post updated on July 31, 2008 @ 11:07AM

The benefits of using a web-based service like Flickr basically has the same usefulness as a GMail account - you have a ton of space online¹ which you can access anytime.

Obviously I got frustrated having to juggle two “galleries” at the same time - so I did some searching for a gallery script that uses Flickr’s API.²

I found this:

It’s called the Lumis Gallery - a gallery script that interfaces with the Flickr API! It allows you to access Flickr data and display it in local pages of your webserver. It still boggles me why I searched for something like this only now.

I installed and modified it like I usually do - my new bad-ass gallery is the result. I’ve disabled a bunch of “features”³ from the Lumis Gallery which I didn’t think I needed and added some stuff in as well. Let me take you on a quick tour:

The default page you’ll be seeing would be the sets page - where it shows all current sets I have. Aside from the obvious layout/design change, the other modification I did here is that I added a link to toggle between the photostream and photo sets.

After selecting and clicking on a set, you’ll be led to the that particular set’s page as shown below. The modification I did here was to add a “slideshow” link - because I myself like viewing pictures via slideshow especially if there are a lot of pictures to browse through (saves a bunch of mouse clicks).

You can see from the picture that there are a bunch of cool features as well - like the instant image popup which gives you a quick glimpse of the image you’re mousing-over.

Clicking on a picture would lead to that picture’s detail page that shows all the information you need. EXIF data (if available), which sets the picture belongs to, its location in the photostream, the date it was created, etc.

The single coolest feature that sold me was that it even supported notes! Displaying comments (complete with user icons) is a nice touch as well. Normally, if the photo had notes, it would disable the lightbox feature (since it’s overlayed on the image) - I hacked it so it would have a little text link to the lightbox on the bottom left should there be notes.

The last “view” available to you would be the photostream⁴ which basically is a brute-force listing of all the photos [in order of date uploaded, newest first] on my Flickr account - it’s useful since you can immediately see if there has been new content uploaded from the last time you visited.

It also has some added features like [temporarily] re-sorting the images and setting the size/type of the thumbnails. Since it essentially displays individual photos, then you also have the instant image details popup available. And just like the set view, I also added a link to view the stream as a slideshow.

Basically the gallery pretty much behaves like Flickr does, and I have to say - the Flickr people know how design an intuitive user-interface. Not to mention editing/reogranizing/tagging/etc. is so easy to do.

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I’ve already adjusted my lightbox to now redirect everything to my new gallery - and of course the gallery in turn still has a link back to the images/sets’ respective Flickr pages - so I don’t think I’m breaking any terms of conditions here.⁵

I did however take out the “lumis” gallery copyright - not because I want to take credit for the gallery but simply because that’s how I have my design behave (no extraneous data).

To make up for that however, I’m more than willing to pimp/plug the Lumis Gallery whenever I get the chance (like what I’m doing in this post. Much respect goes out to the developer of the Lumis Gallery

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Well? What are you waiting for? Stop checking out the screenshots and visit the new Gallery for a first-hand experience!

post updated on July 31, 2008 @ 11:07AM