Categories and albums

[computel]

OK not sure how to do this.

I'm creating a archive site and it will have a lot of albums. Do I create a category first and then albums in the categories?

Example

Drivers
- Drivers Name
   - Video
   - Photos

Main things will videos and photos.

I was thinking the category would be Main Category :Drivers
Then the sub would be the drivers name and in the sub make  2 albums called Photo's & Videos.

Not sure what would be a clean way to do this without making it too confusing or messy.

Hope some one with a large photo site can share some insight.

Thanks

[gmc]

I'm creating a archive site and it will have a lot of albums. Do I create a category first and then albums in the categories?

Example

Drivers
- Drivers Name
   - Video
   - Photos

Main things will videos and photos.

I was thinking the category would be Main Category :Drivers
Then the sub would be the drivers name and in the sub make  2 albums called Photo's & Videos.

Not sure what would be a clean way to do this without making it too confusing or messy.

Of course the answer to something like this is 'it depends'...
What you have will certainly work - but is it the best for what you need?

Some thoughts/comments.. No right/wrong answers - just have to determine what your needs are and match that.

I assume there will be other categories besides Drivers?
If so - a good way to break it down... If not (the entire gallery is drivers) - then its a layer you don't need...

You indicated an archive site with a lot of pictures/videos...
How many (estimate) photos would you expect a driver to have?
If a large number - will users be able to find the pictures they want without further breakdowns like year, event/race, etc to be able to get to what they want to see.

Take a look at greggallery.gmcdesign.com for some ideas... I have a wide range of photos - over 28,000 - and different ways of breaking them down...
'Bil Krauss Music Weekend' is a once a year event - so just the main category, and an album for each year.
'Sporting Events' is a larger category - subcategories for each organization (local sports club, NASCAR, school) - then albums for each team (club/school) or event (NASCAR Race).
'R/C Flying' has a category for each major event, with albums for each year...
'Skymasters' has a lot more events - so its own category, subcat by year, then albums for events within the year...


For actually implementing - I find it easiest to create my category structure - then add albums to the categories, then upload and batch add pictures... But can be done in almost any order. (album must exist to batch add pics... But albums can be assigned to a category and categories moved under other categories at any time.)
A hint if your folder structure doesn't match your album structure... (ie - in Skymasters category, I have up to a dozen albums per year - but wanted less folders - so only 1 per year for skymasters events...) Upload the pics for one album - batch add them... Upload the photos for next album to same folder - batch add them to their album... Etc... Batch add is smart enough to auto select only the photos that aren't already in an album so you don't have to sort/select again...

Hope that helps...

[computel]

The gallery you showed is nice. I used to be a MIS Ticket holder I went for over 10 years Turn 1 Sect 87 Row 1.

There will be other things here is what it will be like

Drivers                      Tracks                     Series                       Ghost Tracks
-Driver 1                   -Track Name             -Series Name              -Track Name
  -- Video - Photos       -- Video - Photos       -- Video - Photos        -- Video - Photos


There will be a lot of drivers, tracks and series names.


I thought of making two categories video and photos and then tracks, drivers, series and ghost tracks.

I just want a clean look.

This is going to be a on going project as it is going to be a archive.

Thanks.

[gmc]

Thanks..
Been going to MIS for over 10 years too... Turn 4; section 28, up in the 30s - see the whole track. Just noticed I never loaded my 2013 race photos - have to do that...

Whether you break out photos and videos at the top level or lower is personal preference - or even mix together..

One other feature you might make use of is the keywords - since I can see some overlap in your categories.
A picture belongs to one album, but you may want pictures for a given driver (I won't start a favorite driver discussion ) from a given race at a track (MIS) to also appear in the track's albums, and/or the series' (Sprint Cup) albums...
Coppermine allows this with use of keywords. You still add the pictures to a primary album. Each album can have a single keyword assigned to it. Each photo can have one or more keywords assigned (space separated by default).
When viewing an album, it will include all photos assigned to it (files) and all other photos containing the albums keyword within its list of keywords (linked files)..  A config option allows the number of linked files to appear in the album listing.

You can see this at greggallery.gmcdesign.com/index.php?cat=20 - Album 'Oops' only has 6 files loaded, but 138 other files have that album's keyword and are also displayed when viewing the album. In my case - allows all those 'uh oh' moments from any other album to be captured in one place.

[computel]

Thanks for your help. I'm going to give it a shot.

I tried Joomla and wp but wasted a few days trying to get it the way I liked and then I remembered one of my customers is using coppermine and my mind was made up.