There was so much ado from Boonex on the Photo Albums of D7, that Hookie was going to create something totally new, that I was super excited to get to see them. Now I am severely disappointed in what they are and how they were put into play.
1. Photo Album is just another word for Photo Gallery from the D6 with a few toys put on it.
2. The Paint function leads to a 404 error, link does not work at all.
3. Edit link just doesn't work. It's a button you can push but it gives no response from the server.
4. There is no Auto Play to take you through the album
5. No DHTML View of the Album ( http://bffdomain.com/gallery.php?action=view_dalbum&id=13 ) will give you an idea of what I am talking about for items 4 & 5.
6. There is no Java Applet uploader. What is up with this? We have a multi-uploader, but that appears to be taken from Aramis' first edition of Photo Albums mod, definitely not what was anticipated for D7 when it comes to uploading images.
A) The multi-uploader is very poorly layed out, it's to easy for the enduser to mistakenly hit the red minus/delete button instead of the green plus/add button. These buttons could be better positioned and made equal in the number of times they appear, maybe move the Add Image button down and center it a little with an explanation of what they do.
B) This uploader requires tedious, repetitious use on behalf of the enduser/member to upload more than one photo at a time. The internet has come a long way, the large SNS's now all employ a Java Applet uploader that works awesome to open folders and allow us to capture thousands of images with a couple clicks of the mouse and upload them, I already employ this method on all my D6 sites and this would be a step backwards for my members to use this the D7 multi-uploader now that they are using the ones I currently have.
7. No choice of how members can view photos, refer to number 5, this is in addition to it:
A) Slideshows are a great tool to help the end user sit back and just enjoy a photo album with an auto scroll feature.
B) Not all endusers will be able to support a DHTML view or like it, for this reason they should have the option to go with a flash view to see the album in a different type of view.
C) For those with really old systems, we should have what we currently have, a basic HTML view that makes them click from pic to pic. Currently, my D6 sites offer all 3 types of views and D7 should have this functionality to it also.
In the end, Boonex hyped these albums up as being the flagship of the new D7 and something we should all wait on, currently, I can't say that I'm willing to launch a public D7 production site as long as the albums are going to force my members to move backwards in what they are becoming used to. Sorry Boonex, but in the world of D7 versus my current D6 sites in the photo albums department, D7 has lost the game on this one so far.
