Stuff I learned today:

• It is quite advantageous to take advantage of serialize() to store large amounts of options in a database without having to create a separate column for everything. For example, you could store all crossposting login information as one array in PHP, then serialize that data to a string, and store it in one column.
  • It's even MORE advantageous to compress that string using gzcompress() to save on hard drive space. In Tabulas' case, the database server is physically separate from all the other servers, so compressing the amount of data required to travel between database server to other servers is A Good Thing. However, when you compress, you want to make sure your column type is a BLOB since gzcompress() seems to return a binary string. Of course, when you do this, you don't want to forget to use mysql_escape_string_real() for the binary data; using addslashes() is useless!
  • Of course, if you are like me, you are very paranoid about user input, so to be on the safe side, Tabulas strips out all HTML tags by default (unless specifically overriden). But running strip_tags() on binary data ... can strip crucial characters out of your binary string, meaning it can never be uncompressed.
• PHP has built-in EXIF functions; just reconfigure PHP.

Things I've gotten done the past few days:

• Nested albums
• Square thumbnails just for the control panel (you have no idea how much more aesthetically pleasing it is)
• Image backups
• Thumbnail regeneration (allows you to recreate all your thumbnails and images)

I'm about one or two days away from finalizing all the features I want in the control panel for galleries. The only gallery-related feature that probably won't make it in to 2.1 is smart image conversions.

It also looks like I'm not going to hit my August 1st launch date for 2.1. Looks like I'm off by at least two ... three weeks. At the earliest. Apologies to anybody who's waiting (doubt it).

Alright, enough of this foolishness. Time to pass out.

. . .