Is there something wrong with Gallery API?

Maybe Gallery users are all satisfied with the range of themes and modules that are already available? When I saw gaps I didn't find it particularly hard to get to grips with the API and write modules to fill them. The developers' documentation isn't particularly fantastic, but the core developers have been very generous with their time to answer any queries that I have had along the way. Although I'm not any kind of expert, I've found the API to be extremely well designed, judging by how simple I've found it to 'get the job done', once understood.

Are there any particular features you think are missing?

Perhaps there are just that many fewer things to do with a picture gallery.

You may be right there's fewer things to do with a photo gallery. But I really don't think we are even close to the limit. There has to be more ideas waiting to get realised. Especially when it comes to themes. Gallery are even lacking those very simple customisations where someone just have changed colours, header image and some other style parameters of one of the official themes. Those are not very revoulutional, but they at least bring some diversity. The excellent theme X_treme is a good example of a theme that adds a whole lot of customization and diversity just on its own. But there are limits to what it is able to do and there is plenty of room for more.

There are room for more modules as well. Just when writing this, I thought of a few things that I haven't seen yet (I may not have looked enough though). Like a nice interface to search for exif-data. Search for photos taken in a specific time range, maybe a timeline presentation of when photos were shot. Combine searches for keyword/tags, time, geographic location etc. Dynamic albums placed in the regular album tree (saved searches).

"Hey, make them yourself if you have so many 'great' ideas..." Well, I would. Given time and if a personal need big enough arise. But this discussion isn't about me wondering why module x or theme y isn't already made for me personally to download. I know I may be comparing apples and bananas as you pointed out, but it does seem like the gallery "banana" community are missing some contributing members when comparing to other "apple" communities. (Are there even any more "banana" communities of this magnitude to compare with?)

And look at early winamp. What can you do with a media player like that? Not much room for customisation there. But still, millions of skins were made. I even made a few myself. One reason is ofcourse that the "API" in that case was extremely simple. Anyone with MS Paintbrush could do their own skin. But my reasoning for my first post is there has to be a greater relation between number of contributions and API complexity than "how much that can be done". I haven't studied the API that much. But given the quality of what I have experienced with gallery, I never believed that it is especially bad. But that doesn't mean it isn't too complex. I never meant to point out the API as something that actually is to blame. It's just speculation from my side and I needed a point from where to start this discussion.

I summarise with a simple and perhaps a bit biased diagram:

• 1. Are you happy about the current number of contributions being made?
  
  • a: Yes, we have everything we will ever going to need. -> Discussion closed.
  • b: No, the community would benefit from more creativity from its members -> continue to 2.
• 2. What can be done to encourage people to contribute?
  
  • a: Give nice prices in different competitions for best theme etc -> Tried that, didn't work. Go back to 2.
  • b: Try to find out if gallery is lacking something that some other communities with a lot of contributing members have. -> continue to 3.
  • c: Find new ways to encourage people. -> Brainstorm (have no real branch for this)
  • d: Nothing! Nothing can be done. We are forever doomed with this. -> Go have your psychiatrist prescribe you something. Then come back and have a fresh, more positive, view on this.
• 3. Wherein lies the problem? (I am here)
  
  • a: The API. The API is just bad. Hardly anyone understands it. -> Fix it. Make it simpler/less complex...
  • b: A photo gallery has it limits on the amount of possible contributions. -> Ok. If that's the case, I guess it's not much more to do.
  • c: The process needed to submit your work is to blame. -> Maybe a new section for contributions could be made on the gallery web page. Each work could have their own page with descriptions, comments, ratings etc instead of links to some forum thread.
  • d: The community itself is to blame. They are just a bunch of lame people -> If you are even close to consider this, I can tell you that you are not completely wrong. There are at least one lame person here - YOU.
  • e: Other -> Try to identify this and come up with a solution for it. Else, goto 2.c