Tutorials

We're starting a series of tutorials to help newbie (or potential) users of coppermine get a grip of the basic steps of coppermine setup and administration.

Available Tutorials

• Download, unpack, upload
  Flash tutorial that demonstrates how to download the coppermine package, unpack it and upload to your webserver, and how to set permissions appropriately.
• Setting permissions on Windows "Internet Information Server" (IIS)
  Static page with screenshots to show how to set up permissions (equivalent to CHMODing on Unix/Linux systems) for users running IIS on Windows servers
• Batch-resizing pics with Irfan View
  Although Coppermine is capable of batch-resizing pictures on the server it is advisable to resize the pictures on your client PC before upload.
  Advantages:
  • Smaller file size reduces upload time
  • Reduction of webspace usage
  • Higher picture quality
  • (nearly) no limitation of amount of files that can be processed in one go
  • Reduced server load avoids issues with webserver admin (especially on shared/virtual webspace)
  • Additional options and features available (e.g. crop, sharpen, rename)
  This tutorial will explain how to batch-resize/rename pics on your client, using the widely popular freeware application IrfanView - of course there are many other applications available that can do the same; you're welcome to try other apps as well.
  Backup:
  It's advisable to always back up your original pics before applying any resizing (or other manipulations) - in case anything goes wrong, you can safely go back without your pictures being lost. This tutorial won't go into details on how to do a backup of your files, do so now if you want to apply each step of this tutorial.
• Trouble-Shooting the upload process
  When you experience issues uploading files on your coppermine install, there are settings that will give you detailed error messages to give you a hint what exactly goes wrong.
• Manually enabling debug_mode
  This tutorial will explain what you need to do to manually enable "debug_mode" in Coppermine. This is particularly helpful if you can't access Coppermine's config panel to enable it there (e.g. because you can't log in as admin or because you only get a "Fatal Error" message).
  Debug_mode will give you more detailed error messages and might be helpful to troubleshoot issues you have with Coppermine. If you are requesting help on the Coppermine support board, don't post debug_output unless requested.
  As a pre-requisite, you will need phpMyAdmin (a great free multi-purpose database manipulation tool), which you can download from http://www.phpmyadmin.net/. Your webhost might provide you with phpMyAdmin as well.
• Using XP Publisher to upload your pictures to your Coppermine gallery
  This tutorial will explain how you (or your users) can upload pictures to your coppermine-driven gallery using the Windows XP Publisher (a feature exclusively available for visitors using Windows XP).