Topic: Bragging about album.pl

[Deskdirect]

I spent some time with a couple of web designers who showed off their new Photo Album..... well after I pointed them to my album.pl, and went on and on about the great program and all the support that Mike provides.... they had a question!

Mike, have you ever considered a php version of album.pl?

[Mike Bobbitt]

I have, but to be honest, I can't see what it buys to move to PHP. PERL is more ubiquitous, and I *think* I've been able to accomplish everything I would be able to with PHP. (With the help of ImageMagick, for example.)

I think moving to PHP would just narrow the audience of people who could use it. But please, correct me if there's something I'm missing out on, because I'm no PHP expert, that's for sure!

Thanks for spreading the word!

Cheers

[AllenAyres]

You can't accomplish anything with php that can't be done as well with perl It might be a tad faster if you had a mysql db to connect to, but the language itself is not a limiting factor. If you still think so, visit the guys at slashdot and their companion site: slashcode, they'll tell you something very similar

http://slashcode.com/faq.shtml#SlashCode1

[Daniel Hofverberg]

I agree with Mike. I hardly think the finished result (performance or feature-wise) is going to differ between using Perl/CGI and PHP.

Perl is also much more guaranteed to work, as there really is only one kind of installation for Perl (apart from the version number, of course).

PHP, on the other hand, can be a nightmare, as there are literally thousands of different combinations for settings and stuff, and every one of those can make a difference in whether or not a script will work. For instance, such a common thing as safe-mode can easily make some scripts not work... Not to mention open_basedir, register_globals, etc.

Before I started using album.pl, I tried a dozen of similar PHP scripts, but couldn't get a single one of them to work - Probably because my web host runs PHP in safe mode...

[Dino]

As you know, Mike, I'm a huge fan of Perl. I love it, since I use UBB, as well as your album.pl.

However, using PHP and MySQL may have major advantages when it comes to "sorting".

For example, I was at the SEMA Show in Vegas last November. I took a million pictures, of multiple cars, multiple trucks, multiple suppliers, as well as multiple components of those vehicles. Basically, if I want to sort albums based on components, trucks, manufacturers, etc, I have to basically duplicate the photos and create another subdirectory. It's a no-brainer, but it is storing the same picture in two different locations.

MySQL, which is a true database (Perl uses flat files to mimic a database), could easily allow for sorting.

Anyway, it's really of no importance to me because I've toyed with PHP bulletin boards, and even though they offer more features (like 'view last posts by x days', or 'view posts since your last visit'), they are harder to setup. And yes, indeed, PHP is a little faster than Perl.

Have you considered or thought about some type of sorting feature?  I'd be really interested.

If you want to see how bad my album.pl fetish has become (I absolutely LOVE this script), visit www.dinofilias.com and click on the Photo Archives and/or Video Archives icons. You can also check out the Community Album here:

http://www.dinofilias.com/cgi-bin/album/album.pl

If you want to see my issue with sorting, check out my SEMA Album here:
http://dinofilias.com/cgi-bin/album/album.pl?album=11sve/2002sema/zzshowinfo

[Mike Bobbitt]

Hey, Dino, good to see you back again!

One minor correction: MySQL can be used with PERL or with PHP, it's not stick to one or the other. (I use MySQL in the latest release to allow database authentication - works with UBB.Threads, Ikonboard, etc now...)

So in theory, I could use MySQL to store picture info, for faster indexing. Interesting idea, and I'll have to toy with it. Although much slower, the current flatfile system allows you to "drag'n'drop" albums and they maintain their consistency and info...

Your duplicate picture problem would be resolved by your link idea, which I have yet to implement. But I like it and think it's a good idea, so I won't forget about it...

As for the sorting, do you mean allowing the user to dynamically pick how they want the objects sorted? That's a good idea, even if it's not what you meant. You know (of course) that albums can be given a sort order by the admin, but right now they can't be easily changed, and not at all by the user...

[Dino]

Glad to be back, Mike.

By sorting, I meant allowing an admin to select different categories to become part of the metadata of an object... I guess filtering would have been a better word. For example, on my sema album, I have one album with static sub albums. Some of those sub albums have the same picture. For example, a Jeep picture might live in the Jeep sub album, Rocker Guard sub album, Truck sub album, etc. I just would like to find a way to only store that picture once. Probably making things too complex...

[Mike Bobbitt]

Ok, I get it... So your "link" idea would probably fit the bill here, right? I'm still thinking about ways to do that... Best case is it's a simple file with a text reference to the picture, and album.pl will parse that and treat it like the picture is right there (show title, views info, etc for it).

Things like updating the ratings and titles for a "linked" picture get a bit complicated. I want to make sure I think this through!!