Accessible Image Gallery Software

Hi

I am writing an application based on Perl and MySQL which sits on a Web 
server and allows archives of images (.tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .zip) to be 
uploaded, unpacked, thumnailed and registered in a database.

The database fields include a title, alttext/abstract, longdesc, credits 
and dates.

Images can be arranged into galleries; I am using a many-to-many 
relationship between the image and gallery tables in the database so 
that images can appear in as many galleries as required.

The system consists of two Perl CGI programmes, an administration module 
(hard work, this one!) and a client module.

I am about halfway through development and hope to have it all wrapped 
up and on test at http://www.kernewek.org sometime next week.

I invite your comments:

1) I would like to get access to the longdesc text of the images by a 
means accessible to "normal" browsers (I haven't been able to work it 
out in Mozilla); I've seen the "D" link concept, but on a page of 
thumbnails, this doesn't sound too practical since we would have a 
multiplication of link texts.  Ideas?

2) Am I going "too far" in proposing a completely text-only version 
(selectable by a link in the galleries) which comes out like this:
<h1>gallery title</h1>
<h2>image1 title</h2>
<p>longdesc for image1</p>
<h2>image2 title</h2>
...etc.
To me this seems just as valid to do this way in the same way that radio 
coverage of a spectator sport is as valid as television coverage.

3) Phase II will put see all the text finding it's way into the 
database, allowing language selection.  If anyone would be interested in 
helping in translating menu options, error messages, etc., into other 
languages, let me know.

4) All stages to accessible apart from the one where the operator has to 
look at the pictures and write up the longdescs!

Although this is work-in-progress, once a useable version is ready, it 
will be released under a choose-your-license basis (GPL or "Larry Wall" 
Artistic License).

Cheers

M

-- 
Matthew Smith
IT Consultant - KBC, South Australia
KBC Web Site    http://www.kbc.net.au
PGP Public Key  http://gpg.mss.cx

Received on Thursday, 15 May 2003 23:28:32 UTC