A few days ago, I decided to take down the Library pages on my blog. Formerly, I was using the Now Reading plug-in to power the library aspect of my site. Ultimately, the plug-in was more work than it was worth – it didn’t have the greatest interface in the world, adding books was a pain, and every time I changed my theme I needed to tweak the templates to match the style of the new theme. I ended up spending more time messing with the library page layouts than I did reading.

I figured using a separate site to tracks my books would be easier, so I played with LivingSocial for a while after I joined FaceBook, since it was there. It was ok, but didn’t offer a way to note when you finished a book, which I liked about Now Reading. Being able to see how many books I read in a given year, or the order I finished them in, was nice.

That’s when I turned to Goodreads. Like LibraryThing, Shelfari and many other sites, Goodreads is a social cataloging site where users can track books they’ve read, are currently reading, or would like to read, and can share that information with other users. Each book is added to one of three “shelves” (to-read, read, or currently-reading), and can be added to any number of other shelves of the user’s creation. Additionally, users can record the date they read the book, the number of times they’ve read it, who they would recommend it to, who recommended it to them, and their rating and review of the book. Those features alone make Goodreads quite handy, but there are a few more ways to extend it that I like. You can display your Goodreads library on Facebook or a blog via apps and widgets, and there’s a bookmarklet for adding books to Goodreads directly from Amazon.

Hopefully now I can actually spend more time reading, rather than just queueing up books that look interesting.

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When I decided to go with Gallery2 rather that Zenphoto to power my photo gallery, I promised to go into more detail later, but “later” never really happened. I figured with the recent updates to both Gallery2 and Zenphoto, it might be beneficial to revisit my decision and follow my thought process, starting with what I personally want from a photo gallery, and re-evaluating the list of photo gallery options I compiled.

My Criteria

I’m looking for few things in a photo gallery, but I think it will be easiest if I divide my criteria into things I want for my benefit, and things I want for the benefit of my audience, which is mainly my friends and family. So, to start, things I want for me;

• WordPress Integration – I want to easily reference photos from the gallery from 2 different WordPress blogs, while keeping the photo gallery it’s own entity.
• Upload from Lightroom – I use Lightroom to manage and edit my photos, so it would help me if I could publish the photos straight to the gallery without the intermediary step of exporting from Lightroom first.
• EXIF/IPTC support – Using Lightroom, I assign tags, titles, descriptions and location information to photos using EXIF and IPTC headers. I do NOT want to manually re-type all that information.
• Slick Admin Interface – Rather subjective, really. I want a clean interface I can easily navigate.
• Easy Photo Organization – This kind of goes with the slick admin interface; basically I want to easily organize photos within albums/sets, and move them between albums if I reorganize.
• Archive/off-site backup – I’m hoping to be able to treat the photo gallery as an off-site backup, in case my hard drive ever fails. I have a DVD burner which I’m using to archive the photos, but an off-site backup would give me some peace of mind.
• Replace/re-upload photos – I continue to fiddle with photos on my computer after I’ve uploaded them; I want to be able to swap out the old photo for the updated photo without losing any comments it may have, and without having to re-add it to any albums/sets it may have been in.
• Embed/Link Re-sized Photos – There are a few photography forums that I read, but in order to participate and submit my own photos, I need to embed my re-sized photo, linking to my original. Anything that can make this easier for me is good.
• Protect Photos – While I generally want anyone to have access to my photos, I would like the ability to protect them, as well, either by password protecting certain photos or albums, or by limiting access to full sized photos.

There are also a few things I would like for my photo gallery, that would ideally make the experience easier for my friends and family viewing it. For starters;

• No Account Required – I don’t want to make my friends or family sign up for anything in order to view the public photos. Ideally they shouldn’t need to sign up for anything in order to comment, either, but I doubt my family would actually comment on photos at the gallery, so that is probably a non-issue.
• RSS – This is probably more for my friends than my family, as most of my family probably doesn’t know what RSS is. I would like an easy way for people to subscribe to feeds for either specific albums or the entire photo gallery.
• Easy Navigation – Again, rather subjective. I want an interface that is easy to navigate, and isn’t terribly confusing. If I have to explain to my family how to navigate, it’s no good.
• Search Ability – I would like the ability to search against all fields (tags, location information, decription, titles, EXIF data), and display the results cleanly. Like navigation, a bit subjective.
• Prints – It would be convenient if my family were able to order prints directly from the photo gallery. Not required, but definitely a convenience. Of course, if they could download the images and make their own prints, that would be fine as well.

While I would prefer an open source gallery option that I can host myself, I’m not completely against a commercial photo sharing site, either free or fee-based. My husband and I are paying roughly $6 a month for our hosting and domain names, but our space is finite. If we host our own gallery, eventually I will need to remove old photos, post smaller versions or only post select photos, in order to conserve space. With our present hosting plan we get 150GB of space, so filling it up is a long way off, but with the increasingly larger sizes of digital photos, it’s still a concern.

My Options

When searching for photo gallery options, I started at Wikipedia and came across this lovely comparison chart of photo gallery software, where I started my list. After eliminating a few gallery options that didn’t meet my criteria, I still had too many options. Checking out OpenSourceCMS let me view the admin screens without going to the hassle of installing each gallery option. After checking out the admin screens, I eliminated the galleries I didn’t like the looks of. When I started limiting the options to galleries which can easily interact with WordPress, my main options are down to Gallery2 and Zenphoto. Of course, if I widen my options to include photo sharing websites, I add in Flickr and SmugMug. There are other services as well, but those two best meet my criteria.

Option #1 – Gallery2

Gallery is the photo gallery option I have the most familiarity with, as I’ve used it for over 2 years now to host my photos online. It meets most of my criteria, but has a few failings. While I can make it interact with WordPress via WPG2, the plugin no longer easily allows interaction without embedding the gallery into the blog, which is aggravating. As for metadata support, Gallery does support EXIF and IPTC, however “Location” is not supported by default. There does not seem to be a way to easily link to resized images, or if there is I’m not aware of it. RSS feeds are available in Gallery, via a plugin, but need to be configured individually.

One of my bigger issues with Gallery, however, is the way it handles searches. When a search is performed, it will search tags, keywords, titles and descriptions, but can not presently search any other data, including EXIF or custom fields. The search results are rather rough looking, as well; all the results are listed, without distinguishing between an image or an album.

Option #2 – Zenphoto

Zenphoto is a photo gallery solution I’ve only become familiar with relatively recently, despite the fact that it pre-dates Gallery 2. I installed it briefly after moving from by previous hosting at ikith, but gave up on it as I was unable to move or rename photos or albums, which has since changed. Overall, Zenphoto meets almost all of my criteria. Presently, there’s not an advertised way to replace or reupload a photo, although since photos can be uploaded via FTP, theoretically I could just overwrite the file on the server with a newer version. Like Gallery, there is not an automatic way to link to resized images, but it can be done.

One of the main reasons I like Zenphoto is it’s search ability; all fields can be searched (including EXIF fields), and the search results are presented as an album which can be browsed. Additionally, dynamic albums can be created as a type of saved search; as new photos are added which meet the search criteria, they show up in the dynamic album.

Option #3 – Flickr Pro

I formerly used Flickr as my photo gallery, until I was introduced to Gallery by a friend. The primary reason I switched from Flickr to Gallery was cost; Gallery was free, and in order to create more than 3 sets on Flickr required a Pro account, which cost $24.95 a year. Flickr meets virtually all of my main criteria; it especially excels at the “sharing” aspects of photo sharing. It easily allows me to embed or link to a re-sized image, or make prints or other merchandise via the print service partners. And with a Pro account, I get unlimited space and uploads, so I can never fill it up, unlike a gallery I run myself.

Flickr handles searches a little better than Gallery, but not as nicely as Zenphoto; all EXIF and IPTC fields can be searched, but the results are simply spit out in a long list. And while Sets and Collections make sense to me, I’m not sure how easily navigated Flickr is for someone not already familiar with it. My chief complaint with Flickr, however, is a result of the fact that I’m not running it myself; I can’t change aspects I don’t like.

Option #4 – SmugMug

SmugMug was recommended to me as a more professional hosted photo solution, at a higher cost. Whereas Flickr Pro is $24.95 a year, SmugMug has three different plans going for $39.95 (Standard), $59.95 (Power User) or $149.95 (Professional) per year. It seems to meet most of my criteria, while looking a bit more professional than Flickr Pro.

I’m not sure how extensive the EXIF and IPTC support is with SmugMug – I know it’s supported, but I’ve not been able to view the EXIF and IPTC information in galleries beyond the standard title, description and tags. Without creating an account, I can’t really judge the the interface for the admin or photo management. The ability to replace or re-upload a photo is not advertised, but I can’t know for sure without creating an account. Beyond that, it fares well; member can choose who is allowed to comment or download images, and folks don’t need to sign up in order to leave a comment.

My Conclusions

Between the two open source options, I would lean towards Zenphoto over Gallery. My only real complaint with Zenphoto is my inability to replace photos, which I may actually be able to circumvent by simply overwriting the photo via FTP. I much prefer the search and dynamic albums of Zenphoto, and it now has support for the Shutterfly printing service.

Between the photo sharing websites, the decision is a little tougher. I prefer the design flexibility of SmugMug, but can’t necessarily justify the price difference. Of course, SmugMug has less controversy regarding censorship, leading me to feel my photos would be more safe at SmugMug than at Flickr. Without seeing the admin interface firsthand, though, I can’t really choose SmugMug over Flickr.

Final decision? I think I’m going to go with Zenphoto. It lacks some of the photo sharing and print service aspects that Flickr and SmugMug have, but I don’t really need them. For what is primarily family photos, I think I feel more secure having them under my own control.

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I am constantly amazed at how flexible WordPress is. Little over a year ago, I had only heard of WordPress, but had no real idea what it was. Then my husband started his blog, and I discovered it was like LiveJournal (which I had used for nearly 5 years), only better. Whereas LiveJournal was hosted, and locked you into a limited number of options, with WordPress you could host your own blog, and customize it however you saw fit. With a little CSS and PHP knowledge, you could change the whole look of your blog.

Even if WordPress was only used for blogs, it would still be worthwhile. After all, it’s free, highly customizable, easy to use, and can be hosted at your own domain. But with the large community of WordPress users providing plug-ins, you can use WordPress for more than just a blog. For example, at least 2 of the webcomics I read, Applegeeks and PvP, use WordPress to publish their comics. Using the YAPB plug-in, you can easily convert WordPress into a photoblog, allowing both photo posts and regular text posts. However you want to use WordPress, someone before you has probably already thought of it, and built a plug-in to do what you want. That freedom is what I like about WordPress; no matter what you want to do, you can probably manage it with WordPress.

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Earlier in the month I posted about looking for a reading list type plug-in for WordPress, and finding Now Reading. I’ve since installed it, and finished customizing my library. I’m happy with how it looks (for now), and have decided that in an attempt to both read and write more, I’ll post my thoughts on books as I finish them. Not quite as ambitious as the “52 in 52″ meme, where bloggers attempt to read & review a book a week, but a decent start, I think.

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As some of you may have noticed, I finally got around to implementing tagging a while ago, via the Simple Tagging plug-in. The categories in the sidebar are more like a table of contents, and the tags work more like the index at the back of a book. Generally, I’m very happy with the tags; I love having the list of related posts show up on the single view, and the Tag Cloud on the archive page makes it easy to find posts by specific topic.

My only problems are minor formatting issues, really. I want the Tag View page (the page you go to when you click a tag) to display just like it displays all the other archived entries. It does, mostly; I’ve made it use the same template that I use to display archived entries. The only problem is in the number of posts it displays at a time. I installed the Custom Posts Per Page plug-in ages ago, to dictate how many posts show up on given page views. On the home page, it is supposed to show 4 posts. On the daily view, monthly view, and search result pages, it’s supposed to show no more than 10 posts per page, and for all other views it’s supposed to show 999 posts. For whatever reason, the tag view page thinks it’s the home page, and displays only 4 posts.

The other minor bug relates to the footer. The 5 most recent posts and 5 most recent comments show up at the bottom of the page; on the tag view pages, the 5 most recent posts for that tag are displayed instead. The 5 most recent comments show up correctly, though.

I suspect the quirks may be related, but I don’t know for certain. My reasoning is that since WordPress thinks the Tag View is the home page (as the query property comes up true when I check if it’s the Home view), it’s using that same query to get the 5 most recent posts. I can create a workaround for displaying the proper number of posts on a tag view page, but I’ve exhausted most of my ideas for fixing the Recent Posts in the footer. Any ideas out there?

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So, I’ve been checking out “reading list” type plug-ins for WordPress, because I’m getting sick of just keeping a text file on my PDA of books I’ve read, and ones I want to read. Whenever I come across a book that looks interesting, it gets added to the text file, but then I forget about reading anything on the list until I come across a new book that looks interesting. Wash, rinse, repeat. I was searching online, and came across the Now Reading plug-in, which is great – it lets you add books to a “library,” and you can mark books as “Have Read”, “Reading” or “To Read,” along with other details like when you read the book, and your own review. There are some beautiful implementations of it (Example) as well. The author of the plug-in has a nice implementation as well (here). I really like that rather than hiding the reviews away in the library, where someone may never see them, he’s made each review into a post, and linked to them from the book summary in the library.

Of course, the “Now Reading” plug-in made me think about what else I might consider applying it to. It would be nice to be able to create a library of video games; what I have, what I’ve played, what I’m playing now, what I plan to play. And for movies, as well; what movies I’ve seen, what I thought of them, what movies I own, et cetera. Of course, I already have lists of what movies & video games I own; reviews could be easily accomplished by simply creating and using a “Movie Review” or “Game Review” tag. So would I really NEED to extend “Now Reading” to include Movies & Video Games? For how I would use it, probably not.

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I finished building my archive, and honestly, it was a lot easier than I expected. The default WordPress theme comes with an archive.php, so I just copied that, and modified it to match the rest of my theme. Essentially, I just copied the index.php and displayed the excerpt instead of the entire content. After browsing online to check out other archives in an effort to determine what I want, I decided that having an “archive” page is the way to go, if for no other reason than it’s convenient for browsing. Basically, archive.php controls how the archives are formatted, but archives.php is the page for navigating. After getting my archive up and running, though, I realized that while I know what plug-ins I’m using to format things, people without admin access have no idea what I’m using. So I figured I’d include a list of plug-ins I’m using, a colophon of sorts, in case anyone out there is curious.

• Glossy Blue Theme – Not a plug-in, but still worth listing. The theme I currently use, and love. It does everything I want, style-wise. Anything it didn’t do (like archives) I built myself. This is his first theme, if you can believe it.
• Widgets – For themes with a sidebar, this is fabulous. It lets you easily customize the sidebar without hacking the code. You can also easily downoad other widgets to add to your sidebar, and place them however you like. It’s like Lego bricks.
• Drop-down Archives Widget – I don’t have this problem yet, as I’ve only had my site running for 3 months, but the longer your site runs, the longer your list of monthly archives becomes. This widget turns that long list into a drop-down menu, to conserve space. Apparently some themes come with a drop-down menu for the archives, but enabling widgets will overwrite that option in the sidebar.
• Brian’s Threaded Comments – I LOVE this plug-in. I want to be able to reply to a specific comment, and not just have my reply be tossed at the end of a list of comments, so you have to guess what you’re replying to. I’m a huge fan of threaded comments, and this plug-in accomplishes it well.
• Custom Posts Per Page – This lets you change the number of posts displayed on various types of pages, without editing the reading options on the WordPress dashboard. If you want 4 posts displayed on the front page, but 20 displayed on the archives, this will do it.
• Clean Archives – This plug-in displays beautifully formatted archives. It breaks everything down by month, and further by day. This is exactly what I wanted for an archive.
• Polls and more – I’ve not actually used the poll plug-in or widget yet, but I’ve downloaded and installed them just in case. There are actually quite a few good widgets here. Definitely worth exploring.

And there you have it! A complete listing of all the plug-ins and widgets I use.

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So, I’m mostly happy with my blog. I have nested comments working, and some fun plug-ins for stats and polls (assuming I ever want to make a poll). The only thing I’m really lacking, is a calendar. I’m not even so sure I need a calendar, but it would be convenient. I’ve played with different calendar plug-ins before, and most aren’t bad, but seem to lack something. I’ve tried the one from firetree before, and it’s almost perfect. It lets you add future events, multi-day events, and subscribe to the calendar, which is cool. The only problem is how it adds events to the calendar; for whatever reason, everything is added to the calendar by the date of creation. While this is fine for posts, I don’t really want my static pages added to the archives, and I’d rather my events show up only when they’re scheduled, and not ALSO on the date when I created them.

I’ve tried a few other options, with not much luck. I’d like to be able to display and modify my google calendar from the blog, but I don’t know how feasible that is. Has anyone out there come across a calendar plug-in that they are particularly attached to?

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