Cleaning The Virtual House
Diego and I are on our own for a few days while Randy and my camera cavort around Miami. Snacks wherever we want and lots of scratching ourselves in inappropriate places until Tuesday night. We bond well.
I started off the time alone by attempting to make some long overdue upgrades to the photo gallery look and feel. The gallery’s been powered by Coppermine since it started in 2005, and while the template’s never been exactly what I wanted, it worked and I was never able to figure out their coding. Now, after a couple of days of dedicated tweaking, I’m thinking that I never will. Gawd what a mess, and I’m now pretty sure that the reason it wouldn’t bend to my will isn’t a lack of skill but a lack of flexibility in the core of that program.
Been experimenting with Gallery 2 as an alternative, and so far I’m favorable impressed. I remember comparing them back in oh-five, and deciding that Coppermine was the better option then, but Gallery seems to have more than made up the difference in the last three years. Expect some changes on that side of the site in the near future.
Be happy to hear any comments about other experiences with the packages, or other self-hosted photo galleries, but as was pointed out to me (again) this last week, I”m too much of a control freak to ever turn over a portion of the site to Flickr or some other third party again.
The beta is up and runnning with content imported from the old install at http://vista.howlingpoint.net/g if anyone wants a sneak peak.
I know I shouldn’t be complaining since it is kinda’ fun, but how the heck do these people live here? OMG…it feels like a sauna bath when you step out of any AC.
The new site looks good!