the extra but hardly use any of the extras. The only extras from memory that I am using from the professional package are customised pricing, my own URL and and I think that's about it. Probably not worthg the extra $70 US per year.

I did all my (limited) setup by just following simple steps and I haven't put together a web site before. I think smugmug gives you 7 or 30 days or somthing to try it for free. Just follow my link and then click on the "Powered by SmugMug" on the bottom of the page to get to the SmugMug blurb.

Cheers
John

[rookie2]

thanks John

its about time I got off my proverbial and got organised!

cheers

R2