Version 2.1 Beta Released!

After many months of hard work, I am pleased to release the beta of version 2.1. It contains a few dozen bug fixes and several new features.

Download it here.

The most significant change is the use of the open source SQLite database engine to store the gallery data. SQLite is the most widely deployed database in the world and is embedded in products such as Firefox. All gallery data is now stored in a file named galleryserverpro_data.sqlite in the App_Data directory of the web application. SQLite does not have to be installed prior to installing Gallery Server Pro. All you need is a couple DLL’s in the bin directory and the .sqlite file containing the data, all conveniently packaged with Gallery Server Pro.

This should address one of the biggest headaches you experience with Gallery Server Pro – messing with SQL Server. SQL Server is an excellent client-server database, but it can be difficult to understand and configure. Furthermore, many hosting companies charge more for SQL Server.

SQLite is ACID-compliant and very fast - in many cases even faster than SQL Server. However, if you have several applications accessing the Gallery Server Pro database (that is, high concurrency), you cannot beat a traditional client-server database such as SQL Server. For those situations, Gallery Server Pro still supports SQL Server, including SQL Server 2008.

The only downside to SQLite is that it must run in a Full Trust environment, so some hosting companies – GoDaddy comes to mind – unfortunately cannot use SQLite.

New Features

• SQLite is the default data store. Users can still use SQL Server if they wish.
• Data backup and restore functionality.
• Support for media objects hosted elsewhere, such as YouTube videos and Silverlight Streaming.
• The Silverlight plug-in is now the default player for wmv, wma, mp3, asf, and asx files.
• Language resource files have been consolidated into fewer files, which will make translation a bit easier.
• Improved Add objects page, including better support for IIS 7.0 Integrated Pipeline Mode.
• Improved performance for very large galleries. Performance tweaks allow Gallery Server Pro to run very fast even for galleries with hundreds of thousands of media files.
• Increased robustness of synchronization process.
• Support for SQL Server 2008

Bug Fixes

• Synchronizing video and audio files does not update the original width and height values
• Apostrophe in filename causes thumbnail to not render on rearrange page
• Poor performance of manage users page when there are thousands of user
• IE not caching images on the client
• Install wizard does not show any databases in its dropdown list in certain hosting environments
• Image metadata is sometimes extracted as the text "System.Int64[]"
• Code references absolute URL when relative URL is sufficient
• An album title with a trailing period or space causes an exception
• Page times out when copying large numbers of objectsOut of memory when adding very large images
• Objects added to a private album may incorrectly appear in search results
• File lock not released for some files
• Incomplete error information if an exception occurs when adding a user
• Adding a user sometimes never returns from "Communicating with server..." message
• Cannot manage users with ActiveDirectory provider
• Album stats count hidden albums
• URL occasionally incorrectly calculated when installed as root application
• User cannot change password if e-mail functionality is not configured
• User cannot change e-mail address on account
• Certain images that previously synchronized fail during subsequent synchronizations
• Dialog window with the text "true" appears when clicking the Show metadata toobar icon
• Error during app startup if a role in gs_Role and aspnet_Roles differ only by case
• Timeout error for very large galleries (> 40,000 albums)
• Receive InvalidMediaObjectException during synchronization
• Message not cleared after logging in
• Thumbnail / optimized images sometimes created with wrong width/height
• User does not receive friendly message when Gallery Server does not have delete permission to mediaobjects directory