I have had an idea for a while now and am just starting to research it. I am a semi-artist (painter) and enjoy doing it for a hobby. I have always thought it would be nice to allow amateurs like me a site to upload their work to for show.
I know there are photo sites (like smugmug, sitewelder) out there but have not seen anything for artists, not yet at least.
I do work as a web designer/programmer but am a little lost at how the application process for this type of site would begin.
If I want to allow users to register and have a sample gallery/mini site with mydomain.com/theirname or perhaps down the road, using their own domain with a pointer, would this be easier to just run plesk or helm to control their sites?
I do want to code a control panel for the users where they can select templates, upload photos, so this would be outside of plesk/helm.
I guess my question would be, can it be coded where someone can start a registration and get a directory writeen to the server with pre-designated files (their control panel and folders to work within) or do you think it would be easier for this process to use helm/plesk or something along these lines?
I know what the end product is I want, just need to get pointed in the right direction.
Have you ever used WordPress before? It works well as a basic CMS, and easily allows users to upload images/media and display them in a gallery format.
This would mean that the site owner would be able to create/manage a basic website (with pages, images, galleries and a blog).
WordPress would work fine for a single artist’s site, however there is also WordPress MU, which is a multi site version of WordPress that lets people sign up and create their own WordPress powered website.
This would mean that an artist could sign up and create theirname.yourdomain.com (their own wordpress powered site), then later on (if you use the wordpress mu domain mapping plugin), allow them to change it to theirname.com if they wanted.
Thanks, I actually never considered WordPress. That might just work but I would need to review the plugins to see what is available of course. If anything it is probably more than what I would want. I want to try to make it as easy as possible for people to use without a whole lot of features. I do suppose the WP community is pretty large too so hiring someone for specific areas may prove to be fruitful
Look like you need some thing like flickr.com, this can only done with custom coding. If you know programing language like php, asp, etc… you can do it. It is nothing to do with helm/plesk, you need to code it youself.
If you just need a photo gallery with option for users to upload images, try
Thanks, yes I think we will be going custom, that was my original idea. I plan purchasing an open source user management system and building off of that. Basically, I guess, I am wondering (I am sure it is) if htaccess files and folders can be copied into a new folder after the user completes registration. I think having this added to the end process would be best. Would be good to pick a php guru’s head a bit on this one.
User management is not difficult, you just need a user table, allow user to signup, activate, login. That is easy to code. If you are going to do rest of the things yourself, better do this custom as it is much easier. As for user folders, you can handle it with .htaccess