General Questions

[Holdcard]

Sorry if this is not the correct place to post this. I couldn't find a place listed for general type pre-installation questions.

I do some volunteer photography for my grand daughters brownie troop. I want be able to post the pictures in a private gallery, but let the parents delete the pictures once they have saved them. I also don't really want them to be able to upload either. I'm looking to set this up as a one way situation for now. Is this possible with Coppermine?

I have plenty of space on my host now, but that could change after a few dozen troop meetings. Or if everyone starts posting their pictures.

Please keep in mind I'm really new at this, I'm not a programmer nor do I play one on TV. I'm interested in Coppermine because it looked very easy to install and set up. So if I have to decompile and rebuild it to make it work I may have to pass.

I'm asking now because I don't want to spend days trying to figure out how to do something that's not possible.

Thanks

Holdcard

[Joachim Müller]

This is not possible. Only the user who uploaded a pic can delete it (and of course the admin can).

I recommend this: you'll be the uploader, you will set the gallery to be accessible only for registered users, and you disable user registration. This way, nobody but you will be able to access the gallery in the first place. You will then (as admin) create user accounts for the parents (you know them, so you could pre-register for them and give them their user name and password when you meet them next time). Subsequently, your parents will be able to access the gallery, but nobody else. This way, you have made sure that no unauthorized people get access. This part of your question can be done using coppermine's built-in features.

On to the second question (how to make sure that files get deleted once all parents are done downloading them): It is impossible to track if a picture just has been viewed or if it has actually been downloaded, because technically this is the same (the browser downloads the pic when accessing the page that it is embedded in). The suggestion is to delete pics once they have existed for a defined time span on your gallery - delete all pics to save space once they have existed on the gallery for 3 months or so.
As a workaround, you could use coppermine's comment feature: make your parents post a comment to pics they don't need any longer. You (as admin) will have to delete the images anyway.

HTH

Joachim

P.S. A package like Coppermine doesn't get compiled, as PHP is an interpreted scripting language. No need to  worry though.

[Holdcard]

Thanks for the reply. I can certainly live with the suggestions.

Now, how hard is the bridge between phpBB and Coppermine?

I'm a little overwhelmed at some of the mods for phpBB, you have to modify a lot of things by hand and for a guy that's already in over his head, well.....

Thanks again,

Holdcard

[Joachim Müller]

Thanks for the reply. I can certainly live with the suggestions.

OK, marking thread as "solved" then.

Now, how hard is the bridge between phpBB and Coppermine?

Not hard at all. You use the bridge manager as suggested in the documentation. However, we have a strict "one question per thread" policy that you agreed to respect when signing up. Therefor, read the bridging section of the docs, do as suggested there. If you have troubles with it, start a new thread on the board "cpg1.4 (BBS) integration / bridging".

I'm a little overwhelmed at some of the mods for phpBB, you have to modify a lot of things by hand and for a guy that's already in over his head, well.....

I can understand that, but phpBB mods are none of our business. This board deals with Coppermine, not with phpBB.