Gallery Server Pro Roadmap

I recently put together my development roadmap and wanted to publish it to keep everyone in the loop. Many of the new features came from your suggestions in the Features Request forum. Keep 'em coming!

There are no guarantees that I will stay on schedule or that the final features and bug fixes will match what I have here, but this is my best guess at the moment. I welcome help from anyone who wants to lend a hand - feel free to tackle any of these issues or brainstorm your own improvements. Just make sure you coordinate with me so we don't step on each other's toes.

The number by each item is my internal tracking number. Refer to this if you contact me about one of them.

Version 2.1 (due August 2008)

New features

• Create SQLite provider and make it the default data store. This removes the dependence on SQL Server and will greatly simplify the installation process as well as reduce hosting costs. Users can still use SQL Server if they wish. (#81)
• Enable data backup and restore functionality. This will allow easier migration from one server to another as well as between SQL Server and SQLite. (#50)
• Add support for playing video and audio with Silverlight, including those hosted on Silverlight Streaming. (#77)
• Add support for playing videos hosted on YouTube. (#78)
• Consolidate language resource files into the minimum possible number of files. This will allow for easier translation. (#80)
• Allow real-time feedback of upload progress under IIS 7.0 Integrated Pipeline mode. Currently it works only in IIS 6 and IIS 7 Classic mode. (#83)
• Make it easier for users to financially contribute to Gallery Server Pro. (#84)
• Ability to run under .NET 3.5 without MS Ajax 1.0 installed. (Not sure if this is possible without switching to requiring the .NET 3.5 runtime, which I am not going to do.) (#85)

Bug fixes

• Adding an album to a parent album that has just been deleted causes InvalidAlbumException. (bug# 78)
• Synchronizing video and audio files does not update the original width and height values. (bug# 80)
• Image metadata is sometimes extracted as the text "System.Int64[]". (bug# 87)
• An album title with a trailing period or space causes an exception. (bug# 90)
• Fade effect causes white specs in black areas of photo in IE. (bug# 91)
• Cannot manage users when passwords are encrypted. (bug# 94)
• Out of memory error when adding very large images. (bug# 95)
• Apostrophe in user name or role causes edit user/edit role dialog failure. (bug# 97)
• File lock not released in certain circumstances (bug# 98)
• Incomplete error information if an exception occurs when adding a user (bug# 99)
• Adding a user sometimes never returns from "Communicating with server..." message (bug# 100)
• Cannot manage users with ActiveDirectory provider (bug# 101) (See thread for workaround.)
• Album stats count hidden albums (bug# 102)
• URL occasionally incorrectly calculated when installed as root application (bug# 103)
• User cannot change password if e-mail functionality is not configured (bug# 104)
• User cannot change e-mail address on account (bug# 105)
• Certain images that previously synchronized fail during subsequent synchronizations (bug# 106)
• Dialog window with the text "true" sometimes appears when clicking the Show metadata toobar icon (bug# 107)

 

Version 2.2 (due December 2008)

New features

• Wrap Gallery Server into one or more user controls. This will allow much easier integration of Gallery Server Pro into existing web sites. (#92)

 

Version 2.3 (due 2009)

New features

• Add virtual album support (# 90)
• Increase robustness of synchronization (# 111)
• Add more sorting options (# 91)
• Allow metadata to be edited (# 89)
• Allow users to comment on media objects (# 95)
• Allow users to self register user accounts (# 96)
• Retain log of web errors that can be reviewed in Site Admin area (# 97)
• View log of user and gallery activity (# 98)
• Allow album ownership as an alternative to role-based access (# 99)
• Make it easier to view relationship between users and roles (# 102)
• Add checkbox on "Delete hi-res images" page to allow recursive deletions (#8)
• Add quota per user (#27)
• Fix unintuitive checking/unchecking of albums in treeview (#28)
• Let user see album view while viewing individual media object (#33)
• Provide option to discard original image during upload (#36)
• Improve upload progress bar to include zip file extraction progress (#38)
• Make thumbnailPath and optimizedPath optional fields in galleryserverpro.config (#48)
• Allow user to specify media object location during install wizard (#51)
• Add a config setting that controls the "Remember Me?" checkbox on the login page (#52)
• Tweak the spacing on the Password tab in Edit User dialog (#53)
• Allow album date start, date end, date added, date last modified to be searchable (#58)
• Allow deleting multiple albums from the Delete objects page (# 66)
• Allow paging of thumbnails on album view page (#70)
• Allow install wizard to install a second gallery in same database (# 71)
• Allow relative references to outside the web folder for media objects (# 72)
• Add option so user always downloads original image rather than displayed image (# 73)
• Do not include file extension in caption when using filename in media object caption (# 74)
• Prevent user from specifying a subfolder of the media objects directory for thumbnails/optimized. (# 75)
• Extract thumbnail image from Shockwave Flash file (# 79)
• Decrease time it takes to delete albums and media objects (# 86)
• Allow user to download multiple objects in a single ZIP file (# 87)
• Add additional information to metadata list, such as file name, file size, data uploaded, etc. (# 88)
• Extract GPS coordinates from media objects and offer mapping service (# 94)
• Add slide show duration setting to Site admin section (# 100)
• Add ability to view recently added media objects (# 105)
• Improve workflow of assigning thumbnail image (# 106)
• Add ability to start a slide show from the album view (# 109)
• Add role permission "Edit child albums" (# 110)

 

Version X.X (who knows when I can get to this)

• Create client utility that provides an improved UI for copying media objects to server. One feature it could have is to create optimized images on the client and upload those instead of the originals. This could be a great project for one of you developers out there!

- Roger