GalleryRemote.NET
GalleryRemote.NET is a brand new desktop application for uploading photos to your Menalto Gallery photo album. It was developed to help move the Gallery Remote desktop application and API forward by re-setting expectations of what should be possible with them.
Core to the new GalleryRemote.NET application is the ability to work offline, adding albums and photos with summary / description / caption. Part of this ability is the optional local caching of gallery data on the desktop to speed up the application responsiveness. This is designed specifically for people who only update their album from the desktop, although it is possible to delete individual album caches to force a refresh.
GalleryRemote version 2.0.0 offers significant improvements over previous versions of this, and any other, Gallery remote application.
Release 2.0.0
Version 2.0.0 of GalleryRemote.NET is the final version for Gallery 2.x installations. As you will notice I skipped a few numbers to get here
but it means it is nice and clear which version you need to be running. The new Gallery Remote application (version 3) will support Gallery 3.x installs.
In this release I provide an easy way to enable and use updates to modify descriptions, keywords, captions and titles of images already
uploaded to the site. As usual there are also a raft of other enhancements and tweaks to make things a bit nicer.
Release 0.7.0
Version 0.7.0 of GalleryRemote.NET adds keyword support for albums and images. The download is now available via the release page and the
update service.
Release 0.6.1
A small update to the release from yesterday has given huge memory improvements when adding large jpg files. For more details about the release see the release details below.
This update will NOT be rolled out automatically via the update service.
Release 0.6.0
For full details on this release visit GalleryRemote.NET 0.6.0 Release notes page.
This is the initial public release of the application and is considered pre-release, that is to say, it has been tested and verified working but there may be stability or performance issues for users.
I recommend you ensure remote updates are enabled within GalleryRemote.NET to ensure new releases are pushed out to you when they become available. This way you are always sure to be using the most up to date release.
If you are experiencing issues with the application please email GalleryRemote at this domain with as much detail as you can. At least:
- GalleryRemote.NET version
- Gallery version
- Gallery Remote API version
- Operating system version / .NET runtime version
Before emailing please ensure you are running the latest application version and you have checked the known issues list for a description of your problem.
Road map
The following list of features represents a rough road map for this application. Many of the features will depend heavily on the development of the official Menalto Gallery Remote API. Features may be moved, removed or added to between releases please check the release notes of the current version to see how things are progressing.
- Support for modifying photo data (title, description, etc)
- Support for modifying album data (title, description, permissions, etc)
- Improved cache handling
- Improved memory management
- Help documentation
- Mono project compatible (almost achieved)
- Automated Search engine optimisation (partially complete)
- Localisation support
- Extensions to accomodate API improvements
API Development
I hope to become involved in the design and development of the official Menalto Gallery Remote API to ensure that the API is progressed in line with the core application and make many of the features below possible. These features represent what I believe is required to make the remote api fully functional and improve the user experience while administrating large galleries.
- Soap / XML based interface (rather then form post)
- Allow for modifications of existing data
- Allow for removal of existing data
- Enable compression of communications
- Enable volume uploading through a single call
- Allow basic Gallery installation management through Gallery Remote
- Create Gallery Remote API-API so plugins can become Remote enabled
Mobile Edition
The core GalleryRemoteAPI is designed to work with the .NET compact framework. This support is still being worked on. the .NET CF platform has made a number of significant cutbacks to reduce the footprint, predominantly for me the Binary serialisation is unsupported.
Moving forward the formatters used to save data in the desktop application will be changed to a generic formatter which will be cross framework compatible. In addition it is hoped some serious size and time savings can be made.
In addition to this there is also a requirement to:
- Dramatically improve cache handling for memory impared devices
- Completely redesign UI for smaller screen
- ActiveSync/cache sharing between Desktop and handheld devices.
