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Why Use a Custom Picasa Gallery?
I built this custom gallery out of necessity. I love Picasa, but disliked the fact that there wasn’t really any way to customize my PicasaWeb album—at all, really. So, I began researching other web storage galleries around the web: SmugMug, ZenFolio, Phanfare, etc. They all had pros and cons, but, most noticeably, they were too dang expensive, when compared to Picasa’s super cheap web storage!
The answer, I decided, was to utilize their API and build my own JavaScript-based custom gallery.
What’s Cool About It:
- AJAX based. No page loads!
- Store your photo gallery on a custom domain, like “photos.mysite.com”
- Special support for the latest modern browsers, including client-side storage, and a slider to zoom in and out the photos, just like Picasa’s desktop app.
- It’s 100% skinnable, unlike PicasaWeb. If you’re familiar with CSS , then dig in! Add your logo, change the color scheme, change the layout….that’s the whole point. Make Picasa fit your needs.
- Browse all of your albums via thumbnails, as well as a drop down list in the sidebar.
- Lightbox functionality
- Keyboard navigation
- And plenty more. Plus…this application is being actively developed. As feedback comes in, more improvements will be made!
Notes
- This custom Picasa gallery utilizes a decent amount of HTML5 type stuff.
What that means is that, the newer your browser, the better the gallery will perform and look. I recommend Google Chrome for personal browsing. However, this gallery will work Internet Explorer 7+. Just keep in mind that the presentation isn’t quite as sharp due to the browser’s faults. Nonetheless, it works. - Regular non-dev Joes don’t know how to work with databases and server-side coding. That is specifically why this app is JavaScript-dependent. It’s for both developers and casual users. What this means, though, is that this is dependent upon JavaScript being enabled in the user’s browser. Not a big deal at all, but should be noted.
This item is being actively developed, so expect numerous updates over the coming months, as suggestions roll in. Updating is free and super simple.