Create Web-based Photo Galleries

Coppermine is a powerful image gallery application from Sourceforge. It comes
with a wide array of features like multiple albums and assigning ratings to
uploaded pictures using star ratings.

Step 1: Installation

Set up a system to run Apache, PHP and MySQL. We used Win XP with the EasyPHP
package to do this quickly. You should already have GD Library installed if you
used EasyPHP. Else, download it from www.boutell.com/gd. Download Coppermine
Photo Gallery from www.coppermine-gallery.net
and upload all the files from the ZIP to your local Web server into a folder
named 'Coppermine' and start setting it up by navigating to: http://127.0.0.1/Coppermine/install.php
from the same machine. Follow the onscreen instructions and fill out the details
as required. Choose an administrator username and password for Coppermine, and
credentials for your MySQL database (as provided during the EasyPHP setup). Keep
the defaults suggested for the other values. Click on 'lets go' to finish.

Step 2: Customization

Login to your admin panel and customize your gallery according to your
preferences. Next you would upload the pictures into these albums using HTTP or
FTP.

While you can customize the height and width of the thumbnails, you can even
set how many thumbnails you want to display on a particular page. There are a
few built-in Coppermine templates available. You can choose one of them or
download others that are available over the Internet for free.

Users can upload pictures via HTTP using an upload form. Administrators can
batch add files via FTP to the albums folder and put them up for viewing.

Coppermine's powerful scripts allow image browsing, thumbnail views, keyword search and more with minor configuration

Step 3: Search for images

You search in two ways, either a text box search which has added features to
search by filename or search using keywords. Keywords can be added or changed by
the administrators at any point of time. Keyword search feature is quite helpful
for those who are new to your website and don't know how to search on it.

We recommend you take a backup of your pictures, because you cannot recover
pictures and albums once deleted. Coppermine gallery is also fully upgradeable.
If there is a new version out, you can simply upload its files via FTP and
upgrade to the newer version.

Sulabh Puri