Asking for help for Photo Album

[Barbouille]

Hi

I would like to set up an online photo album for family members only. This photo album would be hosted on Bluehost. Here is what I need:

1- In order to view the photos, the family member would have to login. I do not want to make these photos viewable by the general public.

2-I could upload the photos through FTP (several photos at a time. It is important as I do not want to have to upload one photo at a time). I was thinking about something like create a folder on my PC (that would be the album name) with all photos in it and upload that folder through FTP.

3- I want something simple and not too complicated to administer.

4-Once logged in, the member could download the photos he/she wants to his own computer if he/she so desires.

Question:
Which photo album software do you recommend ? I would prefer to load through simplescripts but I am opened as well to other software not available through simplescripts. Would I be better off to use a free online photo albums site which would meet these requirements ? If so, which serious site (and I mean serious--something similar to wordpress.com or blogger.com for blogs) do you recommend ?

Thank You

[Early Out]

Your best bet would be something like Jalbum. This does not get installed on the server - it's a PC application with which you create photo albums. You then upload the completed albums by using Jalbum's own "publish" module, or with any FTP client program. If you want to add photos, you reopen the saved "project" on your PC, drag in some more images, make the album again (it will only remake what it needs to), and upload again.

Besides the "skins" that are bundled with the application, there are dozens of others to choose from, written by all kinds of people. Here's the demo site for the skin I wrote, called Matrix.

Jalbum is free, as are all of the skins (a few need to be licensed for commercial use, but not for your personal stuff).

With regard to some of your specific questions...

To make the albums invisible to the outside world, you can just put them in a subdirectory that isn't linked from your home page. Someone would have to guess at the URL to find them. So, your album could be in www.example.com/dafamily. As long as there's no link to it from www.example.com/index.html, no one would ever be able to find it unless you give them the URL. Or, just use the Control Panel to apply a password to the subdirectory you put the album in.

The FTP protocol, by definition, uploads one file at a time. However, in virtually any FTP client program, you can mark a whole collection of files and folders on the PC side, and tell the program to copy all of them to the server side, and it will obediently march through all of them without you having to do anything else.

Downloading: different Jalbum skins have different ways to do this. Some actually provide a little "download" icon. Others just rely on the visitor knowing that they can right-click/save any image they're looking at.

[Barbouille]

Thank you Early Out. Your help is most appreciated.

[Barbouille]

A note to Early Out

I have tried your suggested method with Jalbum and it worked fine. I now have a web album.

If I want to remove it from the web, do I have to remove it through the downloaded software or do I just remove the sub-directory (folder) I uploaded the album to on my site hosted on bluehost ?


Thank you very much Early out. Your help is very much appreciated.

[Early Out]

A Jalbum-produced album is just a collection of web pages and image files, so you can upload it with any FTP client program, and if you want to delete it from your web site, you can just delete the subdirectory you put it in. Once the album is created, the software's job is finished - there's no ongoing connection between the software and completed album.

[Barbouille]

to Early Out

This is what I strongly suspected but given that I was not 100% sure, I wanted to check with someone familiar with the software.

Mind you, since I just published the album on the web today, I am not ready to remove it just yet. But, when the time comes, I will know exactly what to do.

Thanks again

[Barbouille]

Hi

Is is possible to password protect my photo album produced with Jalbum so that only family members would be able to view it ?

If so, how would I do it ?

Thank You

[Early Out]

With most skins, no. All you can do is put it in a subdirectory on your site, and password-protect that subdirectory (Control Panel, Password Protect Directories).

Of course, if you put the album in a subdirectory, and don't have any link to it from your main page, no one will be able to find it, anyway. So, if the album is at example.com/dafamily, and there's no link to it from example.com/index.html, no one would be able to find the album unless you give them the URL.

[Barbouille]

Thank you for your help Early Out.

Have a great day