I want to use the gallery simply to display images and descriptions. I don't want the users to have any extraneous links: admin mode, upload file, none of that stuff. However, I still need a usable admin section with all of the relevant buttons.
Is there a way to have two themes, one for users and one for admin. Or any other way to disable most of the buttons in the user mode?
I searched for an answer to this in previous posts, but didn't have much luck.
Disable the features you don't need and disable user registrations if you don't need users to have accounts.
I don't see where to disable user registration. I looked in (among other places) config/user settings
Read the manual, config section.