Coming in 2.2: Improved Integration With Existing Web Sites

The next version of Gallery Server Pro, expected within a month or so, will have an improved UI architecture that will simplify the integration with your existing web site. Although I took advantage of .NET 2.0 techniques such as master pages and themes in GSP 2.0 and 2.1, in practice it has been difficult for developers to add an instance of Gallery Server Pro into an existing web application. This is primarily because an existing site already has an architecture that may include master pages, themes, navigation bar, and header and footer areas. Developers have achieved the look of integration by including GSP in an iframe or by copying their master page into GSP's master page. Neither of these is true integration as GSP still runs as a separate web application in IIS.

For 2.2, I refactored the user interface so that all functionality is wrapped in a single ASP.NET user control. Adding a gallery to your site involves three basic steps:

1. Copy the Gallery Server Pro files into your web application. Most of them can be placed in a directory of your choosing. A few, such as the SQLite database and .resx resource file, go into pre-defined ASP.NET directories, such as App_Data and App_GlobalResources.
2. Configure web.config to define a few settings required by GSP and add one line of code to the Application_Start event in global.asax.
3. Choose one of your web pages to host the gallery. Perhaps you will add a new .aspx page and have it based on your current master page. Add the following to the top of the page:

   <%@ Register TagPrefix="gsp" Namespace="GalleryServerPro.Web" Assembly="GalleryServerPro.Web" %>

   At the location in the page where you want the gallery to appear, add this:

   <gsp:Gallery ID="gallery1" runat="server" />

That's it! Fire up the page and you will notice Gallery Server Pro appears in the location you defined. All the functionality that previously existed, such as logging on, searching, and the task and admin pages are still there. And it will work beautifully with your existing master pages.

As an example, here are a couple screen shots where I added a gallery to a new page named demo.aspx at www.galleryserverpro.com:

The demo.aspx page looks like this:

<%@ Page Title="" Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/master/global.Master" AutoEventWireup="true"
    CodeBehind="demo.aspx.cs" Inherits="TIS.GSPWeb.demo" %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix="gsp" Namespace="GalleryServerPro.Web" Assembly="GalleryServerPro.Web" %>

<asp:Content ID="Content3" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server">
    <asp:ScriptManager ID="sm" runat="server" />
    <div id="content">
        <gsp:Gallery ID="gallery1" runat="server" />
    </div>
</asp:Content>

Pretty simple, huh? You can see that it uses a master page named global.Master. GSP requires a ScriptManager because of its AJAX capabilities, so you'll need to make sure you have one defined on the .aspx page or in the master page.

Those of you who run GSP as a stand-alone application can continue to do so. I will release the code in a fully functioning web site with a single page containing the Gallery control. It will work much like you are used to, except you'll notice that the URL's are different. For example, here are a few examples:

Create a new album: http://www.galleryserverpro.com/default.aspx?g=task_createalbum&aid=1
View an album: http://www.galleryserverpro.com/default.aspx?aid=74
View a single photo: http://www.galleryserverpro.com/default.aspx?g=mediaobject&moid=536
Site admin home page: http://www.galleryserverpro.com/default.aspx?g=admin_general

Notice that all functionality is funneled through a single .aspx page (default.aspx in the above examples). The query string contains a "g" parameter that dictates what action is taking place on the page. There will be backwards compatibility with your existing links to albums and media objects. So, for example, a link you may have today that points to a photo at http://www.site.com/default.aspx?moid=536 will continue to point to the same photo in 2.2. However, bookmarks to any task or admin pages will not work in 2.2.

I am working on this every day, and as always I love to hear your feedback.