I spent a few hours over this weekend trying out different gallery plugins. My requirements were simple but I stayed flexible and installed plugins that didn’t meet those requirements;
- Must not require a secondary application install (Gallery, CopperMine, et al)
- Must not require extensive modification of file-system permissions
- Must be simple to manage from an administrative stance
- Not exactly a must - Widget desired
Below, you will find my (short) list of Gallery plugins I gave a run.
WP-Gallery-Remote - This is the first one I ran into and decided to give a try. Obviously, this extension required an installation of Gallery. Not a big deal, takes 30 seconds to setup.WPGR Requirements:
- PHP 5 (Good! PHP4 BAD!)
- allow_url_fopen() enabled (Oops, bad. Most hosts do NOT allow this)
- Gallery installed
- Gallery-Remote Module enabled
- WordPress Lightbox Plugin
Right out the door, we have bad things. For those people who run their site on a Shared Host (ex; Go Daddy), this plugin will likely not work since allow_url_fopen is disabled and can not be enabled short of getting your own Virtual/Dedicated server.
The installation itself is as easy as any WordPress Plugin. Drop it in your wp-content/plugins directory and activate it.
The actual setup of WP-Gallery-Remote is also quite simple. Point it to a live Gallery install (with the Gallery-Remote module activated) and you’re off. There really isn’t much to say about this plugin. It’s simple, gets the job done.
I highly recommend this plugin if you already make use of Gallery. It’s rock solid and easy to setup.
In summary:
- WP-Gallery-Remote does NOT meet my specific criteria, but in the interest of fairness, it was reviewed.
- WP-Gallery-Remote does NOT come with a widget - It’s nice to be able to stick a few randomized pictures on a sidebar.
- WP-Gallery-Remote depends on Gallery. Fine for a professional photographer, but not that great for a casual blogger.
Rating: 4/5 Points
Next up: nextGEN Gallery
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