bioneural.net

Apple's .Mac HomePage was a simple way to build a web gallery using versions of iLife prior to 06. With iLife/iPhoto 06, you're forced to use iWeb instead if you want integration. But it's not the changes that have caused me to shy away from .Mac—it's the lack of them. All those regular member benefits dried up like a Namibian river bed. When I migrated to WordPress the only substantial part of my online presence that remained dependent on .Mac was my photography. That is the case no more.

What do you need to perform a .Mac bypass?

• An alternative web host (e.g. Media Temple)
• A version of iPhoto (I'm using iLife 06)
• Gallery software that "connects" with iPhoto
• Some photos (huh?)

Gallery software for "static" web-space

To a large extent your initial choice of gallery software depends on the capabilities of your web space; if you can upload only static pages (as with .Mac), you can't make use of solutions that require server-side scripting. If you want something very basic, you could just use iPhoto's built-in "Web page" Export plug-in (just upload and link to the exported pages):

If you want more options, Galerie is a free Universal Binary application (it's not a plug-in) that integrates with iPhoto to publish your pictures or albums with the press of a button (shown without configuration):

Gallery software using server-side scripts

There are several open-source photo galleries based on PHP and a back-end database, such as MySQL. Rob has written an informative write-up comparing Coppermine and Gallery.

I installed Gallery 2.1.1, which can be downloaded hereand installed as per these instructions. In case I need to do this again, to help my recollection, here's what I did:

• I used Transmit, an FTP client, to create a folder "gallery2" in my root directory (i.e. to http://www.bioneural.net/gallery2/) and Command-I to set the folder permissions to Octal: 755;
• I also uploaded the Gallery files into this folder using Transmit (it took an age);
• I created a storage folder called "g2data" within the "gallery2" folder (i.e. http://www.bioneural.net/gallery2/g2data/) to hold the photos etc. and used Command-I to set the folder permissions to Octal: 777;
• I downloaded and installed (into http://www.bioneural.net/gallery2/modules/) the Image Block, ImageFrame, RSS, and Remote modules that are not included in a "typical" Gallery 2 download;
• I used my hosting company's Web Control Panel to create a new MySQL database called "gallery2";
• I started the installer by pointing my browser at the Gallery installer at http://www.bioneural.net/gallery2/install/index.php.

Tip: Gallery handles non-Latin characters, which HomePage was never able to get right.

The missing iPhoto link

What about getting photos from iPhoto into Gallery? A plug-in for iPhoto has that covered; download iPhotoToGallery here. Before it will work you need to install and activate the Remote module that you downloaded (see above) in Gallery Admin.

Note: The Remote module is not to be confused with the Gallery Remote Java application that provides an alternative front-end for uploading images to Gallery.

Once installed, select the photos for export (as you used to do for HomePage) and choose Export from the iPhoto File menu. In the Gallery tab you'll have to add your Gallery URL (e.g. http://www.bioneural.net/gallery2/) the first time you use the plug-in. You can create new albums or add photos to existing albums, and batch scale them to you preferred dimensions. If you've made use of the comments area in iPhoto, you'll be pleased to hear these can be uploaded too (useful for dates, location descriptions, etc.);

What about integration with WordPress?

WPG2 is a WordPress plug-in that lets you use Gallery images in your sidebar or posts, and embed albums directly into your pages. WPG2 requires that the Gallery modules Image Block and ImageFrame (see above) be installed and activated. There is, incidentally, also a WP plug-in for Coppermine here.

A semi-embedded Gallery

Using WPG2 it's fairly easy to create a link to your Gallery so that your albums are shown between your WordPress header and footer—instead of your usual content—when you click a link. For example, the linked address of the embedded page would be:

http://www.bioneural.net/wp-gallery2.php

although the "independent" gallery remains accessible at:

http://www.bioneural.net/gallery2/main.php

This is just what Stuart did:

Tip: Stuart pointed me towards the Siriux Gallery theme as one compatible with the K2 WordPress theme. It was a good tip; the default, and even the WordpressEmbedded theme looked awful in K2.

A fully-embedded Gallery

I originally wanted my albums to appear within my site design under the "Photos" tab. I couldn't make this work, but Rob did:

Rob says:

You need to turn on the URL rewrite rules... make certain that your Gallery2 install directory name is different than URL rewrite rule that you ultimately want ("/photos").

Well, I was unable to configure URL Rewrite, receiving a PHP Path Info error.

Update 02.09.06: This problem seems to have been DreamHost-specific. No issues hosting with (mt).

Thus for a simple .Mac HomePage-style gallery, I found WPG2 to be too much trouble. Removing it and linking direct to Gallery (rather than embedding Gallery into WordPress) has several advantages:

• Pages load quicker;
• It doesn't mess with my blog design;
• It avoids invalid XHTML (the "independent" Gallery validates fine);
• It saves the bother of creating a custom WPG2 header and footer to overcome XHTML validation errors.

Update 02.09.06: I discovered a design-friendly way to embed Gallery into a XHTML-valid WordPress page without using a plugin. Details here.

A photocast without iWeb

The optional Gallery RSS module works in conjunction with the Comments module, giving you feeds for your images and comments made on them.

If you see a warning like Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in ../gallery2/modules/rss/Callbacks.inc on line 40, are you using the Siriux theme? It doesn't seem to be compatible.

Update 19.11.06: A hack for fixing feeds for the Siriux Gallery theme is here.