I saw some from D6 that were ok but to tell the truth, I want a little more. Here are some of my ideas.
Mostly ease of use.
- Keep the original image. store it safely for the user and allow people to load it if they so desire, no matter the size. Most browsers make compensations for image size.
- Place all of a users original images in a single file with the original names. That way, the site owner could copy the contents to CD and mail it to the member if they want. Maybe even create a specific FTP account that the member has access too. That way, they can upload and download their own images as they see fit just like they would locally in a folder on their own machine.
- Not have to reload the entire page to move to the next image. (ajax?)
- Flash displays are nice as long as they are quick & efficient. I don't particularly like the cooliris this site uses. It is a featureless POS. (I think most would agree with me). If flash is used, it must be smart, elegant looking and easy to understand.
- An online image editor that will allow members to make 'adjustments' to their photos. Something like you would find at imageeditor.net
- A decent text editor so users can create a good story to go along with their albums contents. Many of my members take 10 or 20 digital photos outlining a heavy truck recovery or other towing scene. Each image needs a text box and the album itself needs a substantial text box.
- A forum that will allow you to display video/images in a reasonable manner would be very useful.......
- Being able to open a popup that displays your gallery contents when you are creating a post in a forum (one click and it's there!) would be fantastic. I have one such gallery on my old site and that one feature gets used a LOT. It's a simpel matter to pop it open, click on the photo thumb and voila, it's in the post.
- Display the photos in a definable order. image 1, image 2, image 3, etc. My experience is the best way to set the order up is by name. Order is very important when you are trying to tell a story. One of the biggest issues I have with Dolphins gallery is the random order the images tend to display in. It is completely unusable for anything but single static images this way.
Of course the best of all worlds (and this is something I hardly ever see) is to combine videos, images and music all into one media gallery. Imagine being able to put together a story that uses a combination of photos, well places short videos all with a little music in the background? Now THAT would be an attention getter!
If you build it, they will come .... but ONLY if you do the best job you can.
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