I want to share a folder full of photos on the web

[Dave Sell]

I have boatloads of photos in folders on my "home server" (winXP, IIS).

I can redirect a DYNDNS.ORG to my server ala port 80, obviously exposing my webserver to the public.

But I want my family to log in and see thumbnails of all the pics, and then download the ones they like.

Is there some really fast+easy way to generate an HMTL with little thumbnails of the pics in a folder? Maybe theres some software you know of that does this for you?

THanks!

Dave

[Merrion]

Might be easier to put them up on Windows Live. That's where all mine are - you get 25Gb free.

[gep13]

Hey,

If you are just wanting a simple application that displays photos for you, you might want to take a look at the Personal Website Starter Kit, it does exactly that. You can control access to the photos using the ASP.Net Membership Provider, out of the box, people who are not in the Friends Role, will not be able to see the photos. You can find the starter kit here:

http://www.asp.net/downloads/starter-kits/personal/

Another alternative would be something like this:

http://www.galleryserverpro.com/

Hope that helps!!

Gary

[Dave Sell]

Might be easier to put them up on Windows Live. That's where all mine are - you get 25Gb free.

Naw, I'm looking to keep them local. THanks, though.

[gep13]

Hey,

Did you give some thought to the items I suggested?

Gary

[Dave Sell]

Hey,

Did you give some thought to the items I suggested?

Gary

Yes! I'm gonna try it when I get home tonight, possibly tomorrow night. Very busy lately! I will definately keep you "posted" (hahahahah)

[gep13]

Ah, I see, just thought you would check.

For a more rounded solution, Gallery Server Pro is probably the way to go, as it is a completed project, that will work out of the box.

The Personal Starter Kit would give you more options if you wanted to configure different aspects of the site, but will likely take some more effort.

Gary

[Dave Sell]

MaybeI will try Gallery Server Pro 1st... Looks really cool...

[gep13]

Yeah, I personally ended up not using it, simply because I wanted to alter somethings, so I used the Personal Website Starter Kit, and tailored it to my needs, but sounds like Gallery Server Pro will do everything you want.

Hope it works out for you!

Gary

[Dave Sell]

Well, if you are happy with Personal Website Starter Kit, I will want to try that too!

[gep13]

Hey,

Out of curiosity, did you have a chance to play with either of the above? Was just wondering what you thoughts were on them.

Gary

[Dave Sell]

Ya, I've been trying to use the PWS but I don't know how to "log in" or administerr the running website. Security is confusing me.

[gep13]

Hey,

Are you using SQL Server? Or are you trying to use some other database?

I forget the default username and password for the site, but you should be able to create a new username and password using the "ASP.Net Configuration" option in the "Project" Menu. This will open up the ASP.Net Site Administration page which will let you create new users and roles etc.

You will not be able to do this on a remote site, you can only do this locally.

If you are creating a new user through the create user wizard of the site, by default, the user isn't authorized, so you will have to go into the database and set this property yourself.

Let me know if you are having more issues, and I will fire up a copy of the PWS to remind myself about it, I haven't used the default template in a while.

Gary

[Dave Sell]

Actually, you need to go to the [Website] menu of the IDE to get to the site administration pages. It would be nice if you can do that with a remote site.

I was finally able to get this up and running. I had to do all my user admin operations from the IDE and then "push" them out to the published area. This makes PWS impractical for the use I intended. I intended to allow my family/friends to go to my http://mysite and do the user-add stuff, and I could do the admin stuff to it out there. Perhaps there is some workaround for this.

However, I "uploaded" 1 folder's worth of pictures (265 pics, 650 MB, I have dozens more). This took a very long time, and created duplicate photos in the database file on disk (C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Website2\App_Data\Personal.mdf), causing another 650+ MB worth of disk footprint. This makes PWS impracticle, since my photos reside on a RAID5 drive (T:\pics) and consume many hundreds of GBs. I definately do not want a duplicate copy of every photo.

Also, the user-useage performance was quite bad I thought... Running from a local http:/localhost/deployed site, it took between 10-30 seconds to go to a next photo.

I presume all the performance problems I am seeing are due to the SQLExpress...?

PWS seems nice, but altogether impracticle for my intended useage. I will try Gallery Server Pro next.

[Dave Sell]

I can create a new virtual IIS website, and point it to where the existing pictures already reside. This way, I can access all my photos from an external http://mysite. The problem is, IIS does not show images as thumbnails; rather, it merely shows a list of filenames.

This is not useful because I have nonsensical filenames like "IMG_0234".

I am wondering if there is an IIS plugin, or another webserver altogether, that would solve my problem for me?

[gep13]

Actually, you need to go to the [Website] menu of the IDE to get to the site administration pages. It would be nice if you can do that with a remote site.

I was finally able to get this up and running. I had to do all my user admin operations from the IDE and then "push" them out to the published area. This makes PWS impractical for the use I intended. I intended to allow my family/friends to go to my http://mysite and do the user-add stuff, and I could do the admin stuff to it out there. Perhaps there is some workaround for this.

However, I "uploaded" 1 folder's worth of pictures (265 pics, 650 MB, I have dozens more). This took a very long time, and created duplicate photos in the database file on disk (C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Website2\App_Data\Personal.mdf), causing another 650+ MB worth of disk footprint. This makes PWS impracticle, since my photos reside on a RAID5 drive (T:\pics) and consume many hundreds of GBs. I definately do not want a duplicate copy of every photo.

Also, the user-useage performance was quite bad I thought... Running from a local http:/localhost/deployed site, it took between 10-30 seconds to go to a next photo.

I presume all the performance problems I am seeing are due to the SQLExpress...?

PWS seems nice, but altogether impracticle for my intended useage. I will try Gallery Server Pro next.

Hey,

Ah, are you using the Express Edition of Visual Web Developer? The menu structure is different in the two IDE's.

You have just listed all the things that I changed in my version of the PWS.

Firstly, I converted the PWS to store the pictures on the file system, rather than in the database, to prevent them from duplicating the storage.

Secondly, I created an administration section to the website to include the ability to administer users, photos, roles etc, thus allowing me to do everything that I needed when the site it live.

Thirdly, I converted the code to run off a MySQL instance, rather than use SQL Express.

Fourthly, implemented caching on the photos so that it wouldn't always have to hit the file system to render the photos.

With all of those changes done, it becomes a little more practical, and for me, it was quite a nice learning curve.

Gary

[gep13]

I can create a new virtual IIS website, and point it to where the existing pictures already reside. This way, I can access all my photos from an external http://mysite. The problem is, IIS does not show images as thumbnails; rather, it merely shows a list of filenames.

This is not useful because I have nonsensical filenames like "IMG_0234".

I am wondering if there is an IIS plugin, or another webserver altogether, that would solve my problem for me?

Hey,

Not that I am aware of, but there might be something that I am not aware of.

Gary

[Dave Sell]

Hey,

Ah, are you using the Express Edition of Visual Web Developer? The menu structure is different in the two IDE's.

You have just listed all the things that I changed in my version of the PWS.

Firstly, I converted the PWS to store the pictures on the file system, rather than in the database, to prevent them from duplicating the storage.

Secondly, I created an administration section to the website to include the ability to administer users, photos, roles etc, thus allowing me to do everything that I needed when the site it live.

Thirdly, I converted the code to run off a MySQL instance, rather than use SQL Express.

Fourthly, implemented caching on the photos so that it wouldn't always have to hit the file system to render the photos.

With all of those changes done, it becomes a little more practical, and for me, it was quite a nice learning curve.

Gary

No, this is the full version of VS2005, but I havent installed SP1 yet...

Interesting mods to the original! How much effort would you estimate you spent on your mods?

[Dave Sell]

Hey,

Not that I am aware of, but there might be something that I am not aware of.

Gary

Ya, I can't believe there isn't already a webserver that does this automagically...

[gep13]

No, this is the full version of VS2005, but I havent installed SP1 yet...

Interesting mods to the original! How much effort would you estimate you spent on your mods?

Ah, that could be it.

I shudder to think how much time it took me in the end

I rewrote the majority of the PWS using the Beerhouse starter kit as the basis, implementing a full n-Tier architecture. The site as it stands, can support SQL Server Database, or a MySQL Server Database backend.

Probably a good couple months of development work.

Gary

[gep13]

Ya, I can't believe there isn't already a webserver that does this automagically...

Hey,

One thing that just occurred to me....

I use ClarkConnect:

http://www.clarkconnect.com/

As my Internet Gateway. At it's heart, it is a Linux Distro, that does everything from Firewall, Mail Server etc, but it also has a Gallery Component:

http://www.clarkconnect.com/docs/Mod..._Photo_Gallery

I haven't played with it, but it might suit your needs.

Gary

[abhijit]

Ya, I can't believe there isn't already a webserver that does this automagically...

You might want to look at this page

I haven't tried any of them, personally, but I have used the Irfanview to create a HTML file for all the images in a particular folder.