Hey, all.
I'm taking the liberty of starting a new discussion here on Visual (and Video) Lightbox, since this doesn't really apply to "NOF Suggestions" anymore. The thread originates here.
I'm still wondering if the photo gallery that Paby linked to in the original thread is Visual Lightbox, or some other gallery software.
Paby are you there?
Initially I thought that this would be great to set up and hand over to clients to maintain, allowing clients to update their gallery without having to contact me to republish. But there's one snag that comes up: it uses a software package installed on your computer (PC/Mac) to generate and upload the gallery and photos. So if I were to purchase the "Unlimited Website" version, the client would still need to purchase their own license to install the software on their computer to do updates. So it's not really an online "admin" panel. I emailed support, and asked about this, and that's basically the response. I suppose there's really no other way around it. So each client would need to spring for at least the $40 single site version.
So unless you're going to be a webmaster for several sites, it would seem the best approach would be to purchase the single site version on behalf of the client, set it up, and then turn the software over to them.
The other question would be: if the gallery were updated using the desktop software, does the embedded gallery reflect that?
Or would you need to manually copy/paste in the new code into the NOF page each time the gallery was updated? If that were the case, administration of the gallery by the client/site owner would be virtually impossible.
Would some sort of server side include work for this? I suppose an I-Frame might work, or having the standalone gallery page in a pop-up window rather than embedded...
Then, again, maybe I'm looking at it from the wrong perspective. I'm of the mind that I want to create a site, hand over admin duties to the site owner, and move on.Is the proper business model to make the client dependent on the developer for maintenance, and have an ongoing monthly "webmaster" contract for these sorts of updates?"Here's your CMS admin, here's your FAQ, News, RSS, Photo Gallery admin etc.
So long and thanks for all the fish."
The software looks excellent. I'm just trying to see how it would fit into a typical project workflow.
-RayC