Recent dealings I've had with my most recent client have certainly shown me that what the world lacks right now is a decent PHP gallery system. Seriously, everything out there right now is overly-complicated to use, and difficult to integrate with a website needing more than just a gallery. Why can't there be a gallery as easy to use, integrate, and customize as WordPress?

Let me shed further light on my current dilemma. What I have is a client who wants a website featuring a photo gallery, as well as a way to post news and other content. Simple, you might think at first, just base it all off WordPress and add a plugin or two for the gallery. But no... this client needs a fully-featured gallery with support for multiple users. So my next thought is, why not use one of the many wonderful PHP galleries available: Coppermine, Gallery, Singapore, etc. While each is pretty good in its own right, they all suffer from a few problems when it comes to site integration.

The biggest is that they all have a rather clunky UI; too many options, not enough guidance. All I want to do is upload a photo, why would I want to rename the file, and why oh why can't I make new albums as I upload images? Let's compare to how a similar situation is handled in WordPress: When I write a new post, it's very simple, I write it, and I then select categories for it. There, done. So, in a gallery, what I want is to be able to upload a photo, and then choose a current album, or create a new one to place it in. All on-the-fly. None of this making albums beforehand business that most galleries force you into.

Overly-complex UI aside, what else is wrong with all these galleries? Well... quite simply, theyre all loners. What I mean to say is, they don't integrate well with other platforms, such as forums, or blogs. This problem is two-fold: First, they're often difficult to theme, or skin, so getting a consistent layout can be a challenge. And secondly, backend-level integration, such as merging user databases, and providing an easy means to share content is a real chore. Some galleries are better than others in the second argument, where plugins are provided to add that level of integration, but it is still entirely up to you to create a consistent layout and look. This is also highly dependant on what you are seeking to integrate it with; only popular platforms seem to enjoy such plugins for ease of integration.

Back to my client, and how these problems apply, or don't apply. The target audience for this site is comprised of men, most of whom are 40-50 years of age, or older. For the most part, they are not computer-savvy at all, and getting used to a bad gallery UI will be a major problem for them. And for the client, administering it all will be even more tricky. Luckily for me, the client does not intend to have many people posting to the "blog" portion of the site, so user-integration is not needed. What will be a problem is theming the whole site to look consistent.

This leaves me in a tough spot, because on one hand, I want to create an attractive looking site with a unified look, but on the other hand, it needs to have a fully-featured gallery with all the fixings. I've already decided that I will use a gallery, and tack WordPress on for the site news portion that the client needs. So my task I guess is to create matching themes. If anything it will be a learning experience.