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image upload/delete/browse/search site... where to begin???

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:32 pm
by visitor-Q
i'm creating a website (have not even began coding) for a photographer. however, he does not want one site for all of his clients, he wants me to create a new site for each of his clients, which i have no problem doing. however the upload, and search forms will be the same on each of his client's sites. the photographer said the client does NOT want to require registered user access, he wants it to be entirely public. each of these sites i will be hosting on my own apache server, by the way. this is where i need a little advice...

1) do i need an image library like gd library or image majick? i believe i do, because i have every intention on creating thumbnails upon image upload. if so, which one would you advise to use and why?

2) what method of storing these photos would you recommend i use? i've never done this before so i really have no idea where to begin. would i turn apache into a file server, and then upload the images to the file server through the upload form, then use a mysql database to store the names of the images, and browse through them using the names appended to the path to the file server? or does the image library store the images? which would be faster?

other than that (which is the most important parts of developing this site) i've got no problem setting up the search tool or browsing or anything like that. i just need a little information on how it will all work 'behind the scenes' and i can take it from there.

i'll give you an example of the first site i'm working on for this photographer. he was hired to take photos for a wedding. however, all of the guests themselves took their own digital photos. since these different guests live in different areas of the world, they wanted their own website where they could each go online and upload their own images to the site, and then browse them and search for specific photos. i assumed the names would be stored in a mysql database, but i've got no idea how to handle the files themselves. so basically, there will be an admin page where they can upload, rename, and delete photos. then there will be a browse and search images dynamically. this admin page is actually public, just like the browse and search pages. however, to authenticate the users browsing the site i will be using an apache certificate with a username and password where every member of the family can type in the same username and password and immediately have access to the entire site (admin AND public pages). does that make sense? this is the way the photographer's clients want it to be done. so, i know how to do the user authentication, i know how to write a search tool, i know how to display results dynamically... but i have never worked with file uploads and storage and deletion and renaming, or gd library. so, that is really what i need help with. does that help a little?

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:43 pm
by feyd
  1. If the site(s) only need to support the images supported by GD, use GD. Otherwise, ImageMajick can handle it.
    1. The file system is best suited for storing files.
    2. Use the database to keep track of the associations with users and so forth

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:48 pm
by visitor-Q
feyd wrote:
  1. If the site(s) only need to support the images supported by GD, use GD. Otherwise, ImageMajick can handle it.
    1. The file system is best suited for storing files.
    2. Use the database to keep track of the associations with users and so forth
that's exactly what i thought. i would only use GD library to generate thumbnails on the fly, correct? would gd provide any other useful features given my objective?

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:52 pm
by feyd
Conversion to other (supported) image types, basic compositing, and adding text to the image are typically available without added configuration.