Current G2 status

Instead of answering the multitude of direct questions I've been receiving, I'm posting a general message about G2 status. The good news is that G2 is coming along nicely. I'm not getting quite as much time to work on it as I'd like, but I'm making progress in all the right directions. My guess is that I'm going to miss the Oct 15 alpha deadline, but after almost a year of on-again-off-again development we're finally getting close to something real. This is very good news.

The approach for G2 is to make it totally modular. I've spent almost all of my time building a robust, scalable framework which will serve as the platform for the application. All of the really cool functionality will be added as modules on top of this platform. Modules can add support for new item types, they can add new functionality (like user comments, ratings, slideshow, printing, workflow, etc). The platform provides internationalization, abstract data storage (eg, database), structured security, and more.
The platform is very, very robust (I check and handle every single error code).

Most of the features that people want are not yet in G2. However, if I make the platform stable enough then it should be easy for myself and others to add new modules so that we can create a library of cool functionality that you can drop into your Gallery.

The core module provides views of your albums and items. The really cool thing here is that the entire look and feel is composed of layouts and themes. A layout is a module that decides which elements (album, item, comment, link, etc) goes where on the page. By separating this functionality out into a separate layout module this allows us to develop lots and lots of different kinds of layouts. For example, we can have a layout that is totally driven by DHTML, javascript, Flash, CSS, tables, whatever. Writing layouts won't be for a novice programmer, but the API is pretty clean so if you've got a development background you'll be able to write your own.

Themes are interchangeable skins that let you change the look of the application. The theming system is very powerful; it does not tie you to any one technology. It's got a bias towards CSS, since I think that's the easiest approach to take, but in an embedded environment it will provide us with the ability to map between Gallery's styles and that of a different system (like PostNuke's CSS styles).

So. I'm spending my time right now working and reworking the various APIs until I'm really happy with them. In the meantime, I encourage you to download and play with the current incarnation of the code. There are new instructions on the <!-- BBCode Start --><A HREF="http://gallery.menalto.com/modules.php?op=modload&amp;name=phpWiki&amp;file=index&amp;pagename=Download" TARGET="_blank">Download</A><!-- BBCode End --> page for G2.

No beta. Not even alpha. The prospected date for alpha release is Oct. 15. But that's not a firm date, so you may see the first release after that.

Even the current pre-alpha G2 is using sql. And the scalability will be one of major considerations for G2 development.

Great job bharat
I for one appreciate all the time you have spent on this development and my family does as well. Keep up the great work.

Thanks again..and hey, take a break once in a while...life's too short.

All printing services will be add-on modules. We may make the Shutterfly one part of the core offering, though.

I don't have a fixed date for the alpha. I'll put up a new target soon (probably a month out).

I don't believe that G2 will work in safe mode. It imposes too many restrictions. However, I'm still looking into it.