<html> <head> <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFCC" text="#000000"> <div class="moz-cite-prefix">Chris, Take a look at <a href="http://www.jalbum.net">jAlbum</a>. I investigated many album makers / managers and this tops them all. I use the "Turtle" and "Chameleon: skins. I have some example albums at <a href="http://jalbum.net/en/users/linuxrog/albums">http://jalbum.net/en/users/linuxrog/albums</a>. Install jAlbum by downloading a .deb and double-clicking or opening it with Xubunu's Software Center. I have found that there is no such thing as quick and dirty - one has to invest a bit of time in creating albums for others to view. jAlbum is not free but the cost is nominal and I've not been hit for upgrades for two versions. If you must have free, try digikam. (Not sure if it creates new copies of images.) Stay away from suites such as Coppermine: they are way complicated, use databases, etc. /Roger As regards your questions/comments as they relate to jAlbum . . . On 05/08/2013 08:34 AM, Chris Green wrote: </div> <blockquote cite="mid:20130508123408.GA30746@chris" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">I'm after a web application to display pictures, there are zillions of them out there but it's difficult to find one to match my requirements:- Take an existing directory hierarchy of pictures and use it to organise the album/gallery. Don't copy the pictures, use them direct from the existing directory structure.</pre> </blockquote> Yes - this happens. JAlbum generates new images if you so choose with reduced size to help with band width. It can skip making copies of originals. The specifics you want should be explored in settings for the skin you choose. You can specify that the newly created album does not copy originals by choosing not to link to originals. You might be able to change settings to use originals from an existing directory. Again, explore settings. <blockquote cite="mid:20130508123408.GA30746@chris" type="cite"> <pre wrap=""> Must not require any write access to the pictures directory. The thumbnails and other information must be stored elsewhere.</pre> </blockquote> Albums will be written to /My Albums under Xubuntu and other buntus. I upload to my web server - I use bluehost rather than serve from home - with Filezilla. <blockquote cite="mid:20130508123408.GA30746@chris" type="cite"> <pre wrap=""> No need for any picture manipulation at all, just a way to navigate through the hierarchy and view the pictures. Preferably no database and the ability to use EXIF information but these are not absolute requirements.</pre> </blockquote> Yes and you can view exif info if wanted. An added bonus is being able to view map locations on Google Maps if GPS data is embedded in the EXIF info. <blockquote cite="mid:20130508123408.GA30746@chris" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">It can use PHP, Python, Perl or anything really, slight preference for Python or PHP as I can modify/maintain it more easily myself then. </pre> </blockquote> jAlbum is cross-platform, using java. </body> </html>