I've spent the better part of my morning looking at my options for adding photo support to Panzer Grenadier Headquarters.
The two main paths are:
- bolt-on a mature, exhaustive photo gallery site
- craft a minimalist, custom implementation
The first option gets us up and running quicker, but has a huge amount of overhead and will introduce a great deal of features that we frankly don't need.
The second option is slower since I'd be writing it myself, but has the advantage of being built from the ground-up to suit our site.
Currently I'm leaning towards the second option.
In my mind our photo needs are very simple:
- each user has their own gallery
- galleries can be organized into sub-folders (BGG can't do this and I hate it)
- photos can be easily added to AARs
- (possible bonus feature) photos can be tagged with subjects (ex: "Road to Berlin") and automatically placed into that item's gallery
I don't think people need to be able to crop photos, or rate photos, or add overlay text and whatnot - all features that are standard in the big packages.
The implementation I'm visualizing goes like this:
My PG-HQ - we add a new tab "My Gallery" wherein you can upload whatever you want. Images are automatically resized to fit PG-HQ's dimensions, but originals are saved for click-through viewing at full size. You can organize your gallery however you please with subfolders. Other members can browse your gallery via your profile page.
AAR Editor - we add an image sidebar full of your image thumbnails. Clicking an image adds it to your AAR.
That's it. Super simple, but satisfies basic requirements.
Comments?
[New Features] musings on photo support