How much can Coppermine be modified

[soboyle]

Hi All
I'm new to the forum having just found out about coppermine, which I think is an amazing piece of software.
I would like to use Coppermine on my website to act as a search engine for my photographs, so I don't need a lot of the features such a photo uploading, commenting, ratings, in fact I would like to disable many of these features.  Is it possible to customize Coppermine to my needs, or would that be breaking a licensing agreement? I looked on the website but didnt see any licensing or other limits on what can or cant be done to the software. I realize it is built on public domain PHP and MySQL code.
If it is possible to make changes then I would need help in doing this, can you let me know which forum I would post questions for this.
Many thanks
Shaun

[kegobeer]

I'd start by downloading the most recent stable version, 1.3.2, and reading the documentation.  Coppermine can do what you want, and it's easy to configure.

As for what you can modify - Coppermine is released under the GPL.  Read the included COPYING file for more information.

If you have any questions, just look at the boards on this forum and post where appropriate.  Make sure to search for your problem first, and just take some time to scan thru the boards to see if anything is related to your issue before posting a question.

[Joachim Müller]

kegobeer is right, Coppermine is not being released under public domain. Although it's free to use and modify, there are intelectual properties and there are limitations what you're allowed to do. Modifying it the way you're planning to do shuld not be a license problem though.

GauGau

[soboyle]

GauGau mentioned that Coppermine is NOT being released under Public Domain. The modifiications I would like to make to the software would be taking features away, not changing current features. I tried to post in the modifications forum but couldn't.

Anyway, the changes that I would like to do would be to remove file uploading, ratings, and user galleries, my goal is to allow users to search my photographs and possibly leave comments about them, and save a collection of favorites. So it is a simplified version of coppermine.
I am an absolute beginner when it comes to php and mysql modifications, can someone offer a place to start with these mods, specifically where in the php files I would look to make these modifications?
I picked up  a couple books on php-mysql and am reading now, but it looks like a long road to when I will be able to make my own changes intelligently.

[Casper]

What you want to do is just customizing, and would be no problem, and easy.

In fact, they are all features that already exist, and do not require code changes, just using the management tools.

You set all these in the groups manager.  Just turn off all groups ability to rate, upload, and have personal gallery there.  That's it.

When not allowed, these links etc do not appear.  The user galleries category will be invisible providing there is no albums created within it.