One of my more notable achievements during spring break was finally finalizing an XML format for Lightbox7.com files. Each account basically gets an XML file for a general overview of public albums (*HMYA*) and an XML file per album with image information (*HMYA*).

So what? ... who cares? You've published tons of XML files, Roy.

OH HO HO! THAT'S NOT ALL!

I actually GOT a proof-of-concept up that demonstrates what can be done and what I wanted to do from day one: allow users to install a lightweight script on their own servers to display their Lightbox7.com gallery.

Although this script (~5KB) was written in about two hours, it does show what can be done ... check out its implementation here. The gallery on roykim.net is now syncronized with my Lightbox7.com account; anytime I update my Lightbox7.com account ... it automatically updates my website's gallery. Even better is I have 100% control over the formatting; one HTML file controls the output of all three "pages" within the gallery setting (main listing, per album listing, image page). Right now the display is somewhat barebones because I just want to prove it works; I can easily tidy it up and make it pretty.

Even better, the images are still being served off the main Lightbox7.com server so I don't have to worry about wasted bandwidth! And I now do not need to worry about installing weird libraries like ImageMagick and GD or having to mess with server permissions to get a gallery script to work (which is a big problem for people on shared servers).

And you can now see the value of the reason I placed such an emphasis on the allow certain sites access to my images; you can essentially "block" all websites from hotlinking to the images except your own site.

I may get a lot of flak from Borst for this, but check out a non-working version (you cannot login and you really can't upload files yet) of the new Lightbox7.com uploader (Oh a note on the Lb7 uploader; you need Microsoft's .NET framework) that's in the works; this program will let you drag and drop images from your Windows folders into the program to upload to your Lightbox7 account; this lets you avoid the nasty web interface for uploading (forms were not meant to handle serious file uploads).

Conclusion
You can quickly see where I'm going here... users with personal websites can:
1.) Register a Lightbox7.com
2.) Install the lightweight script on their server that access their Lightbox7 accounts
3.) Upload tons of images using the program.. and have the images autoresize (as they always do)
4.) Have a full-fledged gallery script on their site, without wasting bandwidth or having to figure out how to install weird libraries to get the uploading to work properly.

Running a gallery was never easier ... I know a few years ago I was kicking myself because of how hard it was to make and maintain a photogallery online ... I'm hoping Lightbox7.com closes that gap and lets EVERYBODY run a photogallery online (while netting me some money too...).

I'm so excited about what the future brings for Lightbox7.com ... this is just a simple glimpse at the "larger picture" I have planned for Lightbox7.
Currently listening to: Eagles - Hotel California
Posted by roy on March 15, 2004 at 01:39 AM in Web Development | 8 Comments

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Want to comment with Tabulas?. Please login.

Comment posted on March 17th, 2004 at 04:16 PM
roy, you know you have to thank for the whole lb7 gig idea? me. me and my constantly bugging you about permissions because i was never able to run gallerires because of your stupid server permissions.

i\'ll only ask for 25% of all profits.
Comment posted on March 15th, 2004 at 02:03 PM
I like it, but if i use that script in gallery, am i only limited to 100 images?

Also i dunno, i think it\'d be cool if you install some lil script for tabulas as well so that everytime we update our tabulas it will update our journal on the site as well...
Comment posted on March 15th, 2004 at 02:26 PM
You\'re limited to however many images your LB7 is alloted; thus this gives you a darn good reason to upgrade ;)

Yes, the journal thing was what Tabulets was supposed to be; however implementation of images is much easier and I\'ll use this as a testbed so when I do implement Tabulets, it\'ll be right from the start.
Comment posted on March 15th, 2004 at 08:56 AM
thats fucking awesome man,
now how are you going to tell the world about it so everyone can get in on it? :)
Comment posted on March 15th, 2004 at 08:56 AM
oh and ps, you better make that exe file uploader a premium feature, that seems like a good cash cow to me ;)
Comment posted on March 15th, 2004 at 12:45 PM
Yeah it\'s going to be a paid-only feature for the most part; free trial for free users.

middle_aged (guest)

Comment posted on March 15th, 2004 at 08:39 AM
those are some cool features Roy! quick question about lightbox7. are you planning on adding a hit logging feature? i\'d love to see something like that on lightbox7 just to keep track of which photo has been viewed and stuff. wonderful work dude!
Comment posted on March 15th, 2004 at 12:45 PM
It\'s certainly something that\'s possible, but it probably won\'t be as \'advanced\' as the Tabulas system; tracking will probably just be a \"total number of hits per day\" type of thing.