PHPix - Photo Gallery

What is PHPix?

PHPix is a PHP, MySQL and jQuery powered online photo management software, that runs on a web server. There is an admin backened which is used to manage the photos and people who can access it. The interface looks like a smartphone gallery and highly touch friendly. If you click hundreds of photos every year and cant carry them all to your phone, this is for you. Once you click on fullscreen button, it is hard for anyone to know that it is not an app. Features :

• Highly customizable via themes, packages, animations, button sets.
• Touch friendly and desktop friendly interface.
• Users can crop, rotate and download photos to their devices on the fly. It used the power of users own device for this, so there is no extra load on server. So its good for wallpaper storage too.
• Photos can be downloaded in 4 different formats QHD, HD, Full HD and Original.
• Keyboard navigation is also supported in photos.
• Albums can by private or public. Private albums have option to share with specific people by their email login.
• Depending on the device capability, photos are served in different resolution by default. There are 4 formats, QHD, HD, Full HD, Original. User can force to override its desired quality.
• Option to create HTML pages, called notes that are mobile and desktop friendly which can be used for announcements or news.
• Logins are protected by Google's ReCaptcha v2 checkbox.
• Public photos can be shared on popular social networks.
• Slideshow for entire album, time can be chosen for transition.
• Youtube videos can also be uploaded in same photo album.
• Multiple file uploads can be done in admin management. On mobile, currently chrome works well.
• Different faces or spots can be marked with some info (Facebook calls it face tagging, we call it photo spots). If admin creates spot, it will be saved to db and every visitor will see it.
• If photos were taken in dark or you use a monitor with low brightness to protect eyes, use can set fake brightness setting which improves photo visibility without actually changing the device brightness.

What was the need of PHPix? How it is different from social network and other free online storage services?

1. Social networks does not give option to download the actual photo, they downgrade the size of photo to save bandwidth. It looks good for now, but in future when you have large screen devices, say 4k or 8k, a photo in 1024 x 768 wont look good. Social networks wont give you actual file so you will be stuck with low quality file. Storage services can store actual files, but browsing them like a gallery anytime can be difficult. Another big problem is privacy, when you are uploading data on social network or online storage websites, you are literally giving your data to them. There can be some private moment photos or secret documents, that you do not want to upload to third party websites at any cost.
2. PHPix is run on your own hosting and does not shares your files or photos anywhere. Further, there is a dedicated option to create a personal folder which can only be shared with specific people. Those people will need to login and verify their email accounts before they can access the album that want them to access.
3. It is a standalone product and released with MIT licence so that it is free for everyone and anything.

PHPix is a personal photo management web software where only admin can upload photos and will decide who else can see those photos. PHPix creates easy browsing experiance so that you or your family can view those photos anytime. If photos are kept public, they will be availiable for everyone to see. If they are kept private, admin will assign 1 or many users for that photo. Only those assigned users can access the private photos. Similarly There can be private album or public album.

How can it be useful? any examples?

Lets suppose you are the admin of a PHPix powered website.

Scene 1 : Lets say, there was a small party and there were many pictures taken. In most of the photos, people were singing, dancing, posing and drinking. Only there was a photo where a girl was pictured vomiting due to overdrinking and she dosent likes that the photo should be seen by anybody who was not in the party. Here admin can create a PUBLIC album with all photos and mark her photo as private with access to people who were present in party.

Scene 2 : Lets say, there was a secret meeting at your office and the girl in previous example was also part of the meeting. Some photos were clicked to keep a record of whoever was present at the the meeting. However the company do not wants anyone else to view the photos. Here admin can create a PRIVATE album with access to people who were present in meeting.

Scene 3 : You and your spouse clicked some photos of yourself together and want to keep it between only yourself. Here admin can create a PRIVATE album with access to spouse only.

Scene 4 : You are keeping a scanned copy of your dad's documents in a private album shared only with him, so that whenever he needed he can get it from website easily.

Now, a commom visitor will only see one album with party photos without that vomiting girl's photo.

The people at office meeting (except the girl at party) will see 2 albums, party photos(without vomiting photo) and office photos.

The vomiting girl at party will also see 2 albums - office and party(WITH VOMITING PHOTO)

Your spouse will see 2 albums - party and personal album.

Your dad will see 2 albums - party and secret documents.

You will see all albums and all photos. 

What can developers do for PHPix?

Developers can create many things for PHPix, some of the most demanding things are listed below

• Swipe animations (requires knowledge of CSS3 and 3D CSS)
• button sets (can be created with PNG or SVG images only, some knowledge of css can be useful, its not compulsory)
• UI Themes (CSS, images and creativity)
• admin themes (bootstrap based css themes only)
• packages (knowledge varies depends on what you are trying to make, just like plugins of wordpress)

As you can see, except packages, everything can be done with css only. You can click here for developer documentation.