Zenphoto is used to run the photo galleries on the news release site and the internal gallery (in development). The internal gallery is only available to certain individuals and is password protected (check the .htaccess file to see/add/change users).

Upgrading

Upgrading can follow the basic instructions on the Zenphoto site, with one exception. Two small change is required in their template code where it creates the search box.

In zp-core/template-functions.php, do a search for <div id="search"> (around line 4030 in 1.2.4). Change the id "photosearch". This is so their id="search" doesn't conflict with the template search box which also has id="search".

If you're really fussy about validation, put a <fieldset> inside the <form> as well.

They upgrade every 2 months or so. We have seen security vulnerabilities with this app so make sure it is upgraded as soon as possible.

Why Zenphoto?

Zenphoto was chosen for this project firstly because it's clean and simple with few extra features. The second reason is because it supports the import of IPTC data from image files. IPTC is an international standard for photo metadata. This is important because:

• If photos get separated from the gallery, the metadata is still attached (e.g. a journalist downloads a photo for a story and forgets where it came from)
• Maintainers don't need to enter the data twice (into the photo and again to the site)

I did have to expand on their existing capabilities and submitted a patch to add a few fields (credit and copyright).

A big bonus with this system is that you don't have to upload everything through an online database. You can just upload a folder of photos to the server and when the gallery is loaded Zenphoto will automatically add them to the database. Perfect solution when adding more than a few photos at once.