Coppermine Photo Gallery v1.5.x: Documentation and Manual

Table of Contents

Albums

In Coppermine, uploaded files go into albums. Albums can contain files, but not sub-albums. Albums can go into categories. Categories can contain sub-categories and albums, but they can not contain files.

In Coppermine, permissions go by album: you can assign permission for your users to upload to particular albums and disallow uploads for other albums. You can explicitely allow or deny comments or rating permissions per album.

The Album Manager

Coppermine stores files inside of albums, so you'll need at least one album for your pictures/files to be placed in. Albums can be stored in categories (but they don't HAVE to be in a category, they can just as well go into the coppermine "root").

When you click on "albums" in the admin menu, you will see the Album Manager.

Creating albums

Renaming albums

Changing the album order

Deleting albums

Modifying albums/files

When you are logged in as admin and haven't switched admin controls off there is a menu displayed next to each album

Album properties

The album properties page can be accessed by clicking on "Properties" item next to the thumbnail that represents a particular album.

Controls

Reset album properties

You can reset the number of views count and total ratings in the album properties panel and even delete all pics at once in the sub-section "Reset album" by ticking the desired checkboxes and then submitting the form. To prevent accidental resets, you will have to place a tick on the checkbox "I'm sure" before changes can be submitted (the button will be greyed out (disabled) if you don't).

Use these options with care: the deleting of files is irreversible, as well as the reset of views and ratings (you can only restore views and ratings by manually editing coppermine's database entries with third-party tools like phpMyAdmin - not recommended).

Admin vs. user

Non-admin users can not create albums in public categories by default. Only the admin can create albums there. Starting with cpg1.5.x, there is an option to allow non-admin users to create albums in categories created by the admin. To accomplish this, go to the category control panel and use the "Allow group to create Album" dropdown to specify what user group is allowed to create albums within that specific category.

If a non-admin user belongs to a group that is allowed to have personal galleries (configurable on the groups manager), he will have a reduced album manager page as well (named "Create / order my albums") where he can create albums within his personal gallery (aka "user gallery").

The admin can create albums within all categories. If you want to create a personal album as admin, choose "* My Gallery *" as parent category for your personal album.

Album FAQ

How do albums and folders work in coppermine?

  1. When you create an album, it is a dynamic 'virtual' album. Coppermine doesn't create a physical folder for this album on the server's hard drive, it leaves the pictures where you put them on the server, and uses the database to know which pic belongs in which album. You can move pics from album to album in Coppermine, but it's all done in the database, the pics are never moved on the server.
  2. When you upload by html, using the 'upload' link, coppermine places the pic (and the thumb and normal size copies) in the 'userpics' directory.
  3. When you upload by ftp, you should place the pics into folders that you create within the 'albums' folder, but never in the 'userpics' folder. The 'userpics' folder is reserved for html uploads only. You can create as many folders/sub-folders for FTP uploads as you want. (Many webhosting services will recommend that you keep the number of files per folder under 500 in order to maximize speed and certain functions. This means you can upload up to 500/3 files in each folder.) You can name these folders anything you want, but we do recommend mirroring the category/album structures that you have created, whenever possible, to facilitate ease of use and site management.
  4. When you batch-add files that you have already FTP'd to your site, coppermine asks you what album you want to put the pics in, but it leaves the pics where they are on the server.

How can I move albums from one category to another?

How do I create an album that all users can add photos to?

(Assuming that you have already created at least one category and/or one album where the uploaded photos should go to):