Adding an Ajax Web Photo Gallery to Your Website for Amateurs. (based on My Own Experience)

I was recently found a new product from Vista Web Photo Gallery.com, http://vistaphotogallery.com/, an IT company. The new product has the same name, Vista Web Photo Gallery, http://vistaphotogallery.com/, and it helps users to create albums of photos and put them online. Vista Web Photo Gallery is announced as the only software that creates AJAX-powered on-line picture galleries without the need for server side setup. It means you just upload files generated by the program to your web server and it will run instantly, even if it’s a free web hosting without a cgi, php, asp, mysql support.

I’m not a pro of html design or web coding, so I wanted to find out how easy it is to make that “high-end image gallery apps that look and behave exactly like desktop software”. I downloaded the free test version of software from the VistaPhotoGallery.com web site http://vistaphotogallery.com/vistaphotogallery-setup.exe and installed it on my home computer (I’m on Windows).

After running through a fast installation procedure, Vista Web Photo Gallery opens on your desktop – and right away you see step-by-step hints in the main window on how to get your photo web gallery ready.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_OddNt6Ea0Ks/SQBm9bSq0eI/AAAAAAAAAA4/__8NSie5VFM/s1600-h/0.jpg

In short, you should drag and drop image files, add descriptions and tags, and then publish using “Publish Gallery” button.

Vista Photo Web Gallery’s interface is very simple and clear. You’ll see a toolbar running along the top, “Tags”, “Date Taken”, “Folders” trees at the left, and an picture data panel that runs beneath the main window. If you ever used the standard Photo Gallery software that comes with Windows XP or Windows Vista, you’ll find Vista Web Gallery very familiar.

I dragged and dropped some photos from Windows Explorer, thumbnails appeared in the preview window and the “Date Taken” tree at the left was filled with dates of images. Then I tried to drop four folders with my recent photos, more that 300 in total – no problem, all thumbnails were displayed in the main panel and folder names were added to “Folders”.

I very liked “Date Taken” tree functionality. All the pile of photos I dropped to the program, were sorted by date, so I could easily navigate through years, months and days of feelings and memories I’m already thinking about using this software as a organizer for all my photo collection. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_OddNt6Ea0Ks/SQBpj1D-eOI/AAAAAAAAABA/8LPcAMeUaxo/s1600-h/1.jpg

Vista Web Photo Gallery offers some options for working with tags, including the “Tags” tree and “Add Tag” field on image info panel. I added several tags and several captions for my photos without any troubles.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_OddNt6Ea0Ks/SQBp9imH8eI/AAAAAAAAABI/bq8WJjgcJXw/s1600-h/2.jpg

Ok, not bad so far. I had a photo gallery on my computer, but what about online gallery? Much to my surprise, generating the image web gallery was even easier than I imagined! http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_OddNt6Ea0Ks/SQBqd4iHHqI/AAAAAAAAABQ/796t3hus6eI/s1600-h/3.jpg
I clicked “Publish Gallery”, selected a folder to save, a couple of seconds, and .. WOW! The gallery was opened in my Internet Explorer, but at the first look I didn’t realize that it’s my finished photo web gallery! Great vista-like style design, the same “Tags”, “Date Taken”, “Folders” trees at the left with the same “on-fly” sorting and filtering, picture thumbnails with zooming on mouseover and changing the preview mode – all looks and acts as a Windows desktop application but inside the web browser.

Finally, I uploaded the folder with generated gallery to my free webhosting account at 50webs.com, http://eskolahti.50webs.com/, and it ran at the first try without any efforts from my side in spite of the fact that 50webs does not support PHP, CGI or any server scripts in free hosting plans. You can see my gallery at http://eskolahti.50webs.com/. It’s not a full web gallery I made, just a small part for public eye, but as a sample it’s very good.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_OddNt6Ea0Ks/SQBwHxi2-BI/AAAAAAAAACI/9uEWsR-KJH8/s1600-h/4.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_OddNt6Ea0Ks/SQBugOczBVI/AAAAAAAAAB4/bpbYNjBizXU/s1600-h/5.jpg

Vista Photo Gallery is an excellent software that is friendly to amateur website developers, but at the same time is powerful enough to meet the needs of more-advanced users. The advanced AJAX-powered engine is the key feature that makes photo galleries looks and performs great. I had some experience with other gallery generators before, but Vista Web Photo Gallery, http://vistaphotogallery.com/, is definitely best in both easy-to-use and final result.