How to set up an image gallery in Drupal

How to set up an image gallery in Drupal 6 using modules including Node_Gallery.

Minimum modules

You will need an image gallery module. Node_Gallery is a popular choice and is under active development. Node_Gallery installation and configuration is described in a page about Node_Gallery.

Node_Gallery requires Imagecache so set up Imagecache before Node_Gallery. Installation and configuration of Imagecache is described in Imagecache.

ImageAPI provides an image processing service to Imagecache. Install ImageAPI before Imagecache.

Installation

1. Install ImageAPI.
2. Install Imagecache.
3. Install and configure Node_Gallery.

Optional modules

If you like lightboxes for image presentation, you will need Lightbox2. Lightbox2 is the best choice and works with Node_Gallery. Lightbox2 installation and configuration is described in Lightbox2.

Control who views your gallery with Node Gallery Access.

Create a gallery

Select Create content » Gallery. Fill out the gallery information exactly the same as filling out a page or story. After you create the gallery, you will see extra tabs to manage images, sort images, and upload images.

The image upload tab defaults to five upload selection boxes and you can change the settings to upload more but you might run into problems with you Web browser or the server receiving the uploads. There is a bulk upload option under development and that will lest you select a directory then upload all the images in the directory.

You can, by default, upload .gif, .jpeg, .jpg, and .png files. Change the settings to uoload other types of files.

The upload size limit default is 2 megabytes. You can change it up until you hit the PHP file size limit, which is often 8MB. You then have to change the PHP settings, something that is easy in your own server or a VPS (Virtual Private Server) but can be difficult in shared hosting. There could be other limits in a shared hosting environment. There are also Drupal add-on modules that set quota limits of various sorts.

To be continued

I am creating galleries while writing this page and trying some of the add on modules. Visit this page again next week to see more information.