Confused about categories vs albums vs user-specific

[Thats Me]

I could not find an answer to this, after much searching.

Just as a preface, I'm a little confused by the different tasks performed by categories vs albums.

Specifically, I'm wondering why I can't place an album (from the album properties page) into my main category. My main category isn't even listed as an option. How can that be? Also, when I'm logged in as administrator and I go into Album Manager, there's this phantom *My gallery* listed as a category. That seems strange because I have all groups, including administrators, set to not allow personal galleries.

I would like to have one main category for all albums. Is this possible and, as administrator, can I set it up this way? Also, I really want to be able to manipulate my user-added albums - replace them into the main category whenever needed. My main users are kids and, ahem, they can be a little sloppy sometimes

I'm up to my eyeballs in skinning my theme, and I'm sorry if this is a silly question.

Feel free to view my installation in reference to this post:
http://www.emeraldallstars.com/emerald-gallery

Thanks for any help.

[Joachim Müller]

Public albums can be moved to the gallery root (no category). Not related to skinning, moving accordingly.

[Thats Me]

Public albums can be moved to the gallery root (no category). Not related to skinning, moving accordingly.

Ok, to clarify: if the album is "public" it cannot exist in my main category (the only category I have - the one that cannot be deleted)? I think I'm still not getting it...

[Joachim Müller]

The one you can't delete is the "user gallery" - it is not what we refer to as "public gallery", but a personal one. You (as admin) shouldn't be using it. Did you read the docs?

[Thats Me]

I did read the docs. I read them a few times, but I only managed to confuse myself more. I think my answer is to just keep at it until it makes sense! Thanks for your help, though. Your info has got me going in the right direction, at least! Sorry to bother.

[Joachim Müller]

All but one pic have been uploaded by the user GalleryDictator - that's probably you. So I guess, the main purpose of your gallery will be that you (as gallery admin) will upload the vast majority of pics. That's why you're not suppossed to upload to the personal gallery, but create public categories (you don't have to though, you can use the root category as well, which doesn't equal the "user gallery") and albums within it. With this approach, you have more flexibility when your gallery is going to grow. To give you an impression how this works, don't bother to move the existing pics for a second, but play with coppermine for a while to give you an impression what you can do (won't hurt to play for some minutes, as your gallery probably won't be hit by thousands of visitors a day as of now). Create public categories, sub-categories, albums within them. Upload test pics to those albums. Move albums around. Move pics around. Check the config options (e.g. "Number of levels of categories to display").
After having done this (once you're finished to play around), you'll get a much better understanding how coppermine works than reading any doc could ever give you. That's what my first approach to coppermine used to be: I tested every feature I could think of before making it live.
Don't use "user galleries" for admin purposes: they only have limited features and should be used as the name suggested: for regular users. You (as admin) shouldn't restrict yourself to the limitations the user galleries have.

[Thats Me]

Ok, Gau. Thanks. That clarifies the process for me and I will do what you suggest. The GalleryDictator album was just for testing purposes. But you're right, I need to play a lot more with the features before, ahem, freaking out  Your methods for figuring this all out are very clear.

Thanks again.

[glassparman]

OK, sorry for popping in on the thread but what if I WANT users to be able to create their gallery in the Categories that I want?

I need to keep these organized and I want categories and the user will be trusted to create their gallery in the proper category that I create.

I'm using 1.3 and it seems that users can only create in the user gallery and only I as the admin can create in the categories that I want.

My site is for a vintage boat club and the members need to be able to create their gallery in the categories that I create which are specific to the model of boat.

Maybe there is a hack or mod? I've looked around here but can't find what I want.

Thanks in advance,
Michael

[glassparman]

Sorry, I left my brain in the other room. I'm using version 1.4.5

[Joachim Müller]

Always make sure to use the most recent stable version (currently cpg1.4.8) - it's mandatory that you upgrade! Not related to your question though.
It is not possible to allow regular users to create categories nor albums within the public galleries. That's an exclusive admin-only feature and there's no workaround. Regular users can only create albums within their personal gallery (user gallery) if you allow them to actually have a user gallery.