Hello, I’m on the final run of really upgrading to EE2 for one of my sites and have been mulling over the best way to deal with files I had previously used the Photo Gallery for in EE1. I would appreciate any thoughts, suggestions, or advice any of you may have - please and thank you. 😊
In short, it’s a graphics resource download site (textures, brushes, stock images, various designs, etc.) and now that I’m doing a lot of restructuring along with the upgrade, I’m stuck with wondering how I should handle the “file view” types of downloads like large textures, stock images, and wallpapers. I’m aware that using single entries per image in Channels is essentially the same thing as how the Photo Gallery worked before, but one question I have is whether doing this is overkill (especially if it could significantly add onto server load for something that may be better off using a different solution).
A quick description of what I need and don’t need for these “galleries”:
- Thumbnails, when clicked would take the visitor to the original file/image in full-size where it can then be saved/downloaded if they decide they want it.
- I don’t need thumbnail generating or even file upload and all that.
- The ability to pull or display the size and dimensions of the image would be ideal.
- View count would be great but not absolutely necessary, as depending on the situation, I can probably always utilize a link counter if I really want it.
- I don’t need to have descriptions nor commenting available at all. A title for an image may be ideal for some sections, but otherwise isn’t particularly important either.
- Lightbox style of displaying images on current page will NOT be ideal, as some of these images can be huge in dimensions - much too big to be displaying that way.
- Automatic pagination, depending on how many thumbnails are set to be displayed per page.
It’s really a very basic type of “gallery” for the lack of a better word - I purely just need a simple way for my visitors to be able to click on a thumbnail, view the original image, then save if they want it. I mean, is using a single entry per file just to paste in an image location really the most efficient way to go about it? Especially when I don’t need any of the other stuff that comes with a single entry and the fact that these “galleries” will only keep growing?
I’m also, of course, wondering/worried about server load (I’m on shared Dreamhost) and what kind of impact several sections on my site built like this will have. It may or may not be significant, but if there’s a better way that could use less resources, I’m all for it!
Please, I would love to hear what you all think. I’ve been going in circles about this and it’s holding my entire project back because I can’t decide - and obviously, whatever I go with, I intend for it to be in the long haul as I’d hate to have to restructure again.
Thanks very much!